Week 6: Lebanon, TN

January 9, 2023

It's actually January 12th right now. I have no clue what I did on the 9th but I guess we'll see how good my memory is. So we finished helping Brother Ambruster with his concrete driveway. The dump was closed last Friday so we went and dropped it off today.

After the dump he took us to Cracker Barrel, which was way good. We pretty much got all the stereo typical southern food which was so funny. We got okra, collared greens, grits, a bunch of fried chicken, corn bread and a bunch of other stuff that was literally so good. The members here are so sick and are such a blessing. All the member dinners and things they've helped us with have been so awesome. 

Anyways, after that we ran to a couple thrift stores and went to an ice cream place owned by a guy named Frank from Brooklyn. It was a pretty chill day. We hung with our district for a bit too. 

January 10, 2023

We had district council today which was sweet. It was Elder Steiner's birthday so we threw a wild party for him with cake and stuff. After DC we ran over to Terry's house. Terry is such a beast. He's got this little mancave room with a bunch of sick guitars and metal posters like Iron Maiden, Slipknot, and a bunch of other bands. We talked to him for a while about the most random stuff. He's the kind of guy who asks 'super deep' questions like, "Where did God come from?" and thinks that God and Satan are competing to see who gets more people in the end. Bunch of nonsense like that. He asks dumb questions and then says like, "Haha now I got you thinking!" and we're just looking at each other like, "Is this guy being for real?" The stuff he tries getting us to think about is nonsense, but he's pretty cool. 

Then we did some more SLK and didn't have much success. Later in the day we had a good lesson with Storm. We talked about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon. He had read up to 1 Nephi 13 which was awesome. He had the question of why Nephi killed Laban going against the commandments of God but also obeying God at the same time. We explained it to him but he kinda had me stumped, not gonna lie. It was a good lesson, though. We had an amazing dinner with the older Dickerson's. They've got a huge clan of kids that pretty much carry the ward. Great day.

January 11, 2023

I'm writing this entry on the 13th now, and I know I'm forgetting a lot of stuff, but it's good because it keeps them short. Today we had New Missionary Follow Up in Farragut. Being one of the farthest away places in the mission, we got up at 5:30. It was about a 2 1/2 hour drive to the Church building in Farragut. It was wack seeing all the missionaries again, like my good ol' MTC companion Meeky Meeky. It was a really good training though, they had the AP's, Sister training leaders, and President and Sister Graham do trainings. I got lots of great stuff out of it, one being that I need to stop thinking about my guitars back home so much, and then my mission will be easier. It was really sweet seeing all the missionaries and the Grahams again. 

We also restocked on Books of Mormon finally. The Lebanon 1st Elders are always leeching off our supply so we got 80 Books of Mormon. We didn't do much for the rest of the afternoon. We had an amazing dinner with the Brown's and got to know them a bit better. They are such a great family. Nothing too interesting about 6'2" and 6'8" absolute gangsters in the Lebanon Tennessee spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

January 12, 2023

Fun Fact: Did you know that Jimi Hendrix was actually a member of the church? Nah just kidding. Another Fun Fact: Elder McConkie thought Led Zeppelin was a person. I don't think I wrote about this yet, but Elder McConkie's Visa for Vietnam came in a few days ago and he's leaving on January 31st. That means he'll dip on me a week before transfers, so I don't know what I'm gonna do. Me and Elder McConk are the only ones who know the friends we're teaching right now, so if I'm training or something on my 1st transfer, that would be sick. 

So President Graham drove down from Farragut to do interviews with our district. It was nice to talk to him for a while about how things have been going. He's such an awesome mission president and always gives some great advice. After that we pretty much did some contacting and finding and then went to bed. 

January 13, 2023

The most typical thing a person in the South can say is, "But in the Book of Revelations it says that no scripture can be added or taken away from the Bible." It's the most annoying thing and there honestly isn't a great answer for it. We aren't supposed to argue with people like that and fight back but nobody's perfect haha. Every time someone insults the Book of Mormon it makes me love it more, and be grateful for it. 

Today we did a lot of SLK and contacting. It wasn't super successful but we met some cool people. We went over to the Lynch's to see how they were doing and they insisted on having another dinner with them. We feel kind of bad because they always want to feed us dinner, but they don't need to. It just shows how awesome they are. 

And we also met a grumpy guy in a car. After that we had dinner with the Nanto's. Brother Nanto is the Elder's Quorum President, so I guess President Nanto. They are such an awesome family. After that we helped a sister in our ward move. Bunch of great stuff like a washer, a dryer, and fridges.

January 14, 2023

We had basketball this morning and of course I went off. Later in the day we stopped by Terry's house and talked with him for like an hour and made a little progress, I hope. His wife thinks she's a prophet and a seer, so a lot of straight nonsense was shared, but we talked about baptism quite a bit with Terry. He thinks way too much about unimportant aspects of religion so I had to be pretty straightforward with him. For the rest of the day we didn't do too much, met a couple of cool people and did some cool things. 

January 15, 2023

Church was great today. We were really hoping to get Charles to church, but he got the flu yesterday. Everyone around here is getting super sick which is bad, but annoying because we have very little lessons to teach. For dinner we went to the Bauch's. They are this older couple in our ward and they are amazing. It was really fun having dinner with them. I've realized that the members just have so much more experience and amazing testimonies of Jesus Christ and the blessings of being a member of our church. They always tell stories of specific times where they built their testimonies.