Well, at least the tomatos won't freeze.

It is supposed to be over 100 degrees every day for the next who knows how long. fun stuff huh?

this has been a great week.

On Tuesday we tracted into this old pastor. He went on for a while about how there couldn't be a prophet anymore because all we need is to accept Christ to be saved. Can I just tell you how sick I am of hearing people talk about when they were "saved". It is so frustrating, because that's not at all how God works. He is a God of order. He is not going to just let anyone "accept Christ" and receive all his blessings. You have to DO something. COnstant effort. Enduring to the End means constant repentance, constant improvement, constant helping others, constant work. That's how glory is achieved. Making and keeping all the covenants available to men at this time. That is what you have to do. well, after he went on for a while about how we were a false religion and all going to hell, we bore testimony that we knew that this church is true, and that the book of mormon is true. The wonderful thing about sincere heart felt testimony, is that no earthly power can remove, or deny, its power. So as soon as this man felt the Spirit when we said this, he started in about sexual relations in the Bible, and how Samson was date raped, and all sorts of random crap that I am not going to repeat, because it is really not appropriate. So we changed the subject and got out of there. Anyway, that night we had an awesome lesson with Aaron, a roommate to a less-active family. He is great, and is working towards baptism on the 23rd of July.

Wednesday we had an awesome District meeting, and we all brought "home lunch" (because we normally go to lunch afterwards) to save time and money. Then we played Heads Up 7 Up. I do not know why, but someone suggested it and everyone jumped on it. It was fun. That night we did not have a dinner appointment, so we went to Billy Bob's again. This time we got regular sized meals so that we could enjoy it. We also saw our pictures on the wall, so that was cool. That night we taught a Part Member family from Alma 32, about planting the seed and experimenting to see if things change for the better. It was a great lesson.

Thursday (my 4 month mark, but who's counting?) This was a regular planning day, up until about 4 oclock when the Zone Leaders called us. President Sagers was in town and wanted to go out on exchanges with us. This is crazy, because normally the Mission President goes with the Zone Leaders, but he did last week, so he decided to go with us (probably because Warburton is DL). We had two awesome lessons. One was with the Abrams. He was able to relate to them and left them with a commitment. It was such a great lesson. After that we taught Aaron again. We taught the Plan of Salvation, and President gave some awesome input that just made it all go across perfectly. He told us right after the lesson that Aaron will be baptized. How cool is that? Since the Man with the Keys (the mission president holds the preisthood keys for non-members, in case you didn't know) said it, it will happen. Gotta love the priesthood and discernment and all that jazz :)

Friday was awesome. We had interviews with President (which is why he was in town to go out with us last night). He gave me some great advice to continue to progress and learn, and I have been and will continue to apply those things.

Saturday night we had a couple awesome lessons. Seriously just awesome. First we were with the Abrams. We were basically just teaching about why we leave commitments (we have gone over this with them before, but they really needed a refresher) and about how far they have come. I can't really describe to you how powerful the spirit was, but it was just awesome. They were both being worked on so hard by the spirit that they were quiet. And let me tell you, it is never quiet in that house. after the spirit called them to repentance a ton (we didnt have to, all we did was talk about why we do things and how far they are and where they can be) we left. A huge part of missionary work is leaving when the spirit hits the climax, and I think we nailed it that night. Right after that we hauled butt over to the Lohrs. Ashley Lohr has been sick for 3 weeks and finally decided that she should get a blessing. AJ had mentioned to us 2 1/2 weeks before that they would be asking for one if she didn't get better, but they waited until she got done with some trainings at work. So we went over and she asked Elder Warburton to give her the blessing. So after I anointed he gave an awesome blessing. Just awesome. There was a direct line to him that night. It was cool. I'm not going to go into any real details here because it would be inappropriate to talk lightly of spiritual experiences. It was a very powerful night.

Sunday morning. The Abrams came to church! This is the first time they have been there together in years. many years. it was great. After Sacrament Katrina (The 16 yr old daughter) was complaining and wanted to go home. Brother Abrams was torn and stood there thinking about it for about 7 minutes straight. Finally he decided to go home with his family, but it was obvious he wanted to stay longer. Next week for sure :)

That afternoon we taught Devan about footnotes, and what the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price is. We're at the point where we can't teach any new basic doctrine, so we teach him other things. But nothing deep, cause that is where people get lost. It is so great to see him learn and progress even though he has to wait for baptism.

