Welcome to Red Bank. The humid, hot, rainy, oceanside town. I seriously love it so much here!!!!! But it's super hot and humid like every other day haha! There has been like three days that it's like utah hot, but most of the time it's just sticky and sweaty. Thank goodness for mesh garments :) But it is nice that it's finally summer!! Kinda...every single person alive and their dog is working 24/7, and half the hispanics don't have air conditioning...plus our apartment manager just made us take out our big swamp cooler out because and I quote, "it looks unattractive on the side of the building." So...we just have the dumb little ac unit that came with the apartment. It gets pretty hot sometimes!
On monday we had a noche de hogar with the Tlatepa famiy, and they fed us enfrijoladas, which are basically tortillas soaked in beans with salsa and avocado and stuff. They are so good. e Beus ate 7, and Wilfrido, our old branch mission leader, made me eat 8. I almost died!!!!! But other than that, nothin happened on monday.
On Tuesday we had zone training meeting, which was awesome!! The new monthly focus is love, and we also talked alot about setting a Vision, Goals, and Plans for our mission, and for our area, and for our investigators. I also went on exchange with E marchant, an english elder in my district! He's so funnY!! We taught Odilon, a member who we teach during his lunch break on tuesdays, and Marta Reyes, a less active whose husband just died. We taught her about the Atonement, and it was really cool. She shared her testimony that she knows that she will see him again, even though he's not a member, and the spirit was definitely there. And Marta even came to church this week too!!! But then we had like three people juke us, so it was lame.
On Wednesday we taught Awilda, an investigator who kinda reminds me a little bit of mema ;) except shes shorter, fatter, and doesn't remember anything, but other than that...mema is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much cooler though (Of COURSE Mema is cooler) :). We taught a really good Gospel of jesus christ lesson, but afterwards, e beus told me that he's taught her that same lesson like 3 times haha ;) She doesn't understand the importance of getting baptized or anything, her family is pretty much the only hispanic family that is well off, and they're really americanized. They are fluent in english and spanish, and I think they're family is better at english. So hopefully we can get something going there. After that we had a noche de hogar with another member/lessactive family, the victorias. Their last name isn't actually Victoria though. Its a family of three sisters: Victoria Guadalupe Santamaria, Victoria salvadora Santamaria, and Christina somethin somethin. In what world does it make sense to name two of your children the same name?!?! Victoria Guadalupe is active, but the other two and their families aren't....So yeah, we had a fun family night, and they fed us ham and cheese sandwiches, and then we had another eating appointment right after that with David and Rocio. We're going back for another fhe with the victorias tomorrow, and I think we're gonna play soccer with them, just like we do at home!! ;) They have a 14 year old punk kid, so hopefully we can get him involved there.
Thursday was kinda rough, especially for E Beus...we did weekly planning, and we set a really good Vision, Goals, and Plans for our area, and we were in the apartment planning and stuff until like 5 haha! But after that, we went over to teach Katy and Alicia, and alicia's husband Ivan (less active). katy was napping, and then alicia woke her up and she was mad, and ivan wasn't even home, and we even got the Velasquez family (members) to come on team up with us there!!! So finally ivan came home, and we just read the second half of Alma 32 with them because that was what we assigned alicia to read and she didn't :( so. That was a bummer lesson. Then they invited us to stay for a bbq they were gonna have because hna velasquez is ivan's sister I think? but we couldn't because we had a lesson with Angel, which we were stoked for. So then we get to Angel's house, and he's not there. He juked us because he got held up at work!!!!! They work too much!!!! Also, E Beus got written off by his girlfriend(Poor poor guy!), so...after Angel, we tried by a few people, and then we went back to the BBQ haha! I didn't even know E Beus got written off until that night after everything was over, he just kept on truckin on!! I love him so much!! We also weren't able to go play basketball, we ran out of time...
So then on friday, we had our walking day. We walked and walked and walked and walked, and no one was home. Then we had our one dinner appointment with the Plazas, and they fed us pasta. Then we walked and walked and walked and still, no one was home. So we went home and went to play soccer. It was good, but the gym is way tiny, it's like the west gentile church size, so you can barely move...it almost wasn't even soccer ;) but whatevs, we got to do some running around.
