Picture from Bishop Roberts of the Riverside Ward...

Well... things are great here. The weather this week wasn't as cold as last week. It did get down to the 30's Tuesday and Wednesday but it warmed back up on Thursday and finished out the week very nice. Texas weather is pretty crazy, but it is nice at the same time. I've decided that I hate the cold and don't want to live in a place that is very cold, like Utah. But we will see...

This week was so-so. We had a lot of appointments fall through and a lot of people said that they were coming to church and didn't. We found new people this week but they didn't come to church and so that is pretty frustrating.

This week we also have invited 3 or 4 people to be baptized and they have all said "yes" so now it is just about getting them a testimony of the church and the Book of Mormon and getting them to attend on Sundays. It was pretty frustrating yesterday because we had, what we thought were, a solid 2 people invited and committed to come to church. One guy, named Fernando, we talked to 45 minutes before church started but he still didn't come. We called him and as I was talking to him on the phone we were outside walking around and he said, "I'm here right now." I said, "No you aren't. We are outside." Then he hung up on us and we called back and he didn't answer... So that is pretty frustrating when people have to lie to you and then just hang up on you because they don't know what else to do. But we will give him another chance to prove himself and see if he is ready to accept the Gospel or not.

The other person that we thought we had a solid commitment with is named Sonya. We found her a week or two ago just walking in an apartment complex. The story with her is pretty difficult and awkward. She is the sister of a former investigator's husband. And this former investigator just dropped us out of the blue. She stopped talking to us and she would set appointments with us and stand us up so we finally just wrote her a note and told her we couldn't come by anymore. Her sister is a member, but we think that the reason she stopped talking to us is because we are pretty sure that her sister got excommunicated by the church and so she was anti'd by her sister. It is pretty sad, but we don't know for sure.

But anyways it turned out that Sonya was moving into their house with them. We helped her move one day for 2.5 hours, we carried all of her stuff while walking to her new house because it is in the same complex. We had a very good feeling about her because she really wants to know and we really showed her what our church is about by helping her move. We went back on Saturday night, but the lesson was very awkward and the Spirit wasn't there. The Spirit wasn't there because they had a house full and there was a very contentious feeling between the investigator and us. I had a real bad feeling about it and so we tried to get out of there as fast as we could. We are going to go try to see her this week sometime.

One of our recent converts Victor Mendez received the Priesthood and was ordained a Priest. It was pretty sweet and we are really excited about him because he is progressing. He is a very smart guy and our Bishop now, who is white, says that in 10 years down the road that Victor is going to be a Bishop. We are doing everything we can to keep the same Spirit with him that he felt at baptism but it is real hard because he works almost every Sunday and only has it off every once in a while.

Things are good here. We are just trying to fulfill our purpose and find people that are ready to accept the restored gospel. We are going to do it though.

Have a great week. Love you all

Elder Harvey