Now I'm going to change direction for a minute.

From what I hear, NY has just legalized Gay Marriage. What the fetch? What is this world coming to? And if anyone tries to say that there is no reason, logical, political, scientific, or religious to not allow it, they are in denial. I am going to forgo talking about the political, logical, or scientific reasons, because I am a missionary and that is not what I am worried about at the moment, But the religious one I will discuss. Now, forget that I'm LDS for a second. Let's just look at the Bible. Leviticus 18, and 20 both comdemn homosexuality. In the law of moses it was a death sentence. In Christ's higher law the punishment will come at judgement. 1 corinthians 6:9 talks about it too. Let's face it, if you are a "Christian" but for gay marriage, you are in denial and possibly a hypocrite and need to read the Bible a little more carefully. Now let's go back to the fact that I am LDS. Doctrine and Covenant 84:114. Look it up.

Now back to happy things.

The Atonement is real! Christ suffered for us all, so that we can be cleansed from sin and overcome death. BUT only if we make and keep the covenants of Baptism and The Gift of the Holy Ghost, which is only possible through the Priesthood Authority, which ONLY the true church of Christ has. Also, making and keeping covenants in the Temple. If you haven't read it yet, read the First Presidency Message from theJuly 2011 Ensign. Making and Keeping a promise to God is a necessity. So do it. If you haven't done it, read the Book of Mormon, pray to know if it's true, call the missionaries, and make those covenants. If you have done it but aren't keeping those covenants, Go to your bishop and ask him to help you repent so that you can. All it takes is a little bit of faith, a little bit of action, and a whole lot of love from God. The Atonement is the greatest event to occur, and not to TRULY accept Christ would be selfish and ungrateful. So read the Book of Mormon!

Read 3 Nephi 11. Look for 3 verses that you can apply to yourself to make yourself a better person, and then apply them.

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!

"Fear not though the enemy deride. Courage for the Lord is on Our Side!"
 

--
--Elder Braxton C Foust--

Fat Daddy!

This week sure has been fun. First off I got a personal lesson in patience, which I basically asked for while working on my Christ like Attributes, and of course the day my patience feels like it has run out, things are resolved and life goes on. So take my advice, be patient. Simple as that. "the Lord is in control--he is driving the bus and you are a passenger trying not to tell him how fast or slow or when to turn etc." -President Sagers

He has a lot of great quotes actually.

"In life, there's only two things you need to worry about, if you are healthy or if you are sick. If you are healthy, you have nothing to worry about. If you are sick there are only two things you need to worry about, if you live or if you die. If you live you have nothing to worry about. If you die, there are only two things to worry about, if you go to Heaven or Hell. If you go to Heaven you have nothing to worry about. If you go to Hell, you'll be so busy shaking hands with friends to worry about anything." -President Sagers

So on Wednesday this week we had an excellent time at our Zone Huddle. We had a training on commitments and following up on them, and then had some awesome role-plays. The thing about role-plays in missionary work, is if you have the spirit with you as you role-play, sometimes the exact situation comes up later. Even word for word. A perfect example of that, is Wednesday night the sisters told us about their lesson they had that day after zone huddle. They asked a question to an investigator that we had asked them during the role-play, and the investigators reply was word for word what Sister Hawkes had said to us during the practice. They knew exactly what to say in reply, because we had said it earlier and it was perfect. pretty cool stuff.

That night we needed a double exchange (or splits as some people call it) where we split up and do different things. Brother Abrams had said earlier he would ride his bike with one of us (he has epilepsy so he can't drive) but he was really tired after work. SO we asked if Both Brother and Sister Abrams could come out. So I went with them to our appointments, and Elder Warbutron went with Mitch to do a baptismal interview for some of the other elders' investigators. The lesson that I did was not a huge success for the family we were teaching, because they weren't really ready to learn, but the Abrams got a ton out of it. They felt the spirit very strongly and just loved it.
Thursday we had an awesome lesson with Kyle again. We taught him the Restoration, and were able to answer a lot of his questions through simply teaching the basic doctrine as outlined in Preach My Gospel. He still has a lot of questions, some of which are pretty deep doctrine, so we told him that we would have to build a solid foundation first so that it would all make sense, so he invited us to come back the next day.