Saturday was kinda rough too...we had a meeting with Pres. Flores, the branch president, and he's way cool!! We planned a BBQ which they decided will be on June 26 (hmmm, that's a weird day to have a BBQ...;)) and then they're like, wait, that's your birthday E Nelson!! Another reason to have a BBQ!! haha! So my birthday will consist of studies, weekly planning, a BBQ, and basketball. ;) but then we had to drive to Freehold, like 45 minutes south, to find a walmart to buy some supplies for a zone cake for an all mission activity this week! E Beus had it hardest on saturday I think, he had a lot of time to just think. So we talked about it, I tried to listen, and I'll tell ya what, he's taking this like a champ. He broke up with her before his mish so that he could be focused and prepared, but then they've just still been writing and she was planning on waiting for him. But, then he got written off, not for another guy, but for other stuff, I don't quite know... but, he's still working way hard and not letting it distract him!!! But literally every single person we tried by juked us on saturday. It was really hard to not be discouraged. So then we called angel to see if we could meet with him later that night, and he said he had a little bit of free time in between 7:30 and 8:30, so we did get that one appointment!!! And it was so needed!!!!! We just talked with Angel, figured out what's been stressing him, and just talked about life. His daughter who was sick is better now, so that's great!!! Then we read a little bit of Alma 40 which was his homework from last time. We explained just a tiny bit of the plan of salvation, and then he asked if we could stop until the next lesson. He really likes to go in deep explanations, so he like the digest tiny pieces of info at a time, it's actually really funny ;) but then he had a few minutes and we had a few minutes, so he brought out his piano keyboard and played us a new song he wrote for his wife!! It was so good!!! E Beus said it almost made him cry, partly out of sadness for his girlfriend, and partly because it was just so beautiful ;) it was really good!!! Then e beus told him that I play the piano (which I don't, I only know how to play 100 years by five for fighting ;)) and so I played that and Angel pretty much invited us to be in a band with him. He said if we had time sometime we could all go to his recording studio and make music, so you'll prolly be able to hear us on the radio soon. Look for "Angel and the band" ;) But then we went to bed happy. That made the week successful!
Okay, Angel is so prepared. He said he's going to start setting an alarm on his phone for when he needs to read the scriptures. And he said he doesn't need a ride to church anymore, he's going to be riding his bike every week. Plus also he showed up early to church. And he likes going. He is such a boss!!!!!!! I hope I'm around next transfer to baptize hiM!!!!!
Sunday was good!! The branch here is very unlike Motown, very cohesive, very functional. There are still problems that are being worked on, but for the most part, I feel like sundays are a successful day! Angel came to church, Marta the la came to church, and we had a random investigator show up to church for the second week in a row, and so I'm kind of praying this ends up like a miracle where she shows up to church with a member and then three weeks later we baptize her...;) she wants us to teach her during sunday school next week, so that's awesome!!! Then after church we were only able to teach one lesson, a street lesson to a drunk guy haha! But we tried by a less active, Miguel Lopez, who is trying to stop drinking. But....he was drunk....not good....After we talked to him we had to take a break for a little while, e beus was having a really hard time this weekend, and I don't blame him!! E Beus is prolly the most loving person I have ever met. He just loves everyone here so so so much, that even just seeing miguel drinking again brought him to tears. E Beus is a boss, and I'm learning lots from him!!!!!
As far as scary hood stories, salt lake isn't even hood compared to 90% of new jersey, mom you prolly couldn't live here ;) (We told him about Tyler and Emmas adventure running out of gas and getting off the 600 North Salt Lake exit trying to find gas....at nearly 1:00 in the MORNING. Pretty much the sketchiest of all the SLC exits!)
But that's about all this week, it was rough, but good!! Hopefully miracles coming soon! :) Love you guys, have a great week!! :)
Love,
E Tanner Nelson
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