We're back! But from Texas this time!

June 8, 2020 

Hey everybody! I'm back out on a mission! In case you haven't heard, I got reassigned to the Texas Lubbock mission. (It's the same mission Rebecca Beers was in, so you could say it's pretty cool. ) I don't know if I'm going to be going back to Argentina anytime soon, but if I don't, I think I'm going to love it here in Texas!

I'm currently serving in the Plainview North Area. In case you don't know where that is, it's about 45 minutes north of Lubbock. Our mission is actually pretty big, it's almost double the size of Utah. The mission president is awesome, his name is President Hales. He gets released in the end of June, which is when we'll get our new president, President Child. 

I'm absolutely loving it here in Texas! My companion's name is Elder Perez. He's from Virginia, but he was born in Ecuador, so his Spanish is pretty good. He's been helping me out a ton with my Spanish. There are quite a few opportunities to use my Spanish here. There are a few people in our area book where their primary language is Spanish, so that's been great to practice my Spanish a little bit with some natives. It's not Castellano (the dialect of Spanish they speak in Argentina), but it'll do for now. 

The work is kind of different here than it was in Argentina. Lubbock is definitely in a lot less of a lockdown than other areas of the country, but we're still not allowed to go door-to-door proselyting or talk to people in the streets. So a lot of our time is spent calling people from our area book or doing Facebook finding! You might have gotten an invitation on Facebook from our Facebook page, Church of Jesus Christ-Plainview, TX. If you could, please like the page! Hopefully it'll grow a lot and we can contact some people here in Plainview that are ready to hear the gospel.

It's been kind of hard just doing missionary work from our apartments, but we've also been able to see some really cool miracles so far. One example of a miracle we've seen is from a person we called named Andrew. We were going through names in our area book, calling basically everyone to see if anyone wanted to talk to us. We called Andrew after a while. He answered the phone a little grouchily, probably thinking we were solicitors. We told them that we were missionaries and asked if we could share message with him about Jesus Christ. He accepted, if a little grudgingly, and we just assumed he wouldn't pick up the phone when we called him back in a few days. However, a few minutes later he called us back and apologize. He said that he had actually been praying for someone to talk to in that moment. He had been going through a hard time recently, and so he told us he was really grateful we had reached out to him. We knew that we were an answer to his prayers. In the last few days, we've talked a few times and he seems really eager to learn more about the gospel.

It's definitely not easy just proselyting from our apartments with our phones, but I've definitely been able to see the benefits. I feel like we can reach so many more people through social media and calls and texts then we could just walking around knocking doors all day. I am so grateful for technology and the ability it gives us to reach so many people. I'm thankful we have it in this time so we can further hasten the Gathering of Israel. 

I encourage all of you in the next week to share a post about Christ, either on Facebook, Instagram, or whatever social media you use. You may not know it, but that post could come in a moment when someone didn't have hope, or was feeling lost. I know we have this technology for a reason, and we need to use it to bless the lives of others and to spread the gospel more. So that's my invitation for y'all this week!

Thanks for your support! I really love hearing from y'all when you send emails. Good luck with life and such, I know things are super crazy at home right now but I promise that as we look for Christ in every thought he will bless our lives.

Y'all have a blessed week!