November 9, 2010

Hey!


I forgot to wish you a happy anniversary. I’m sorry ha-ha. HAPPY 25 FREAKING YEARS! That’s a long time. I’m glad you enjoyed it. Hawaii will be fun too ha-ha.

It feels like a long time since I’ve emailed you. I feel like a lot happened this last week. Last Monday Elders Fullmer, Rydalch, Brown, and I went to Gatorland. I bet you can figure out what it is just from the name. A park that has a lot of gators ha. It was a good time. I wrestled an alligator. Pretty cool.

Then on Tuesday I drove up to Daytona with some members from hunter's creek. I live with Elders Packard, Moore, and Parsons. Elders Moore and Parsons are our zone leaders and Elder Moore is my old district leader from down in Stuart so that's cool. Elder Packard is the man. I love him. They’re all awesome.

So I got situated and stuff and Elder Packard told me we had a media referral to go see. So we get there and through the door we hear this guy yelling at this other guy on the phone. We heard him yelling about how he "wanted his 50 g's back" and he was getting tickeddd. So he came to the door and asked what we wanted and thought we were Jehovah’s Witnesses. He let us in and told us to sit down. He was still talking to this guy on the phone though, so we were just waiting for him to finish. He talked for probably another 5 minutes or so about how this guy he was talking to borrowed $50,000 and went to Las Vegas and spent it on "some bimbo" hahahaha. He was crazy. I was just sitting there thinking he was in the mafia or something. And this whole time I saw a gun sitting on this chair so I knew he meant business. He picked up the gun while talking to the guy about how he was going to send his "Haitian friend" to get him. He was saying a lot of really funny stuff too that I probably shouldn't tell you ha-ha. But then he gets off the phone and tells us how this guy is going to get messed up really bad if he doesn't get his money back. He told us about his new "piece" that he just bought and I was just sitting there thinking this guy is freaking insane ha-ha. Then he asked why we were there and we told him we were there to share a message about Christ. He said "oh is that the guy those bums nailed to the cross?" So I just was thinking to myself "wow this is going to be really interesting." He said that some other guys came by the other week and gave him a book. He walked over to the table and picked up a book and started walking it over to us to show us. Then he threw it into my lap. I looked at it. And it was the Book of Mormon. Right then I knew that I just got punk'd hahaha. Right when I looked at it I said "Ahh you guys are so lame!" and started laughing. Then Elder Moore and Elder Parsons came running out from the kitchen laughing. They recorded it on a camera too. It was really funny. The crazy guy who was on the phone is the infamous "Grandpa". He's a convert of about 5 or 6 years and he loves the missionaries. He always pranks the new missionaries that come into the area. They got me pretty good ha-ha. After that, he took us out to eat and he has taken us out to eat a lot since then. He treats the missionaries really well. He bought us all Oscar de la Rocha sweaters for the winter. He's so cool. I love him ha-ha. He's hilarious.

Besides that I’ve just been trying to get to know all the members in the ward and stuff. The ward is really cool. And Daytona is AWESOME! I love it. It's just straight ghetto. Like guh-heh-tuh-ooo. Some of the people are hilarious. We tracted into this lady named Trysta and have taught her and set a date with her for December 4th. She came to church on Sunday too so that was great. She said she felt like the testimonies being born were speaking directly to her. So that's some good stuff right there. Yesterday was good too. Zone conference was amazing. Elder Zivic was awesome. Our new goal as a mission is one baptism per companionship per month. It used to be 100 a month. But with this new vision, things will run a lot better I feel. And everyone will be more unified in everything. It's going to take a miracle for Elder Packard and me to get a baptism this month. Because the investigators have to come to church 3 times before getting baptized and there are only 3 more Sundays in this month and the weekend after the 3rd will be in December. we want to try to work with some part-member families and see if we can have some success with that so we can get a baptism this month.

I love missionary work Mom and Dad. I feel like it's just pumping through my blood. I’m so used to the lifestyle that it's going to be really weird when I’m done. I’ve been thinking about that lately. It's just the way I live right now. I can't imagine not doing it actually. I wake up every day with missionary work on my mind and try to find ways to help people accept Christ. All day. Every day. I LOVE it. I’m becoming so much more receptive to the Holy Ghost Mom and Dad. It's the best. I am able to recognize answers to prayers allllllll the time! I am so much more in tune with the Spirit. I hope and pray that I can stay this way foreverrrrrrr :)

I’m not going to be able to make it to Doreen’s baptism. I have been asking president about it and yesterday at zone conference I asked him about it again and he asked me if it would take away from the work in my area. And I told him that we didn't have anything going on this Saturday so he said he'd pray about it. Then while I was sitting in the meeting listening to Elder Zivic I started to think about the baptism and the Spirit told me that I didn't need to go. It told me that Doreen will be fine and that Elder Fullmer and Elder Wood (his new companion) have everything covered. As much as I want to go, I can't deny the answer I received ha-ha. I’ll be working finding people to be baptized up here where my stewardship is! I told Elder Fullmer to send me a picture though. So that'll be cool. Anyway that was pretty much my week. but I love you both so much. I hope you have a great week. Keep it reallllll!

p.s. This computer I’m on has the computer locked in a cabinet so I can't send pictures right now. I’ll have to find some other way.

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Elder Austin Gable Engemann aka dubEE fresh