Week 4: Lebanon, TN

December 28, 2022

This was the first real day in Tennessee. Elder Benson and I can't remember the other elder that picked us all up from the hotel. We went to the Farragut church building to have a little meeting. They gave us a bunch of mission info and then we went street contacting with a bunch of other elders. We went in the middle of Farragut and started talking to people and trying to hand out Books of Mormon. Elder Benson and I went together and we met this man named Joseph, who said he was from Texas but in Tennessee to try to fulfill his parent's last wishes. He said all they wanted was for him to keep his family together, but all his siblings hated him. We talked for a while about the Bible and other stuff but we weren't getting anywhere. He said he had read the Book of Mormon and Pearl of Great Price but kept changing the subject to things like abortion and how life started in salt water. So we were like, "Okay buddy, we out." Pretty fat waste of time. 

After that we went back to the church for transfers and so we could meet our trainers too. My trainer is named Elder McConkie. He's 6'8" and he's from Salt Lake. He's super awesome though, basketball is pretty much his whole life outside the mission. Anyways, the area I got assigned to is called Lebanon. It's in Tennessee so it has to be pronounced weird. It's supposed to be pronounced Leban-in. On my mission map it's the very top left little bulge, and it's about 2 1/2 hours from the mission home. It sucks because the Smoky Mountains are what got me excited for Tennessee and now I'm in the furthest possible spot from them. Maybe next time though. 

This entry is getting pretty huge so I'll wrap it up. We also met this awesome guy named Terry who has great faith in Heavenly Father and Jesus but doesn't like church. He loves guitar too, so that's sick. We'll see where it goes with him. We then had a member dinner with the Dickerson's who are super awesome. 

December 29, 2022

We had district council today which was pretty fun. There are two Spanish speaking elders and two Spanish speaking sisters in our district, and then two more elders and us. So eight total. Everyone is super sick. 

After district council we went and talked to a guy named Dale. He has the same kind of views as Terry. They have so much faith in Christ but they just don't like any of the churches they have gone to. It's the perfect situation, we just need to get them to church. Next we talked to the Lynch's who moved from California. John Lynch used to be a member but left the church at 17 and served in the Marine's for 12 years. He is married to Erin Lynch and they have a little son named Arthur. John is super into guns so we talked about his sick gun collection for a while. They seem super interested, which is great. We are gonna have dinner with them next week. 

We do a thing called Spirit-led knocking, which replaces tracting, but is pretty much just tracting. You look at Google maps for neighborhoods that stand out to you, and then go and knock on a few houses. We met a woman named Anita and a man named Jonathan, who both seem fairly interested. 

Later at like 6:30, we went to the church because we do ward basketball activities on Thursdays and Saturdays. It was dope to meet some of the young adults in the area. Some were members and some weren't. Doesn't change the fact that I absolutely went crazy on some Tennessee bros. I had probably like 25 points easy. 

December 30, 2022

I don't think I've talked about our apartment yet so I will for a sec. It's actually really nice. It's an apartment where one person has the bottom story and then the person next to them has the top floor. We have the top floor so we walk up a huge staircase to get to our room. It's actually super sick though and has a ton of space. There's a main kitchen living room area, and then our room with a closet and bathroom. Apparently there is a cranky little lady beneath us so we pretty much walk on tiptoes the whole time. It's sick though. 

Anyways, today was a wild day. We went to teach this guy named Teddy and it was crazy. We pulled up and we started teaching him in his front yard. He had a Book of Mormon that we gave him a while ago and he said he had read up to Jacob and believed it was true. Teddy is the kind of guy that agrees with anything related to Jesus or God and that's kind of what we want. But this is bad because we don't know how seriously he understands how our church is different from the other 400 churches here. The lesson was pretty good until a bunch of his friends and family pulled up. They got into a mini gang war thing. When they started flashing pistols to each other is when we dipped. We don't really know what to do with him, because his home environment isn't very great and we don't know how well he understands. 

Later in the night we met a lady named Shelby. We were knocking in this big apartment complex place and found her on one of the first doors. We knocked twice and then as we were about to leave she kind of hesitantly opened the door. We figured out that she's kind of an atheist and lives alone. As were were telling her about the church and Book of Mormon, she kind of rejected it but we bore our testimonies and told her more. Then she took it and seemed like she wanted to read it. It was a blessing to find her and we have pretty high hopes. 

December 31, 2022

Happy New Year's Eve for anyone who cares. Another sick thing I haven't mentioned yet is that the apartment complex we live in is called the Hartman Plantation. Let's go baby. 

So today we taught this guy named Charles who we've been talking to for a while. We had a really good lesson with him and he might come to church next week. Charles is actually super awesome and hopefully he will keep progressing. 

Next we're kind of worried that Teddy is gonna show up to church in a gangster outfit. We were going to go to his house and talk to him about it today, but we felt prompted to get out of there before we knocked. I don't know why, but we did. After Teddy's house we did some more SLK (spirit-led knocking). I hate the name so I made an acronym for it so I didn't have to hear it anymore, and I think it stuck. Anyways the SLK was going really slow and we were having no success. 

We went to Wendy's which was fire, and then went home to do a personal study. We didn't get to do one in the morning because we play basketball with a bunch of college kids on Saturday mornings apparently. It's fun though. Most of them are nonmembers so we're just trying to include and help them. It doesn't really change the fact that I was kinda nasty on the court though. Anyways we were feeling really down so we went back to do personal study.  

Later in the afternoon we went back to the apartments where we found Shelby. There is this guy named Tracy who we've been trying to contact for a long time. We tried his door and caught him and his fiancé as they were about to leave. They said we could teach them for like 10 minutes, which was awesome. We cranked out a great lesson quick and it went really well. We gave them a Book of Mormon and invited them to read it together and pray about it. They seemed super interested and said we could come teach them again sometime. 

As we were about to go back to our car, we wanted to try one more door. We went to the highest floor and and last door of this building. The door had a Naruto welcome mat so we were like, "Bet!" The guy who lived there was named Storm. We talked to him outside his house for like 15 minutes and gave him a Book of Mormon. He also seemed super interested and said we could come back. 

We had a rough patch in the middle of the day but in the end we met some awesome people. We're so grateful we found them and hopefully we can keep helping them progress. Sorry for the fattest entry of all time, mom. 

January 1, 2023

We had a pretty good day today. We went to church and there was probably like 12 people there until 5 minutes before it started, and then there was maybe 50-60. It was super awesome to get to meet a bunch of the members. We had sacrament where Elder McConkie helped bless and I helped pass. After that we had a Sunday school class led by Brother Salazar, who is pretty dope. 

After church we had a ward mission coordination meeting where we kind of report on the friends we're teaching. It was fun going to church and meeting everyone. After church we had lunch and studied. They postponed our fast Sunday this week because they predicted the ghost town of a sacrament meeting because of New Year's. 

Anyways it was a pretty slow day today until we met Hailey. We barely stopped in this neighborhood for some good ol' SLK when we found her. When we saw her she walked right up to us and we could tell she wasn't doing well. She was with her three your old autistic son named Dylan. Right as we asked her how she was doing, she started telling us about how she and her dad were not on very good terms. And that the situation with her boyfriend, or husband or whatever, was kind of rough too. We asked what we could do to help and she asked if we could pray with her. We said a prayer with her and talked to her about our church and how it blesses families. She said she would like us to come back and teach her, which is sick. For the rest of the day we just did some more contacting, nothing crazy.