Week 21: Lebanon, TN

April 24, 2023

P-day was wild today. For some reason me and Elder Putt have pretty much no money on our cards, also this week we don't have any member meals, so we're gonna be scrapping for crumbs like little rats. 

Anyways our district wanted to all bring some food to the church, and so we sacrificed the rest of our money on chips and juice and stuff. We were at the church from 1:30 to 8:45 just hanging with the district. Somehow we got our hands on eight or nine Nerf guns, so we had a huge war in the gym, which was cool. We got the bright idea to play Rainbow 6 Siege in the church, where three of us were attackers and three were defenders. The attackers start in the gym and strategize and the defenders hide a phone and stop the attackers from defusing. Pretty sick, I know. We played with Nerf guns for about eight hours, which is super gangster, but honestly a lot better than Secret Hitler. 

April 25, 2023

We had district council today. The lady came in as a guest star and told us about a bunch of service opportunities and this app called Just Serve, which is pretty dope. Our district has a goal to double our standards of Excellence and find eight new people to teach, six member lessons, four people to come to church, and two people on date for baptism, for each companionship. It's a crazy goal, but we're hyped to hit that this week.

We just did a bunch finding today and a lot of spreading God's love. There was this one lady named Jackie, who we'd never met before, but she and her family were sitting on the back porch, and they had just gotten news that Jackie was cancer. Everyone was sad and we just testified of Jesus Christ, read some scriptures and prayed with them. There was a couple other cool situations we ran into, but really we were able to spread love to some unfortunate people. 

Later at night Poco Loco Soccer Night with the Spanish Branch was going on. The soccer night always brings like 40 hispanic people packed into the church, and it's so sick. I have no clue what anyone is saying, no habla espanol, but it's so much fun and I'm crazy good at soccer, so it's like my home. 

April 26, 2023

We had a pretty slow start because our bodies were destroyed from soccer night, but we made some great lesson plans. Another cool thing is this one bro, Corbin. The Sisters have been teaching him for a while and he pulls up to ball a lot, but they want us to teach him for them. He has a hispanic girlfriend but he doesn't speak Spanish, so they have been using Google translate for like a year now. Anyways we eventually got out and went to Don Fox. We talked to this one guy who was wearing a straw hat and he zoomed off speed walking way from us. We would've gone after him but he was too fast. 

After that we went to Khelea's to teach her. Khalea always has tons of random questions and concerns, which is fine, but she always goes to her Souther Baptist preacher dad for answers, which ain't great. It was a good lesson, and we got her to commit to reading the Introduction in the Book of Mormon finally. Bradley couldn't make it to our lesson on time and Dylan didn't pull up to our meeting spot again, so looks like this homeboy is gone. 

This past week I've been getting humbled by Elder Putt. He was like "Ay let's go to Publix to get some food, I'm starving, also my stomach is leading us there for a reason." I was like "Nah that's dumb, stop being a baby." But then I realized I was starving too, so we went. We were standing in line to get some good ol' fried chicken and mac & cheese, and this worker named Tallie walked up to us. She's pretty young but she was like "Oh my gosh, are you guys missionaries!?" And we talked to her for a good 20 minutes. She said that she is from Bulgaria and moved from there only five years ago. She said missionaries there helped her and her family with translating stuff to English and so she was super excited to see us. We gave her a Book of Mormon, our number, and she said she wants to come to church this week. Such a sick encounter, also pretty wild that we might teach a Bulgarian family. 

Later we found these two people Angela and Mike at Maple Crossing apartments, the absolute power house right now. We've found about 5-6 people in a week there. Getting a lil sleepy, but it was a great day. 

April 27, 2023

I exchanged with Elder Hubbard today, and we did some hype stuff. We had a good lesson with the Lynch's today about the Law of Chastity. We read the Family Proclamation and bore testimony of the importance of marriage and families in God's eternal plan. A concern came up where they can't get married because John will lose military benefits or something, which is so trashhh. They pretty much can't get married until John gets his priorities straight. Brother Davenport testified of the blessing that comes from marriage beyond money. But John needs more faith and trust in God, so we'll be praying and fasting. 