Friday I went to Killeen 3rd ward on exchange, and Elder Clement came to K2. Because Warburton is DL we will be doing this just about every week. sometimes more than once a week even. So I was with Elder Luksan (Luke-Shawn) in K3 for the day. We basically tracted all day long. It was really fun though. Our dinner appointment was with a cool family, the Mitchems. Brother Mitchem served in the Ogden mission, and served in Farmington for a while. As well as Bountiful and Logan. He got to serve on USU campus, that would be awesome. I had a ton of fun talking to him about Utah, especially since he spent time in Davis County.

Now for the big one.

Saturday was awesome and terrible. The whole time we've been in Killeen we've driven past a sign for Billy Bob's Burgers, almost every day. We've been talking about going there for a while, and then we heard from someone that there is a "Challenge" at Billy Bob's. So we called them one day to get the information. The Fat Daddy Challenge is to eat a Fat Daddy Burger (6 patties, 1/4 lb each) A large fry, and a Large shake. If you do it in less than 30 minutes, you get a t-shirt and your picture on the wall. If you beat the record (currently 11 min 15 sec) it's free. Otherwise it's $19.67. The ZL's recent convert, Nate Helsham, is a very large Samoan. He heard us talking about it one day, and signed up on our dinner calendar, and told us he wanted to take us over to do the challenge. Well, practically the whole zone showed up. Nate insisted on paying for the 4 of us he signed up to feed, and the rest of the guys were on their own. Nate, Elder Warburton, Elder White, Elder Martinez, Elder Whittier, Elder Downs, Elder Felix, and Myself all tried. Nate finished in 18 minutes. Elder Martinez finished in 22. I finished in 24, and Whittier finished in 28. It was awesome. Way too much food for anyone's good, but worth the fun. I will never do that again though. I didn't eat for almost 24 hours after it. But man, it was all way good food.

On Sunday Elder Warburton and I did a baby blessing in sacrament meeting. It is the baby of a less active family that we've been working with for a little while, the Mezenen's, and they asked us to do it because we're the only people in the ward they know. It was an interesting experience. But it was cool.

That's the short version of my week. Not a ton of time left to give a ton more detail.
I hope all is going well with everyone.

Read Helaman 12, and think about how you can apply it to you life.

"Still all my song shall be, Nearer My God to Thee. Nearer my God to thee. Nearer to thee" -Hymn 100

--
--Elder Braxton C Foust--

3 Nephi

It's officially my third transfer now. I am in Killeen still, as you should know, and I love it. Elder Warburton is now the District Leader, and the added responsibility for him in that call has helped us both step up our game. But it's weird because our "numbers" looked absolutely horrible this week. But it was definitely out of our control.

Tuesday morning we did service for an elderly couple in the ward. She wanted 8 blueberry bushes (they were just sticks with roots....) planted on the side of her house.

 So we got to dig through the absolutely wonderful Texas Dirt that we all love so much. If you don't know why I said that, imagine the dirt wherever you are, and then make it 10x harder, and put more rocks in it. Now you're in Texas. And why we were planting Blueberries in June, after a dry hot spring, I do not know. So don't ask. But it's what she wanted, so we helped out. That took all morning, and then we went to lunch with Elder Rank, because he is headed home. After that we went to the church to get some documents we needed. After all that was finished, we got home at about 4:30. and since we were getting picked up at 5 for dinner, that didn't leave us any time to work. After our dinner appointment we had a couple good lessons. One of which was with a Lady named Mayme that we tracted in to. The lesson was awesome. The spirit was way powerful and she accepted baptism on the condition that she found out that are church is true. It was excellent.

