Week 11: Lebanon, TN

February 13, 2023

We had one of the least productive P-days of all time. It's always the night before, we're like, "Ay let's go do something sick tomorrow!" and then we don't. It's alright because you're supposed to relax on P-days. We always go to the church and play some good old Secret Hitler :( . It's fun but aint no one wants to play it for three hours every week. So this next week we were gonna talk to Parker, this one Priest, and see if he wants to go fishing at this lake by his house. Nah, I'm being too hard on everyone, our district is awesome and they are just trying to make it fun for everyone. We didn't go to Walmart today because we ran out of time, so I guess we eating nothing again. 

February 14, 2023

Had a really good district council today and the 1st Elders finally moved to their apartment in the boonies. We were able to talk to a few of the members we've been trying to contact, which is great. Later around 4pm, we had a lesson with the Lynch's. Brother Davenport was wiling to come with us which was a huge help. John Lynch and Bro. Davenport got along super well and we taught them the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We invited Aryn to be baptized and she said she just needs to build her faith more. Also yeah, Aryn's name is spelled differently I figured out. Anyways the lesson went way good and Bro. Davenport had some clutch comments and invitations. He even asked if they would want to come over next Tuesday for dinner and a lesson, which they did! Bro. Davenport is a straight g. 

After that we had another lesson with Ashley and her lil sonny boy Justin. Justin is super into Church of Christ and super shy, which is not what I was expecting. His parents made him sound like an 11 year old that was about to start bashing us. He's an awesome dude though. We taught them a really good Plan of Salvation lesson on their porch and it was mad rainy and windy, but still went well. Ashley seems pretty interested in learning more. After that, we came home and ate some grub and finished the 2000 piece puzzle. Let's gooooo. 

February 15, 2023

This week has been pretty ight so far. We drove all the way up to Kelly's house, which is like 20 minutes. Kelly's dad Jim was there and he's way cool. We helped them move this shed to make their yard look dope. Jim was just ranting for 30 minutes about something random and eventually got on the topic of church, and got himself into a gospel discussion. He actually seemed pretty interested in learning more about the Book of Mormon. There was this number we wanted to visit on the way back who had a Boujee gate. Don't see many of those other. We were driving back to town when we saw these two old dudes picking up a bunch of wood down in their yard. We stopped by to help, of course. They were Bobby ad Brother Winford, some old pastor bro. They were both probably like late 70's years old. We helped for a bit until we were done and then they told us their life stories for 30 minutes. That is some stuff that I don't think I'll ever get to do again after my mission. You get into some unique and fun situations. 

Later we went to Charles' house and caught him smoking on his porch. Perfect timing, and it was late too, he's usually in bed by then. We had a way good convo with him. Probably taught him too much stuff but it's ight. After that we read some Book of Mormon with Sister Teasley, and then had a Zone call. 

February 16, 2023

So to start today, we got into this fat Bible bash with this homie named Stephen. We fell into his trap, but it's alright, we learn and grow from bashes too. It's never really us bashing them, it's them insulting us and then saying a bunch of stupid crap. I aint ever had my feelings hurt though, especially by some bro Stephen with a "PHD". Bozo. 

After that we met with the Stranahan's. So Brother and Sister Stranahan are old folks who care for their granddaughter Chloe. She's in her late 20's and got in an extremely bad car wreck so now she's in a wheelchair and can barely move or talk. It was an amazing blessing to be able to meet them and get uplifted from their faith and love. Also it was dope because Brother Stranahan is probably in his late 70's, and he was just grinding the new Harry Potter game on Xbox the whole time and didn't even say a word. Literally the funniest thing I've seen an old person do. But from the spiritual down we were in from the bash, we were brought back up by seeing the Stranahan's. 

We also had a sick lesson with Christina, this person we haven't been able to contact. After that we had another great lesson with Landis, and he really wants to come to church this week. When the night time pulled up we went to the church to play basketball but Josh Dickerson was the only one who showed up. I will literally give Josh my inheritance. He's one of the most humble and kind people I've met. Also we had a ward Valentine's party that got cancelled because of tornadoes, but there were no tornadoes.

February 17, 2023

We had TKM Institute today in the morning, which was good. After that we went and helped this homeless woman move out of her storage units. Apparently she moved all of her stuff here from Georgia, but didn't have a home, so she's been living out of her car for six months, and now she's moving like two cities over to Lafayette. She's literally got like two full storage containers full of straight trash. A big family of rats must have been living it up in there because everything was covered in holes and rat crap. We actually found one of the rats and me and this other elder were pinned in the storage unit, and the rat bull-rushed us to try and attack, but the elder kicked it when it tried jumping on us. 

By the time we were able to get started with our day, it was 4:00, so that was sick. We had a lesson and surprise dinner with Sister Teasley and then 30 minutes later another dinner with the Burgess'. That's about it.  

February 18, 2023

We talked to a bunch of people today, went out with Brother Carling, which was cool, and that's pretty much it. We just tried to stay busy until like 7:30 and then we dipped home. I had such a bad headache so I just snoozed for the past hour. It's probably because I had Chicharrones and lemonade for lunch. It was a beautiful day today, though. 

February 19, 2023

Another good day of church out in Lebanon 3rd. Elder Putt gave a talk in sacrament and we had a good Sunday school lesson taught by Brother Salazar. After that we had lunch with the Salazar's, which was this like grape chicken stuff with grape pie sort of thing, way good. 

After that we pulled up to some random church to plan the rest of our day. All the other 40 Baptist, Church of Christ, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, and Catholic Churches are awesome because we can just camp out in their parking lots all the time. 

We didn't really have a ton of luck finding anyone new. We did meet with Lo today, which was good. We pulled up to Lo's house and he let us in, and one of his homies Quan was just chillin there. As we were talking to them, Quan pretty much just told us that he was into some serious gang stuff and he don't trust nobody. You can tell when someone is mixed up in some bad stuff. But anyways we just read some Book of Mormon and some Bible with them. It's funny because these big tough gang boss dudes open up to you, and then hate it saying they have never opened up to anyone before. The Spirit can speak to even the worst gangsters. We probably won't go back though because they are in some bad juju. One of my favorite quotes from Quan was, "Y'all are out trying to spread the word of God and we out trying to spread violence, but people are way more scared of y'all than they are of us." Words of wisdom from gang boss Quan.