Week 9: Lebanon, TN

January 30, 2023

Today was pretty chill. We did weekly planning and studying, and then Elder McConkie packed for awhile. We spent a lot of time with the district at the Church just playing games and stuff. 

Also the AP's called and said I am going to be in a trio with Elder Brown and Beckstead for the rest of the transfer, which is way dope. The bad part is that they said I am going to move to their apartment which is already a 4-man. So I guess we're literally going to get nothing done in a 5-man for a week. 

January 31, 2023

In the morning Elder McConkie had to pack up all of his stuff, because we weren't going to come back to the apartment. We didn't have a ton of time to proselyte but we got a few contacts in. At around 4pm we headed up to Cookeville to drop off our car to the elders up there. They are a bunch of baby biking elders that wanted a car, so they snagged our extra one. 

After that we drove up to Farragut with Elder Brown and Beckstead. There was a ton of fog and a pretty big storm so it was nice and sketchy. Looked like we were in Tranzit from CoD Zombs. We finally got to the mission home and dropped off Elder McConkie, which was sad. After that we scooped some Wendy's, which was way good. 

So we actually aren't going to be in a 5-man, which is a miracle. Tonight I am sleeping on their slimy couch that literally sheds black stuff on me. 5-man for one night though. 

February 1, 2023

One of the weird parts about being in a trio with two wards is that we have to balance both of our appointments. So after we moved their stuff to our apartment, we combined schedules. It's actually not that hard because we have like two times the people to visit now. 

There was supposed to be a Bible class with a bunch of old women today, but they for some reason didn't have it. Pretty sad about that :( . After that we ran some more stuff. We had a really good lesson with Darlene. She talked a lot as usual but she told us she loves the Book of Mormon which is super awesome. 

For dinner we had an amazing dinner with the Kelly's in the Lebanon 1st Ward. We also taught a Preach My Gospel class for a few people across the wards. It's fun to share how important Preach My Gospel is for everyone. 

February 2, 2023

I am the last surviving Lebanon 3rd elder. Also, we didn't get very many referrals here in Lebanon, but today we did. We texted him and he didn't know why we were texting him and didn't like that we had his number. So far referrals haven't really been it. 

Later we found three cool people. One lady who I can't remember her name, but she wanted us to call her Sissy, and then Ashley and Ron. Sissy was a really nice lady who seems pretty interested and wanted us to come back in a few days. Ashley and Ron were also super cool. They let us share our message with them for a good 20 minutes and we gave them a couple Books of Mormon. They were super interested but they said they have a 12 year old son who is super into the Church of Christ. So I guess we are about to bash with some little 12 year old bruh. A little later in the night we had a lesson with the Davis Family. They are fairly recent converts and they have a 14 year old son who isn't baptized. Really awesome lesson. 

Now time for the really interesting part of the night. We were headed home from the lesson we just had and we stopped to see a less active member really quick. So we went to the little house where we thought they lived. This was out in the boonies, which is just the super far out trailer houses. It was about 7:30 at night and super dark, which was our bad from the start, but we thought it was a member's house, so we were chillin'. We approached this trailer and knocked on the door. After a few seconds the lights went out in the house. We didn't really think anything of it so we knocked again. Probably like 2 seconds later, the door swung open and the barrel of an AR smashed against the glass door. It was some big woman and she started absolutely screaming at us and cussing us out. She swung open the glass door and just pushed us off the porch by pointing the rifle at us and screaming at us. Elder Brown and Beckstead sprinted off the porch to the car and I just backed up with my hands up saying like, "We're sorry ma'am, we're leaving!" When I got back to the car we whipped out of there as fast as we could. Elder Brown and I were kind of shocked laughing and Elder Beckstead looked like he was about to wiz in his G's. It was actually maddd scary, but not really. I think the lady was bluffing. I don't think it was loaded. One lesson we learned is not to knock in the boonies after dark. Also it turns out the member's house was one trailer over, so our fault. 

February 3, 2023

Today we started off the day with a nice Bible bash. The rich old guy invited us into his big house and instantly whipped out his Bible. That's when we should've dipped out of there, but yeah, pretty rough start. We exchanged with Elder Steiner today, which was fun. He's one of the Spanish Elders but we ran into zero Spanish people. There wasn't much else that was super interesting. 

February 4, 2023

Today we went and helped President Ueki from the Spanish branch move out of his apartment. It was only me, Elder Brown, and Elder Steiner. Beckstead hurt his ankle a while ago and Hillstead was sick, so they stayed home like lil babies. Anyways there was only four of us and he had like 200 boxes, 400 pounds of rice, and like eight bookshelves. After we got done in about three hours, we went with Brother Carling for a couple of hours. We had a good talk with a less active member. We finally talked to Lorezo again and he said we could go to this meeting he goes to on Tuesday to talk about the Bible. Could be a blood bath but we'll happily go get a little bloody and spread the gospel while we're at it. That's pretty much all I remember from today. 

February 5, 2023

Something kind of fun about a trio with two wards is you get to go to church twice. Five hours of church on a fast Sunday is pretty not fun. It was good to see a lot of people there and we actually had a couple friends show up. This sick homie named Paul showed up and we talked to him. He's got a fresh middle part black man hairstyle. 

After that we went to the Evans' to eat some grub. They know the Warren's somehow. Brother Evans made some crazy good pasta stuff and I had some Mountain Dew Fruit Quake, which was trash. After that we made a bonfire with Vick, this cool guy who likes weed too much. He actually liked the message. 

Tonight we got some hits on the 2000 piece puzzle on the floor in the middle of the apartment floor.