Wednesday morning the ZLs needed some help with transfer stuff, so they picked us up to have a companion study at the church with them so they could work out transfers and train Warburton on DL stuff. After that we went back to the members house from the day before to do some clean up because we ran out of time before we got all the dirt picked up. Then we went to Brian and Amanda's to see how they were doing and set up an appointment for the next day. After that we headed to the southern part of our area to visit some people, and Warburton's tire went flat. So we found a bike pump and pumped it up, and raced the slow leak home. Luckily we got home before it went too low to ride, so we were able to patch it up. After Dinner we had a couple good lessons with some Less Active members.

On Thursday we had our planning, as usual. After that we headed to visit some potential investigators, and Warburton's tire (a different tube) went flat. So now we had to hurry to get to Devan's in time to teach him, then run home to change the flat, and then go to our appointment with Brian and Amanda. We had a decent lesson there about the Doctrine of Christ, and then we had dinner. Our 7 o'clock punched, so we visited the Abrams.

Friday morning we did more service. We helped an investigator in Killeen 1st move stuff into a storage unit. We got there with the full Uhaul, and found out the unit was a 10x10. Luckily we have some "Tetris Masters" and we got all of it in. It was way tight, and took all morning and then 1/2 the afternoon, but we got it.

 After that we tracted, got 2 potential investigators, including an appointment for Saturday afternoon, and then went home for dinner. After dinner we went to Mitch's and watched The Testaments with him. He really liked it.

Saturday we tracted and did some park contacting, then went to the appointment we set up Friday. We went to that lesson, they punched, and guess what happened next... Elder Warburtons tire (this time a brand new tube right out of the box) went flat. Now, don't think we're idiots. Every time we've changed this thing we have checked all over the rim and the tire itself. There is nothing sharp causing these to go flat. This one burst at the seam for some stupid reason. So we walked home and fixed up an old tube, and got the bike working again.

Just our luck.

Sunday Night we had a great lesson with a guy we've been trying to teach for a while, named Kyle. His wife is a member, and he has talked to some missionaries, but he scares them off when he asks really good questions that they don't know how to answer on the spot. So we sat down with him and got to know him. He got comfortable with us when he found out that we actually have personalities, and we were able to answer some of his questions. One of them was about Christ coming to America. He asked that if Christ came here than shouldn't he have gone other places too. We showed him that in 3 Nephi he tells us that he is going to go to other places. We just don't have those records. I hope we will eventually, but for now, the Book of Mormon is good enough for me.

Read in 3 Nephi 15 and 16. It talks about that stuff.

I hope you are all doing well. I love you all!

--Elder Braxton C Foust--

Transfer calls

So this morning we got our transfer calls and.....

I'm am moving from the southernmost part of the mission to the Northern Most part (Denton) and I am switching from English to Spanish Speaking!!!!

Ok, that was a lie. In fact, it was the exact opposite. I am staying where I am and speaking English. :)

Elder Warburton has been asked to serve as the new District Leader for the Killeen District,(Elder Rank, our current DL, is going home this transfer. His 2 year mark was last Friday). and I am not leaving yet, so we get to work together for another transfer and baptize people and stuff! I'm way happy to still be in Killeen, there's o much work to do, and so many people I've grown to love that I do not want to leave. So I'm glad I'm not.

This week has been weird. Our numbers (we report how many lessons we taught and other essentials to the work to the mission president every week) looked terrible this week, but it was not for lack of tying. We got hosed on time too though.

Tuesday morning the K1 elders called us and asked if we could help someone move for a couple hours, so we did. And it took 5 hours (10:30 to 3:30). But it was still really good. We had 3 sets of elders there and a set of sisters helping. It was a ton of fun, and we all got really good at Tetris (fitting everything into a single storage unit). So by the time we finished we had to shower and get ready, it was basically time for dinner. That night (after dinner) We taught Katelyn (idk if I have told you about her yet, so I'm going to right now as if I hadn't) She is 10, her mom is an inactive member, and she can't wait to be baptized. She is an awesome little girl and is learning a lot. Hopefully we'll get her baptized before she goes to live with her dad for the summer.

