Week 25

Hey y'all! It's been another wonderful week here in Texas (truthfully I can't believe it's been another week already...where does the time go?!?) I got a new companion this week!! His name is Elder Hardy and he is from Salt Lake City. He is way cool and a way awesome missionary. He's only been out about 5 months, but he's got a lot of fire and way good skills. I'm a little scared because they made me senior companion (I’m still trying to figure out why they did that) but I just hope I can set a good example for him and that we can set a good example for the zone. Elder Van Cleve is now in Sherman with Elder Hall and I heard he is doing pretty well.

This week was the best week I've had here so far. With hard work, energy, and faith, Elder Hardy and I accomplished a lot. We report on certain "key indicators" every week (lessons taught with a member present, new investigators, etc.) and the past few weeks they haven't been that great. This week we were able to double all of those numbers! We were able to get into doors and see people we haven't seen in a while. It was great.

The most exciting new I think has to go back to the Woods family, who we picked up a while ago. Tyrone & Sharon with their kids Dre and T.J. have been pretty busy lately. We Hadn't seen them past that original appointment 5 weeks ago because Tyrone's mom got sick and so did Sharon’s brother, so they've been back and forth between Louisiana and Allen for the past couple weeks. We were able to see them last night, though, and they were excited to see us. We set up an appointment with them for next Sunday, and so hopefully it will go well with them and we can start teaching them again. They are an awesome African American family and we are really excited for them.

We weren't able to see Trevor this last week; he was being pretty flaky. We haven't got a set appointment with him yet but hopefully we'll be able to contact him this week.

One of the new investigators we picked up is named John. We tracted into him and he was nice and let us in. We taught him about the Restoration and Joseph Smith and gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon. After that we saw him again and he doesn't see a need for the Book of Mormon because we have the Bible. He doesn't believe it's true, but we told him the only way he is going to be able to figure it out for himself is if he really and truly reads and prays about it. He said he would and we have an appointment with him tomorrow and so we'll see how that one goes.

We also picked up a guy named Tony. He was tracted into a couple of weeks ago and we were actually able to se him this week. We did kinda the same thing we did with John and committed him to read the Book of Mormon. He is more interested at an intellectual standpoint; he's simply curious at this point but hopefully we will be able to change that. He's African American as well and is way cool.

We picked up a girl named Imeh (pronounced EE-may) on Saturday. She is Sarah's daughter (Sarah is the referral we contacted last week) and she has a really good friend who is a member of the church. We are hoping to start teaching her and her friend's house. She was really open and understood it all really well, which is awesome considering she's only 13.

We have a few potentials as well that will probably work in out favor. This week should be a good one as well.

Well that's all I have time for! Have a great week!!

Love,
Elder Grondel