Week 80 Trio Life

Hola, 

It's been a fun week and trio life is the good life. I've enjoyed it and it's been fun to get to know my comps a little better! I think we're going to have a good time here in P7! 

Tuesday 

The trio was formed and we said goodbye to Elder Ibarra! I'm liking it so far and I think we'll have a good time! Started off our trio by changing our tire becuase we got a nasty flat! We found a huge screw in the thing so looks like we'll be getting some new tires here real quick. We went finding after that and things are really interesting in a trio. It's gonna take a little time to figure out who talks when, but we'll get it. Wrapped up the night with an Elders Quorum activity at the church that I thought was really well attended! It was chill and good for us to get to know the ward better! 

Wednesday 

Kind of a dismal morning with some rain storms and lightning and no one answering doors. After a little lunch we were ready to hit it again but Pep Boys got in the way big time. You can only go so far on a spare so we got a new tire and it took forever! The guy told us to stay around becuase it was going to be quick. Not a chance... They pulled our car back to the shop quick and then took about an hour and a half to change the tire. I was about ready to roll up my sleeves and get after it. It just felt like a waste of time and I wasn't too happy with our Boys over there but what can you do. We called it the thorn in our side and now it's gone so at least that's good! We had our first Spanish lesson as a trio that night and it went pretty well! ☺️ It's different teaching in a trio but we're getting the hang of it! 

Thursday 

Pretty solid day, we had an appointment with Jim and he said he wanted to get baptized! Normally this would be great, but apparently this has happened before with other missionaries... Bro. Stoddard says he talks mean game but has never acted. I guess we will see if this is the time! We also saw Alba the Columbiana (S/O to my trainer) who is really an interesting woman. She straight up told us she doesn't want to come back to church. When we asked why she said: "just becuase" I don't know what overcame me but I got bold and told her that was a pretty lame excuse and basically we wanted to know what was holding her back. She said she didn't want to go to the Spanish group and the bishop wouldn't let her go to the English ward... Hah it was pretty lame and just sad really! She's a tough one. We ended the night with Wilbur and crew and finally got their son in the lesson with us! The kids just don't seem to have interest in anything and their parents don't force them to sit in our lessons. Usually the teenagers just sit in their rooms while we talk and play video games or something. We decided to take a stand and we went and knocked on their bedroom door and told them to come watch a video with us. Well sure enough Sergio came and watched it and stayed for the lesson. He ended up reading a whole chapter of the Book of Mormon while we talked so hopefully something stook with him! It felt good to have the family united for the first time! Such good people! 

Friday

We had kind of a long day of weekly planning with the new companions but we managed to slip in a couple of good lessons with Daniel and Raymond. Daniel is super solid and wants to come to church and basically committed himself to talk to his boss about getting Sunday's off. Daniels a stud and basically taught the plan of salvation back to us after we taught it. I was impressed. 👍🏽 We also had a really good discussion with Raymond (Recent convert) about the atonement and he was all excited about learning more. His mom is also coming to the states in a month or so and is excited to learn more about the church! We love Raymond and he's the definition of pure in heart. 

Saturday 

After a ton of service we went and taught Erica who wants to come to church! Those are some of the best you can hear from an investigator. ☺️ She's doing really well and we're excited for her! 

Sunday 

We had a really random Sunday where we knew Sister Stephens from the General Relief Society Presidency was coming to speak to us but no one seemed to know the schedule. The meeting ended up starting twenty minutes late and there was general confusion for all the classes after as well. Oh well. Fast and testimony meeting went really well and for a group of twenty people you have to run up to the pulpit if you want to share your testimony. Those Hispanos like to talk about their faith! The Ford's invited us over for dinner which included the absolutely savage comment from one of their kids to close out the spiritual thought. 

Elder Nelson: " So with that, we'd like to invite you guys to pray for more missionary opportunities."

Ryan Ford: "I thought we invited you." 😧

Who knows if they'll pray for missionary opportunities but I guess we learned a valuable lesson about inviting kids to do things. God bless all you primary teachers out there. 

Random Stuff 

• We saw a high school fight one day walking the streets and it was pretty sad. We were probably on some ones snap chat or something... Kids these days, acting like fools. 😕 
• Elder Nelson was blessing the Sacrament and broke the biggest pieces of bread for fast Sunday I've ever seen. Bro. Reyes held it up and laughed a little. You gotta love the group. 😂 

So yeah, it's been a good week with just a lot of showing my comps the area and explaining who everyone is! We have a busy week ahead of us so I'm looking forward to it! I have been thinking a lot recently about blessings and how thankful I should be for the things I have been given. So many people we see just want to have a decent job or speak English and those are blessings I have been given from a loving Heavenly Father that I don't even realize a lot of the time. Gotta develop that attitude of gratitude right? Thanks for all the support and love! Have a good week! 

Just Believe, 

Elder Halls
Pictures: Tire trouble; Teaching the Fords how to ball; South Side