Wednesday morning was District meeting. It was really good. Elder Rank gave us a training entitled "What I wish I knew Before". It was all about the basic principles and rules that he wishes he had had a better understanding of earlier in his mission. It was very enlightening and I got a lot from it. After that we went to Freebirds for Burritos (they are dang good). Afterwards we did some tractig and stuff. That night we taught an agnostic guy, and he prayed with us. for the first time in his life, he said a prayer. It was awesome. He gave one of the most heartfelt, sincere, and spiritual prayers I've heard in my life. The spirit was way powerful. After we finished there we visited AJ and Ashley (a less-active couple that we work with a lot. They are really cool, and always have a great time with the missionaries) (AJ reminds me a lot of my friend Cody's personality). AJ had told us previously that he had something for us. So we went over and he gave us some little bike toolkits and patches. He told us that he hoped we never had to use them, but this way if we needed to we would have them. (we have both already used them a couple times, in case you were wondering)

Thursday was another good weekly planning. After it was over we visited a couple people, including Heather, our investigator I believe I have told you about before. And she told us that right now she can't handle the "added stress" of learning the gospel and that she wanted us to stop visiting for a couple months. Ouch. It sucks to have to drop investigators, but it sucks worse getting dropped by investigators. But that's ok, we will teach her again next month. The sad thing about Thursday was that it was supposed to be the day that Devan took care of his fines so he could be baptized on Friday. But his lawyer got the court date pushed back, so the fines aren't settled yet, so his baptism is being postponed.

Friday was good. We did a lot of tracting, but it was alright because Elder Warburton taught me a game to play while we tract called Book of Mormon Baseball. It is pretty fun, but for lack of time I will not explain it. After our dinner that night we went to Mitch's. He's been sick, so we gave him a blessing and hopefully he will be getting better soon. He's still loving the gospel.

Saturday we went tracting and I chose the street. Elder Warburton didn't like the choice at first, but we went anyway. About half way up the street we hear someone yell "Elders! Come here!" so we go running over to a less-active member that we know pretty well because she feeds us fairly often. She was fixing a flat tire and the car came off the jack. Luckily she got out from under it in time, but now the car was resting on the brake and she couldn't get the jack under it. So we played with it and got it in the right spot and were able to jack it up and put the donut on. It was actually pretty fun to figure it out and help her out. As we were doing that the other elders asked if we could help them with a service project, so we went and helped them wash some cars. Then we did our progress record, which took until dinner. Dinner was great. The senior couple in the area feed all the missionaries on the last Saturday before transfers, so we got to hang out with everyone. After that was over we went to the Abrams and watched Finding Faith in Christ. (excellent movie by the way) and had a great lesson there.

Sunday was a good fast Sunday. I learned a lot for myself. But I was exhausted. We taught Devan a lesson and read Ether 12 with him. Then we went to the Abrams because they didn't make it to church. When we got there Elder Warburton's tire was flat, so we had to work on that, but Brother Abrams couldn't get the hole to seal because it was on a seam. So they drove us home and we worked on it with some super glue. Unfortunately that took the rest of the afternoon until dinner. But it made it so we could go to our appointments after dinner. One was with Katelyn again, and the other cancelled on us as we left Katelyn's, so we called AJ because he lived about a block from where we were and we went there and taught them. I love it when back up plans pop out of nowhere. We got to watch some cool lightning as we rode our bikes home :) (it was far away, we're not stupid)

Read Ether 12. It has a lot of info about faith. Think about how you can apply it's teachings to your life and help "make weak thin become strong"

Love you!

--
--Elder Braxton C Foust--

Oh Yeah

There is a member in our ward that is a "Past-Master Mason". He is heavily involved in the Free Masons, but he recognizes the Truthfulness of the church as well. He has a lot of knowledge, and a lot of really really really cool things. Mostly Books. And he's fluent in several languages, so he can read them all.

I'm not talking about books like Lord of the Rings, or Enders Game (although those are awesome).

He has original copies of Don Quixote, all four volumes, some with pages still uncut.

He has hand written copies of the bible, torah, and Koran (hand written, as in before the printing press)

But the coolest book he has is literally priceless. He just got it recently.

