A Young Boys Hopes and Dreams in Texas...

Picture a young 18 year old boy... boarding a plane to Lubbock Texas with hopes and dreams in his heart of a marvelous place filled with love and a fruitful amount of people for him to teach......then picture the same boy 30 minutes later looking out the window and seeing absolutely nothing but desert for a hundred and fifty miles and only three houses that entire time... this is a fact.... haha ya it was kinda a shock to look out the window and see nothing. Then to get off the plane and find out that they had lost my bag with my glasses and contacts in it, plus a number of other items haha, I have been flying blind for a few days now, but what I have been able to see has been nice. They picked us up from the airport in and van and we drove to the church haha, it is in the middle of nowhere. From there we stayed at the church doing classes all day for two days, then I went to where I am currently serving San Angelo. A modest humid green town, that has been over a hundred degrees the last five days. The bus ride to get here was 13 hours long with no AC so I was pretty stoked to get off that bus. When I get off I see my new companions. Yes, I am in another "tripanionship". My trainer is Elder Ashton and my comp is Elder Morgan they are both pretty short nice guys, I like them a lot and I am learning a lot. Being in Texas is hard. The mission is the hardest thing I have ever done. All of the people here like us and love what we are doing. "WE be talking bout Jesus Christ". They all love it, but not a single one wants to join our church. They all say it’s okay I've already been saved. In San Angelo there are over 290 different churches so there a lot of conflicting beliefs. But we still try so hard every day. We have rode our bikes over 40 miles a day every single day I have been here and my legs look great. My bike is way good but I was riding the other day on the highway and my tire got stuck in the railroad track so I flew seven feet and popped a tire it was sweet cause my watch was like scrapping on the ground and I smacked it really hard, but is totally fine haha. I also scraped my arm pretty bad, but you know.

I sweat a lot down here, it is weird.

Everyone in my area is also rich, so that doesn't help the cause haha. They all work in the oil field. If you live down here you either work as a cop, in the prison or on the oil field doing who knows what. That isn't a joke. The first real lesson I got to teach was yesterday and it was to a guy named Curtis, he is this huge black guy who is a cop and he makes a lot of sense with what he is saying but it is wrong haha. They say your testimony has to be the strongest here because people here can convert you to their church just like that and that is for real, it happens all the time. There is only one racially diverse missionary in my mission so that's that.

Picture Texas, what you think it would be like with all of the stereotypes and everything, and you’re right. It is exactly like all of the stereotypes. I catch myself taking to people in a southern accent all the time and it is weird. I have seen one American flag flying since I've been here and 172 Texas flags.

The people are really nice and I do like it here, but I just wish more people would listen to what I have to say. The mission is the hardest thing I have ever done but it will be worth it.

I use 3 Nephi 11 more then I use any other scripture down here because people don't know that Christ came to the Americas and called prophets here and it makes me so livid.

There are a lot of bugs. Keegan