We had another lesson a lil later with Bradley. We brought Brother Keefe because he is an officer right now and so is Bradley. Brother Keefe was absolutely laying down minutes and talked for like 20 minutes straight. Also it was outside in the cold rain so it was a dub all around. 

Later we had another lesson with Toni and Deborah. We brought some brownies that Elder Hubbard and I crafted up and it was a great lesson. We had Brother Wiedeman there as well, and we really testified of the Book of Mormon and Jesus Christ. The spirit was S-tier and so were our brownies. 

Mostly we just balled up for the rest of the night. It was mad sick. 

April 28, 2023

Today was kind of a cranking time so we could hit our goals. We have the devotional with Elder Andersen tomorrow, so it's getting kind of dicey. We went out to the wildlands to visit a bunch of contacts, and we actually talked to Cassandra again. We had three sweet member lessons, because there was some we hadn't met yet. One with the Chisum's, which is Sister Davenport's parents, one with Sister Johnson, who is this sweet old lady who told us she would make a ward choir if we would sing for her, and the Howell's, who just barely moved from Utah and are super cool. 

After that we did some cracked out finding. We met Rachel and Treyvan. Rachel has gotta be like African or something, because she says it like "Raheel". We also met James, Lora, and Patrice. Crazy story about Patrice, we were knocking on the Carling's apartment complex and it was like 8:15pm, so it was getting to the 'no man's land, old Southerners yelling at us' time. We were about to go home but I was like "Nah, I know we look like sketchy homies in the dark with some books and white shirts, but I know someone is here." So we walked all the way across the apartments and knocked on one door. Patrice answered and she was kind of like what are y'all doing, because no one knocks this late, but she was super cool. She said she'd read the Book of Mormon before, and how she loves doing Bible studies at our church more than her own. Her ex was a member and her sister was literally talking about our church that morning. We testified of Christ and gave her another Book of Mormon. We asked her to read and pray and she said she would. 

April 29, 2023

Today we had the devotional with Elder Andersen in Knoxville, which was supa heat. We drove up with the 1st Elders and stopped by the Alumni Hall store in Farragut. I got some super cool Tennessee merch, just had to represent a little bit. 

The devotional with Elder Andersen was way cool. First we all grouped up for a picture, but we stood there for like 30 minutes singing hymns while we were waiting for Elder Andersen. With like 200 missionaries all squaded up in the gym, it got so hot. We sung the Spirit of God and the same hymns like 48 times because no one knew any other hymns. After the pic we got to shake Elder Andersen's hand and some other General Authorities. All my notes are in my journal and my journal is in the other car, but it was an amazing experience to hear an Apostle testify of Christ. He had some great things to say but at the end when he bore his testimony, it was crazy. To hear someone testify so confidently and surely that Christ lives and how important this work is, gets you hyped. 

On the way home we stopped at Buc-ee's and there was like 12 or 14 missionaries walking around, it was bad. 

We had transfer calls as well, and I'm getting transferred to Brevard, North Carolina. I haven't heard much about it except they have white squirrels and it's dope because it's in the mountains. I am going to miss my hometown and Elder Putt, but it's exciting to move on. 

April 30, 2023

So our ward is low-key trash or something because we didn't have church again, but the other wards did. Devon Davis, the absolute menace, got baptized and confirmed today. We just went to the 1st Ward and it was sick. After that, Peter Salazar had a graduation party that we pulled up to. Joseph showed off his koi pond, which is way dope. A lil later we had dinner with the Clark's, which is always super fun. 

It's kind of sad having to say goodbye to everyone, but that's just how she goes. We pulled up to Reggie's to have one last talk before I dip. It's wild having a heart to heart talk with some homeboy gangster in Tennessee at like 8:30 at night. Sometimes it's weird being out here, but then you talk with someone like him and it makes it all worth it.