It is entitled "The Reformation" By Martin Luther. it is one of the ten original copies hand written by Martin Luther himself. And I held it :)

Think about it, this book is what really started the reforms of the Catholic Church, which in turn, led to the religious freedom that we now enjoy, and that allowed for the restoration of the true church (Us, in case you didn't know)

It was so cool to see all the stuff he has. The list goes on and on. He told us that his insurance company's appraisers jaws dropped when he showed them the authenticity certificates for everything.

He's also got this really cool painting of Christ from the 1600's where he's sitting on a rock looking down at Jerusalem at night time (pretty similar to "O, Jerusalem" by Chad Hawkins) And Christ has a blue robe on, which apparently is not a common thing. It is awesome.

Seriously, it was so cool to go see all his stuff, especially the Reformation.

--
--Elder Braxton C Foust--

Guess what..............the Book of Mormon ...It's still true.

First of all, before I forget, Next week is transfers, so do not send anything to the Killeen address after like Thursday of Friday at the latest, or I may not get it. I'll let you know where I'm going (or staying) next week.

Because it was a holiday the library was closed yesterday, and the internet was down at the church so we couldn't use the computers there either.

I forgot my journal today, so I don't remember a lot of details off the top of my head.

This past week has been really good. Tuesday morning we mowed a lawn for a couple hours, and then we spent the rest of the day doing the work.

Wednesday we had a great district meeting. We learned more about the Doctrine of Christ (that was this month's focus) and about using the baptismal invite in lessons. We also practiced teaching people about prayer. It was a really good training. After it was over Warburton and I went to visit a less active member that he met one day and we set up a return appointment with her to teach the gospel to her 10 yr old daughter. She's excited to learn and will probably be baptized soon.

Thursday was our weekly planning. After we finished that we went to visit the non-member wife of a member who just deployed because she is interested in learning. But she didn't answer the door. So we tried to contact some other people and didn't really do a ton of actual teaching. But it was still good to be out and working. After dinner we had a double exchange, which is where we take two members out, and split up (which is where the term splits comes from) and hit double appointments. I went to two less active families, the Abrams and the Mezenens with my exchange, Brother Azerado. The appointments went alright, they weren't really productive because although both families set up the appointments with us, neither one was really interested in learning much. It was frustrating. I get along with Brother Azerado really well. He is a great guy. He had to turn down a really good job. Tech support at Blizzard Entertainment. The first 2 weeks of his job would be a 40 hour work week of playing World of Warcraft so that he could learn the game. Then the next 2 would be Starcraft 2. But because I'm a missionary I don't care about that kind of stuff :)

(not to mention I’ve never been a fan of WoW anyway...) But still, it's sad he had to turn it down.

Friday was an awesome day. We had Zone conference, which is when President Sagers and the Assistants come down and give us a training and stuff. Goes from first thing in the morning to 4 in the afternoon. It was way good. The week before he gave us an assignment to read some talks about the Holy Ghost and come prepared to talk about him. We learned a lot about the Holy Ghost and his role in our lives as members, and as missionaries. It was awesome. That night there was a double baptism for the other elders in our ward. The guys baptized were Andres Silva and Nate Helsham. Both are married to less active members, but now their whole families are active. Brother Silva has been investigating for about 5 months, and was being taught for most of that by Elder Nelson, my old ZL who became AP. Because of the Zone Conference, Elder Nelson was able to be at the baptism, and Andres asked him to baptize him. It was awesome. Nate was just golden; he soaked everything he was taught up.

Saturday was cool because AJ Lohr had signed up to go out on exchanges with us all day. So we taught Devan lessons 3 and 4 with AJ there, then went south and tried to teach some people, then we went back to the apartment to get lunch. AJ went home to eat, and then was going to get gas and his Debit card wouldn't work, so he had to go to the bank and get that resolved, so we were back on our own for the rest of the day. We visited a member that has decided that the church has nothing for him. He is very deep into Free Masonry and it has completely screwed up his head. Some of that stuff can really mess with you if you aren't ready for it. We've actually worked with him a little, but without much success. We've actually learned a lot about masons and templar’s and that kind of stuff in Killeen, because there is a large amount of masonry out here, and a couple members of the ward are in it. But that's the kind of stuff I would steer clear of it I were you (you being anyone who reads this).

