Josh's Mission Blog: Thanksgiving Report

This email was sent November 27, 2017

Welcome to another edition of my weekly email featuring an exchange to one of my old areas, a national holiday, and more trouble with the city of Tomball!! You won’t want to miss it.

Where to begin? We had quite a few appointments set up at the beginning of the week that fell through. But that’s fairly common in missionary work. You find people who say they are interested but then when you come back for the next appointment they are nowhere to be found. I suppose this whole mission thing is a big lesson on persistence.

On Thursday morning we got together with some ward members and their friends to play some football. I didn’t do that last year, and it was really nice to run around and throw the pigskin again. I’ve definitely lost a step or two though, I might need a personal trainer when I get back to help whip me into shape. Then we cleaned up and got ready for our Thanksgiving dinner with the Flores family. I even made pumpkin pie from scratch to bring. It was about 20 minutes in the oven away from being perfect but that’s okay, it still tasted good and no one(to my knowledge) got salmonella poisoning.

After that we went out visited a few people. One of them was Pedro, someone we’ve been working with for awhile now. We had to tell him that we couldn’t continue coming by because he and his family hadn’t been reading the Book of Mormon or coming to church. It was sad because he said a couple times “You guys aren’t going to come anymore??” We’ve become really good friends with him so it was hard but I think it was for the best because I’m sure he and his family will be more ready to act sometime down the road when missionaries stop by again.

On Friday I went on exchanges to Waller with Elder Hadley after district meeting. We taught a couple of lessons and visited the Contreras family. It was really good to see them again. Apparently Hermano Contreras fell from the roof of a trailer about a month ago and hit his head on the concrete, but he’s doing a lot better now. They will definitely be a family that I’ll visit after the mission.

Then on Saturday we exchanged back and went to lunch with a good friend of mine named Aaron Moya whom I met on the mission. He was able to give me some pretty good advice for when I go home. But more than anything he told me to continue doing the small and simple things like reading the scriptures daily, praying, and going to church. As well as to take the things I’ve learned on the mission and apply them to my normal life.

On Sunday we went to ward council meeting and the whole theme was basically about missionary work. All of the members of the ward council committed to provide at least 1 referral for the missionaries to teach in 2 weeks. We are pretty excited because member referrals are infinitely easier to work with than people we knock into.

As well in Sacrament meeting Yami Oropeza, Pascual’s wife, was asked to share her testimony with the congregation about the ward’s temple trip they took to Dallas on Saturday. She and Pascual were able to do baptisms for their grandparents who have passed on. That was a special experience that brought a tear to my eye because this is what the Gospel is all about. It’s not so that we as missionaries can pad our stats or say we taught and baptized a lot of people, it’s so that families can be linked together for forever, on both sides of the veil. I know that La Familia Oropeza’s entire eternal destiny was changed the moment they decided to join the church and strive to be faithful to their covenants. It has been such a special privilege to have been involved with their conversion process. They have become family to me and I will never forget them.

To finish out, on Sunday night we stopped by some English missionaries’ apartment around 8:45 to visit Elder Sobotka and Zaugg to pick up some English Book of Mormons and pass along cards. We were only there for about 15 minutes but when we went back outside, our car was gone. We didn’t park it underneath the carport spaces and there are no spaces for visitor parking in that complex. So we thought, either our car got stolen or towed. But we had to spend the night with those missionaries because the apartment complex office didn’t open until the next day and we didn’t know which towing company had our car. But today we got it all worked out and both Elder Broschart and I now only need to split a measly fine of $210 for the amount it cost to pick up. I am now planning on writing the mayor of Tomball to complain about how I’ve been marginalized and discriminated against during my time in this city. Just kidding, I don’t have time for that. But anyways, love every single one of you and hope that tow truck companies lose their power to tow whoever they want whenever they feel like it.

Elder Barrus

THM