Week 13: Lebanon, TN

February 27, 2023

We had another pretty chill P-day. We went to Wal-Mart and literally bought like three things. For our District Activity we played Fortnite Monopoly, which is pretty crazy. I dropped into Tilted Towers and was the first person to die, which was pretty cool. The wards always have a little FHE thing on Monday nights and tonight they played some volleyball, which was way fun. I'm super bad at volleyball but it doesn't matter because I've got an insane 90" vertical. We didn't have time to go to WearHouse, but still a fun day. 

February 28, 2023

It was a fairly relaxed morning as far as it comes to anything happening. At 2:00, we went to the house of this sweet old woman named Rose. She lives in the Carling's apartment complex, which makes about the 8th person we've found there. She was born in 1937, so she's up there. She's been Baptist or Methodist her whole life, I can't remember which, but we testified of the peace the Book of Mormon brings, and she took one. Later we went over to Keyla's house where we found her dad Freddy posted up on a chair by there door. He is actually a Southern Baptist preacher so he was asking us a ton of questions. He was a way nice guy he was just super skeptical. We testified of Jesus Christ and how the Book of Mormon does the same. At the beginning he said he would never read the Book of Mormon, but by the end we gave him one and he said he would read it. Out preached a Southern Baptist preacher, which is way cool. We had another lesson with the Lynch's tonight, which went really well. We literally went through four different fellowshippers throughout the day because things kept coming up for the members. We eventually were able to get Brother Carling. The timing for everything was perfect tonight. I can't remember the whole chain but everything worked out perfectly. Also John Lynch went out and bought an entire James Bond suit that he's going to wear on Sunday. Also Aryn's been reading in the Book of Mormon, which is so sick. 

March 1, 2023

We did our comp study today at Wendy's, and ate some nice yummy food. We had a lesson with Kelly at 2:00, which went super well. We deep cleaned the car at some point and visited a couple inactive members, which was fun. It's crazy that when you write a journal a few days late, you can't remember a single thing you did. 

March 2, 2023

We had Zone Conference in some faraway land called Ooltewah. To get to magical Ooltewah you have to go down to Chattanooga through a tiny bit of Georgia. I can say I've been to Georgia now but I can also say we drove three hours to get to wherever Ooltewah is. Zone Conference was really good and we talked a lot about the Book of Mormon and the importance of it in conversion. It was really cool and when we got back to Lebanon, it was 5:30. We finished off the night with a really good lesson with Toni and then basketball. Ballas be ballin' up in the Lebanon world. Just the pace and speed in which the games run here is wild. It's the most chaotic and funny thing I've ever seen. 

March 3, 2023

We had one of the slowest days yet and it wasn't really our fault. There was extremely high wind, rain, and tornado watch alerts going crazy all day, so everyone was pretty much hiding away in their homes. We didn't have any lessons so lots of knocking, but every door we knocked on people thought we were insane for being outside. The people would be trying to hold open their doors while we were all screaming at each other because the wind was so bad. So it was pretty depressing for the first part. We went to this crazy rich neighborhood just because we were by it, and had zero success. We stopped by these members, the Bailey's, after a bit. We just talked with them for a good hour, which boosted the mood so much. The member that had us for dinner was sick and cancelled on us, so we went to this amazing Mexican Restaurant with the Bailey's. They for real clutched up and saved our lives today.

March 4, 2023

Today was pretty wild. We balled up in the morning and had a good amount of people show up. Right at the end I went too hard and busted my ankle. Usually my untied, loose, red vans do fine, but this time I cut super hard and twisted my ankle with a loud pop. Good thing I aint no little baby boy. So it's fine and doesn't really hurt too much. 

Really long and weird story, but Elder Putt has an aunt and uncle that he's never met that live in Nashville, and they wanted to take us to lunch and to some cemeteries around Lebanon. They took us to Demos', this Italian place nearby, which was way good, and then we went grave hunting. His aunt and uncle love genealogy and so we were trying to find headstones of their ancestors. The way most of these graveyards work is that they are hidden in people's property unmarked on maps, but by law the people have to let you into the graveyards. So we pretty much drove around this little town looking for groves of trees that might be graves, and then legally trespassed and hiked to them to see their relatives from the early 1800's. His aunt and uncle have a new Mustang Mach E, so we were whipping around some old Tennessee roads in a crazy car looking for 250 year old gravestones. They are less active members, so we were able to share a lot of stuff about our missions and the gospel, so it was actually a good use of time, just super weird. Really fun, but probably the weirdest thing I've done yet on my mission. After that, it was a pretty normal rest of the day. 

March 5, 2023

Church today went super well. The Lynch's came, as well as this less active family, the Foster's. We went over to Sister Foster's house yesterday and talked to her about Pokemon and video games and all this stuff, and then at the end she asked, "What time is church tomorrow?" Some missionaries don't realize that most people don't really care about whatever scripture they've been reading recently, or what doctrine could help them, they want people who love them for who they are and who will actually be interested in them. Most inactive members stop coming because they feel like the members don't really care about them anymore, so they don't want to come. So us showing up last night and talking to her about video games and DnD stuff like that, is exactly what God wanted us to talk about. It's all about showing a little love. 

Anyways, church was really great today, and after we had lunch with the Cottle's, we then whipped over to the Evans' for a break-the-fast thing. It was a chill rest of the day, but it was a good day for sure.