After that experience we taught Mitch about the priesthood, preparing him to be ordained a priest and get the aaronic priesthood this coming Sunday. He loved it all. After that was dinner with the Silva Family. It's amazing how there is a tangible change in someone's demeanor after baptism, and Andres was different. He was practically glowing. It was awesome. Dinner over there is always a fun time. We usually get some great quotes from dinner over there. "They want me to cook Puerto Rican, but I get confused... I am Mexican!" -Sister Silva   (now, after Andres brought up us all getting married and having kids eventually) "when you fall in love you don't think right. Your heart skips, You get all lovey dovey, it's just weird" (-Andres) "Right now, that's how we feel when we see cake!" -Elder Warburton. (as Sister Silva brings out a Red Velvet cake for desert).

Sunday was awesome, Devan was interviewed for baptism and he is ready. There is just one problem that WB and I were not aware of. And that is he is on probation from a DWI from 2 years ago. So he has to be interviewed by a member of the mission presidency, either President Sagers or one of his counselors. Luckily on Monday night President Lunt was driving through Killeen and was able to stop in and interview him. He feels that Devan is completely ready as well, but he can't have any outstanding fines with his probation. As soon as the fines are taken care of Devan will be in the water ready to be dunked, the sad thing is we don't know how long that will take. Anyway, Back to Sunday, I finished the Book of Mormon again. I postponed reading the last chapter so I could during the Sacrament. And, I prayed about it afterwards. Guess what... It's still true.

The Bishop is being deployed, so he had to be released. Everyone knew it was coming obviously, but it was still sad. Luckily, as soon as the new bishopric was called everyone had the feeling that it was right. I am very pleased with the new bishopric. Brother Christensen (who has been the 1st counselor for the last 2 bishops, both of which were only in for a year due to the Army) was called as the 1st counselor again. Brother Piekarski (who owns that 7 foot python) was called as the Bishop. And right before all of this, it was proposed the Brother McKinlay (who was the young men's pres) be ordained a High Priest, so we all knew that he would be in as well. This bishopric is going to be awesome. Dinner that night was actually at Brother Christensen's house. It was excellent. And very entertaining. They have 3 little girls, Mia-10, Roxy-8, and Carmen-3. We got some great quotes then too. As brother Christensen is squeezing Guacamole from a pouch his daughter Roxy says "are you sure that didn't come out of Carmen?" And later in the dinner, Mia wanted some chips. But they were on the other side of the table. She refuses to say anything to the Elders because she's shy, so she asked her parents to ask them. But Brother Christensen (knowing she's shy) said "why don't you ask the elders?" and she just shakes he head. As you can imagine, this goes on for a while. It was great. He finally asked for them for himself, and then had to guard them from her because she tried to steal his. After about 5 minutes of this he said "Mia, would you just ask the elders for the freakin' chips?". We all busted up because it was hilarious.

back to something spiritual...

"The God Portrayed in both Hebrew and Christian Scripture asks, not just for commitment, but for our very lives. The God of the Bible traffics in Life and Death, not niceness. And asks for sacrificial love, not benign whateverism" -Kenda Creasy Dean, Quoted by D. Todd Christofferson.

I really like this quote, because it is true. it also reminds me of a quote from my district leader (who goes home next week) :(

"Modern Christianity is watered down. It's like really lame Kool-aid" -Elder Rank.

Guess what, this one is true too.

You cannot and will not be saved in the highest glory of god without the FULLNESS of the Gospel. And Guess what, IT'S RIGHT HERE!!! If you don't believe me, so what? I'm not asking you to take my word for it. Don't take any earthly power's word for it. Men can lie, men can cheat, men can deceive. BUT GOD WILL NOT LIE TO YOU! SO ASK HIM!!!! Pick up the Book of Mormon, and read the introduction. Then re-read the last 2 paragraphs of it. Then open up to Moroni 10:4-5. Then re-read those 2 verses. and then... ACT!!!! If you believe in Christ, than prove it! Ask if FAITH! And guess what, faith is an action word! Faith without works is dead. So ask god. don't take my word for it, take his. I Promise you you will get an answer.

Love you all! Have a good week!