Thanksgiving Fun!

November 30, 2015

Well hello my good friends and family! What a fun Thanksgiving week it has been for us all!

So yes, Thanksgiving in San Angelo, TX was super tight! We started off the day with an awesome Turkey Bowl football game! It was pretty crazy. Lots of people, small field. But then some of us split off and played with some random dudes that came in a small group that are just visiting here from Lubbock. That was a fun game though too! It was good to get out and play a little pig-skin! I learned that I am really slow. Still faster than everyone else out there playing, but slow. I was trying to run but I just have no pop in my step anymore! My strides are a lot shorter than they used to I think. I feel like my legs are moving fast but I just ain't covering as much ground. So, that's depressing. Anyway, after our fun game of football we went over to the place of the other elder's in our ward and cleaned up a bit and played some Mormon Risk. Hahaha Elder Mangum crossed out all the nation names and renamed them with scriptural places! And then he named all the nations of troops different scriptural groups. So that threw a twist on it. Not really, it was the exact same thing.... but it was fun. Anyway, after I had basically destroyed my own army by myself................ yes, I am so terrible at Risk................ we went and had a plate of food at their neighbors place. They live in a duplex house and their neighbors across the wall wanted to feed us. So we went over at 12:30 and ate a plate. It was alright. But then, and 2:00 we went to the Lunkley's (he's the elders quorum president) with our ward elders and the Spanish elders and had a pig out! Holy camolie! They spoiled us! They had more delicious food than I've ever seen in my life! They had two dang good hams, a turkey, some amazing funeral potato type stuff, insane rolls, some orange jello stuff that was off the chain, and just everything you could ever think of. Plus, on top of that, they gave us each our own bottle of Martinelli's Sparkling Apple Cider! Oh man, it was a dang good time. So much deliciousness and so many laughs. I was definitely taken care of for Thanksgiving this year! And then after spending a few hours at the Lunkley's we went home with the other elders and me and Elder Cooper took a nap while the other 4 elders played Risk. And then we finished the night off at the Mauer's house (some older couple in the ward) for a chess tournament. Well, I thought I was going to win my first game of chess ever. But, Elder Cooper (who is TERRIBLE at chess) kept on barely escaping me and somehow came back to beat me. Sad day. And then he beat me again like 15 minutes later but I didn't even try that time around. I was more focused on my small plate of thanksgiving scraps that I was eating. So, I am still winless at chess.

 

Also, update on the basketball skills. I suck. I went on a tear for a few weeks but I have officially lost all skill. We played last p-day and I was terrible and then we play with the elder's quorum on Saturday mornings and I played terrible again. After going on a 3-point shooting tear I now can't shoot a 3 for the life of me. So, just an update on that. Thought you might be interested.

 

Wednesday through Saturday though (minus Thursday) was basically terrible, however. I don't even know how many miles we walked. It got rainy on Thanksgiving and then on Friday it got cold along with the wetness. So Friday and Saturday were near miserable. We didn't have any lessons with our investigators because they were all gone/busy with Thanksgiving and trying by former investigators has been a bust so we just walked and talked to the zero people that were outside and knocked on some doors to at least talk to someone. However, nobody answered their doors for us. We did talk to one dude on Saturday afternoon for about 30 minutes, but it was in his doorway. He was standing in the door frame and we were outside. And it was cold so I don't know why he didn't let us in to talk. Oh well. He was about the only person we talked to from Wednesday through Saturday for more than 10 seconds. So my legs have taken a major hit this past week. We would take breaks though and sit on park benches or something every hour or so to let our legs take a break. Those actually help a lot! But despite the leg and foot pain we had a good time and kept good spirits! We were able to laugh and have a good time together which made the hours go by faster! So that's a plus. It really wasn't all too miserable. I'm ready for this cold front to get out of here though. Things won't be as bad.

 

Things picked up for us a teensy little bit yesterday. We taught our first lesson of the week! A member invited a friend of his to church and his friend came and then we went over and shared a lesson with him at the member’s house later in the afternoon. However, this friend of his is kinda nuts. He seems pretty fried from drugs and stuff. I don't think he understood a single thing from our lesson. And he just became nearly homeless and doesn't have a job or anything so who knows how long we'll be able to meet with him. But hey, I'll take a lesson with anybody over walking for another hour any day!

 

Oh, I just remembered someone that we met on Wednesday that was really interesting. So we walked past this house and it had tons of cat stuff in front of the house. So, naturally, being the type to always knock on the interesting looking houses that have potential for a good time talking to someone weird, I went and knocked on that door and a 92 year old lady answered and said, "Are you who I think you are?" and then reached up and grabbed a very old looking book from a shelf right next to the door. This book, coincidentally, is copy of the Book of Mormon from the year 1920! Inside of it was written the name of the missionary who gave the book to her and a small note, and then also a little note with the names of some missionaries that ran into her a couple years ago! So we talked to her for a few minutes and wrote our names on the note along with the other missionaries’ names from a couple years ago! She said that she's read the whole book but she never joined the church or anything. So we told her we would come back and visit her again sometime! She told us that people call her Grandma Cats so that is what I'm planning on calling her! I think she gets a thrill out of being called Grandma Cats!

 

Anyway, that will be all for me this week! I hope y'all enjoyed your Thanksgiving holiday and hope you have a wonderful week as we continue on into the Christmas holiday season! I love you mucho!

 

With much love,

Elder Reed Ericson 


West Texas is so bizarre. This is a catfish head fence. I don't even know. We just ran across it while on exchanges.

Found this bull wondering around San Angelo. So I tamed it and posed for a couple of pics with it!