Avoid 6th Street

 Hi

Time flies : ) Here is another update of the Promised Land of McAllen...

GOOD:

- Made it through the week without any crashes, casualties or blood on my bike, so that was a blessing. However, poor Lupe did in fact get a flat tire this week. On Tuesday, we were out and about, cruising down 6th street to visit a member we felt inspired to check in with, when all of a sudden my back tire just disappeared on me. Come to find out I had totally ran over a nail. The cool part of this story is that the member we were on our way to visit is literally superwoman. Remember Nancy? She is the one who showed us how to load bullets a few weeks back. Yeah she is awesome. Quicker than I could even process what was happening, she had gotten me a new tire and helped us change it! We were back on the road in no time. In a weird way, I feel like this was part of God's plan for the day! Nobody else would have loved to help us as much as Nancy did, she was prepared and happy to feel needed!

- We were #chilling until last night around 5:30 when we were on 6th street again and my tire went flat AGAIN. Now before you all lecture me, yes I have slime tires and yes we know the spin trick. I was sooo frustrated with Lupe but I got him fixed up this morning and he is gonna have a good week. Moral of the story, do not bike down 6th street in McAllen.

- Got to do some service this week helping the Trayner family in our ward move. We got the entire Zone to pull up and honestly had too many cooks in the kitchen but it was awesome to see the support we have in the church. We will miss the Trayner family but are excited for their next chapter as a family.

BETTER:

- This week we had an awesome lesson with Agustin! We got into his home and were joined by his mom, sister, brother and his 1 month old daughter! Now background information, in all of our previous time with Agustin we have always spoke English. But, when I bowed my head to offer the opening prayer, I felt a strong prompting to offer it in Spanish. Now of course, this was weird so I quickly tried to push it away. When I opened my mouth to pray, it came out in Spanish. After the prayer, I opened my eyes to see Agustin overwhelmed by the spirit with tears running down his face. He said "I feel something special, that was so smooth and beautiful and I didn't even know you could speak Spanish." AHHH ISN'T THAT POWERFUL. By following a little prompting, I was able to help Agustin feel and understand the spirit. He stood up and hugged me because he was taken over by the feeling in the room.

- Agustin came to church, he brought a friend named Leeroy and they loved it! Before he left he assured us that he was going to bring his family next week. We were so thrilled that they had such a positive experience with Sacrament meeting.

- We had 2 lessons with Paul this week and he is struggling with the idea of giving up harmful substances in order to live the Word of Wisdom. He still has good desires and wants to change and make promises with God, he just has not yet received his witness that the Word of Wisdom is from God! But we have faith!! He was unable to join us for church this week because he was in San Antonio but we have a lesson with him Tuesday when he gets back and hopefully he has been reading and praying!

- We unfortunately do not have many updates about Julian or Judith this week. Julian has gone to church 3 times but he and Elizabeth did not show this week. If we get the opportunity to see them this week, we will very clearly outline the potential we see for their family and see if that is truly something they want or if we will have to stop teaching them for now. We have had meetings with Judith that have continued to fall through. Our plan with her is simple. Be bold, show her the blessings that baptism could bring her, and ask if she wants to prepare for that right now or not. Lots of good is happening in McAllen! Keep praying for the wonderful people here. 

BEST:

This week I took some extra time to study Christ's Atonement this week and gained some cool new insights! Here is a quick excerpt from "Testifying of the Great and Glorious Atonement" by Neal A. Maxwell.

"A great indicator of one’s personal conversion is the desire to share the gospel with others. For this reason the Lord gave an obligation to every member of the Church to be a missionary.

Those of us who have partaken of the Atonement are under obligation to bear faithful testimony of our Lord and Savior. For He has said, ‘I will forgive you of your sins with this commandment—that you remain steadfast in your minds in solemnity and the spirit of prayer, in bearing testimony to all the world of those things which are communicated unto you"

The Atonement is SUCH an amazing gift that our Redeemer Jesus Christ has given us. How could we ever repay Him? Short answer is that we can't. We simply do not have enough to give back to Him. But a way we can express gratitude for the Atonement and enable ourselves to receive mercy through the Atonement is by steadfastly remaining in the spirit of prayer and continuing to share the joy of the gospel with those around us. As we partake of the fruits of the Atonement, we are under obligation to help others understand and receive those same blessings. Go give this talk a listen if you have a second this week!

"Work Hard, Keep the Commandments, Have a Positive Attitude and Show Gratitude."

- Elder Stringham