Monday, March 3, 2014

I can ride my bicycle with no handlebars!

Dear family,

Oh my goodness I can not believe it is my third week in Houston already. It is absolutely mind-blowing to me. The adage "the days are weeks and the weeks are days" is becoming more and more true. I am so grateful to be serving where I am--it is a wonderful, ridiculous area.

So I just got my valentine's day package! Thank you so much mom! It was full of delicious surprises and I felt very loved. As you seem to have known already, the package arrived at my apt on valentine's day but we weren't here and apparently they don't just leave packages lying around in these parts, so they carted it back to the post office...which I was finally able to visit today! So that's the story on that. Anyway thank you so much family! Thank you anna and rachel for your contributions--they were cute.

We got to go to the Houston Temple today--it was a wonderful experience. It is such a beautiful place, and it was such a lovely day. I had been hoping I would have the opportunity to go before I left for brazil, so I was very happy.

This place is crazy! I am still blown away by the number of people that live in our area. There is one apartment complex called Broadway Square that has apartments numbering into the 8000's--it can sometimes be difficult to find addresses in such complexes, and I am often left to reflect that there are more people in a single apartment complex here than in many of the towns I visited in my last area. It is a lot of fun. Lots of people equals lots of energy. This is why I have always loved cities. As boisterous and poorly layed out and godforsaken as they often seemed to be, they always seem to PULSE with energy.

I am getting to know my bicycle very well--every day here is a workout, which is actually very nice. And I have now learned to ride my bike with no handlebars--this is something all missionaries apparently need to know how to do.

We have found some great new investigators--a young guy named anthony who might be serving a small (month-long) jail sentence for driving under intoxication, but who is so completely dedicated to better his life. He works crazy hours at his job, so it can be hard to get ahold of him, but when he is free he is always excited to meet for a lesson, and he has come to church both Sundays since we started teaching him. He lives with and takes care of his great grandfather, who apparently has a large collection of suits. So Anthony is showing up to church in a different suit each week--the first week he wore a baby-blue three-piece with a contrasting red bible tucked under his arm. We are also teaching a wonderful lady named Magdalena, who is an awesome lady and a mother of two. We have yet to be able to teach her husband, but we are hoping to be able to teach the whole family--we shall see. 

Like I said last week, we meet and teach all kinds of people. This week I invited a man named Mohamed Coulibari to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized. He is from Mali and is Muslim. 

Elder Evans and I have high hopes for this area--the field is undeniably white. Which reminds me: our mission was visited by a Brazilian General Authority last week--Elder Aidukaitis. I took a certain amount of pride in actually knowing how to properly pronounce his name (AYE - do - KIE - Cheess). Anyway he was a wonderfully invigorating speaker.

Oh, and I was unable to see the baptisms of my investigators, the Youngs back in Liberty, which was sad. But I did get to talk to them on the phone--they are doing wonderfully.

Thats all for now I suppose. Love yall!


Luke

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