Week 19: Lebanon, TN

April 10, 2023

Wasn't anything too crazy today. We planned, went to WearHouse, and we pulled up to Don Fox with the district to play some spikeball and volleyball. We got some snow cones, which was sick. I went with the go-to: Tiger's blood, Cherry, Fruit Punch, and Pina Colada, so my lips were red. Earlier in the morning we were supposed to have a lesson with Steven, but he never showed up. He was acting kind of sus too, we pulled up and there was this huge truck posted up in the corner so we went in the church and texted Steven that we were there, and then after a while the truck was gone. Later tonight he texted and said he went to the church exactly at 10, knocked on all the doors and couldn't find us and then left, and that he also forgot his phone at home and that's why he didn't answer. Yea, I don't know but now he isn't responding to anything, so that's chill. But I've had this amazing casserole from Sis. Browning for dinner, it was in this huge pan and we just ate out of it like some community feeding trough. Sister Browning also gave us four pounds of Easter bunnies, which was wild. Elder Hubbard said the lower quality the chocolate the more he likes it, which is pretty nasty. 

April 11, 2023

So our car has a little monitoring system thing called a Tiwi and for the past three weeks it hasn't been working. It only lets us go 2mph over the speed limit, so in our apartment complex we can only go 6 or 7mph. Pretty rough but today we called the company and this Indian guy named Jack hooked us up with a reset. He started calling us "Elder" right off the bat because apparently he fixes all the cars for the church, it was way funny. We had some sick lessons with some people and another amazing dinner at the Vickerson's. At night we went to Bro. Kelley's house for another dinner with got me feeling real fat now. Brother Kelley served a mission in Brazil and told us a bunch about it. That was super sick. 

April 12, 2023

We had Zone Conference in Sparta which went way good. President Graham talked, some AP's and other missionaries talked and yea it was pretty normal. I got to see the OG squad Elder Brown and Elder Steiner, which was super dope. At Zone Conference we talked a lot about following the Spirit and trusting in the Lord as we show faith and work. I learned lots but my real journal is TOP SECRET. 

After Zone Conference we had a super good dinner with the Nixon's. Sister Nixon is having two identical twins soon, which is wild. The Nixon's are definitely in the Lebanon 3rd top 10 list. After that we whipped all the way up yonder into the North to Brother Blythe's house. It's literally been a transfer and a half since we've been trying to get up there but we did it! We talked about temples and family history and stuff, we wanted to focus on baptisms for the dead but somehow he got super focused on Endowments and all that crazy stuff. We watched a video he found on the Gospel Library App about temple clothes and garments and we were like aighttt, and we just ran with it. Brother Blythe is super cool though and he has a crazy fast Tesla, which is pretty cool. 

April 13, 2023

Good talk with Doug I guess, Dylan flaked on us again, good lesson with Marvin, some trash finding, good visit with the Lynch's, good lesson with Khalen, good dinner and lesson with Brother Judd, and then two missed lessons with Reggie and Cremunda. Pretty sweet day, I'm just looking at Areabook and don't remember anything. 

April 14, 2023

We had a wonderful, crazy cool comp study at the Bibliotech. After that we went to Wendy's for some grub and got the 50 chicken nugs bucket for like $12.99, which was sweet. 

A lil' later we had a lesson with this guy Lawrence McKinney. So at Cedar Seniors Bible study class a few weeks back when I was with Elder Beckstead, all the ladies were talking about this Black Baptist preacher who'd been in jail for about 31 years, who was going to come and speak to them at Cedar Seniors. They hyped him up like crazy and wanted to make sure that we were there for it, but I wasn't able to make it. Fast forward to today, apparently we were teaching this guy they were talking about, Lawrence McKinney, for like 45 mins. He was a random referral we got and I couldn't even understand what he was saying. He was super nice but super old and had a crazy southern accent, but we taught him about the Book of Mormon and he said he'd read it. Maybe we should be the next great stars at Cedar Seniors because we taught the almighty Lawrence McKinney. 

Also we got ourselves into another bloodbath. Cassandra and Eric caught us in their trap and it was two hours of the same old recycled garbage trash bashing stuff. They cooked us some great dinner though. :)

April 15, 2023

We had a good amount of people show up to basketball this morning, which is always sweet. Our teaching pool has been in the trenches for the last couple of days, so we've been doing a ton of finding. Today we went and swung by Brother Davis' house and talked for a while. He's such a sick dude. He's a pilot and flight instructor, so we talked about aviation for a good minute, and he told us about his neighbor we could visit. We went over to him and he had lost his wife about a year ago, so we just talked and prayed with him. 

We kept knocking after that, it was a way nice neighborhood, but didn't find anyone to teach until... we met this teenager Ellie, who goes to Lebanon High School. Elder Putt and I were talking about music and piano as we were walking up and one of the first things she said after she opened the door was that she just got back from band practice. She was super cool and wants to learn more. It's refreshing to talk to someone who isn't super old, prideful, or brainwashed about our church. Later we visited Sister Domroese in her care center and read some scriptures and talked with her for a while. She is blind, so she's in the special care center, but it was sweet. Also we found two more people in Subway to teach, which was wild, but that's about it. 

April 16, 2023

I need to write my journals the day of, because I don't remember everything. The best thing was church except the Lynch's didn't come because of sickness. After church we had a great lesson with Storm, which crazy enough bumped him up to be one of our most promising friends. Later we had dinner with the Bauch's, which was good like always. Pretty busy day, but a pretty boring day.