4th of July

Family,

Holy cow, can you believe it? It is the fourth of July! I sure do miss the Ranch.. it is one of the greatest vacations that we take each year. I hope all is well and things are going great at there.

So this week is transfer week and we received our calls last night. I'm... staying here and Elder Frei is leaving. Transfers are this Thursday. Elder Frei is freaking out a little bit and is a little worried about it because it will be his first time leaving an area and going into a new one, but he will do great. It has been a great time serving with him and we are tearing it up in the work. This last week has been probably the best week of my mission, regarding the success we had.

Our Tuesday was packed with lessons. We had two return appointments with ladies that we met last week and we are excited to go back and teach them. Well, they both canceled on us but they rescheduled and so that was good. That night we met with the Castaneda family. They were the ones that came to church last week. Well the lesson went great. The Spirit was strong there and the Dad (Joe) had a lot of questions that he asked, but we referred back to, and explained that it all depends on, the Book of Mormon if it is true. So he realized that we need to start small and that he would need to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. And we set up a return appointment to teach them again on Friday and left them with a pamphlet to read. Well Friday we go back to teach them and as we pull up he is waiting outside of his trailer. And before we go in he says to us "Hey guys I kind of cheated," and we were like confused for a little bit but then he finished and said "Yeah, I drank a beer just barely, but it was just this one," and he shows us the empty bottle. Well it turned out to be a huge bottle and it was probably 4 or 5 cans. But we had a good laugh about it because of how big it was. We went in and started to teach them, the kids, him and his wife, and we started to just re-explain the restoration and why Joseph Smith was so important and how the Book of Mormon plays a role in their conversion. Well they understood it pretty well and we left them with a Book of Mormon to begin reading and praying about. We also invited them to be baptized, and they said yes. We set the parents and 4 of the kids with the 30th of July to be baptized. It was so sweet! We were so pumped! They didn't make it to church yesterday, they were too busy out partying and drinking, but we went by yesterday and the parents were not there. We talked to the 16 year-old and the family has been reading the Book of Mormon and they are liking it. We also found out that the Mom (Angel) has talked to missionaries before because her mom is a member of the church and got baptized here in Marble Falls a while ago. So we are super stoked for them because now it is going to be a little bit easier to get them baptized if her mom is a member and helps us out as well. That was one of the highlights of our week - setting them (6) up with a solid baptismal goal - we are going to get them baptized.

Tuesday as well, before the lesson, we were knocking out there in Granite Shoals. Now the "towns people" don't call it Granite Shoals they call it Ghetto Shoals. So it is pretty ghetto with dirt roads and trailers. There was this one house that had a fence around it and usually that means dogs. We went in the gate and there was this little dog and we weren't worried about him so I start walking up this handicapped ramp about 15 ft long to the door. Elder Frei was waiting by the gate because he is scared out of his mind about a dog chasing him and biting him. So I went up to the door and knocked, then I heard two barks from inside the door. One of the dogs came out of this doggy door and started barking. Then, a huge pit bull follows him and growls once so I take off. I start running towards the gate down the ramp and he is chasing me, barking and growling. Well Elder Frei panics a little bit and he gets out of the gate and he has the intent to close the gate right after me and shut the dog out but that didn't work because he closed it before I got there. I reached to open the gate real quick, and I sliced my hand open on the top of the gate, but luckily the dog didn't bite me. He just nipped at me and backed off. But boy was my blood rushing after that. We had a good laugh about it as we were walking down the road, with my hand bleeding. Oh the stories as a missionary right...?

Another highlight of the week was the next day, Wednesday, when we went to an appointment with a lady that we talked to 2 weeks ago that was gardening outside. The first time we met her it was a good talk and we talked about what we do as missionaries and we set up a return appointment and gave her a Restoration pamphlet. Well we went back with a member and she had read the pamphlet and she really understood it very well. She asked good questions and we re-taught the Restoration and emphasized Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. The awesome thing about her is that she just understood it and she said that it just "made sense". Which is what it will do because in the pre-existence we heard this same message. It was funny, during the lesson she brought up like alcohol or something like that and so we talked about the Word of Wisdom. We brought up how it prohibits 5 things to take into our bodies, when we said that she goes, "I bet I do four of them." So we start naming it off and she was right, she does four of them. All she doesn't do is tobacco. And she was explaining how she likes sometimes to come home and to relax and to smoke some "HOOCH", aka Marijuana. Now picture it... a 60 year-old lady telling two 19 and 20 year old missionaries, and member from our church, that she smokes "Hooch". All I can say is that we laughed about it pretty good after the lesson!

We set her (Olivia Cribbs) with a baptismal date for the 24th of July. We were joking about how that's Pioneer Day and how that would be the best Pioneer Day celebration ever!

Friday we taught that referral we got from a member in our ward. It was a great lesson and he is very serious about this. He grew up in the church until he was about 8 and then never got baptized because his mom and dad went inactive. So we had a good lesson with him, gave him a Book of Mormon because he is pretty serious about it and we set him with a baptismal date for the 30th of July as well. He also came to church yesterday and he stayed for all three hours and we believe he liked it. It was just tough for him because he has a little 19 month-old, or so, that is just a whiner and he fusses a lot and so he was a distraction and he was dealing with that a lot. But he is very serious about this and will be a sweet convert.

And then the other days we found people and we taught them really good lessons, they felt the Spirit, and we are going back to meet with them again. So right now we have 9 people with a solid baptismal date. Which is the most I have ever had during my whole mission. The Lord is really blessing us because we are just going out and we are working our butts off. And so we are fixing to baptize at least 10 this month!! This is going to be a great transfer!

So just as an assignment for you guys... My Credit Card has already expired, it expired in February, and my Debit Card is expiring in the next two months. I don't know how that works for them to renew it, you might need to send someone in to America First and renew it or something like that. If you could do that and send them to me just so that if I want to buy some souvenirs before I come home I can do that. Thanks!

Hope all is well at the Ranch! Have fun in California! Love you all!

Elder Harvey