WEEK 11 - Un Domingo Milagroso
I don’t have a lot of energy, nor desire, to write up something to keep my creative flame stoked, so instead this week’s email will essentially be a journal entry I wrote all about yesterday. Besides that, not much else happened this week. Sugar Land, Texas and the people who reside here are awesome and it feels as if I’m living out Boyhood (2014) everytime I ride through neighborhoods and it feels as if I’m living The Tree of Life (2011) every time I fall in back in love with the trees of Texas whilst preaching the Gospel (Terrence Malick would be proud). Not many other crazy things have happened aside from a woman trying to seduce me, listening to some CRAZY syntax in General Conference talks from 1971 (“A few days ago, I had the pleasurable assignment of visiting some of our Lamanite friends in Supai, at the base of the Grand Canyon, in Arizona.” from Marvin J. Ashton in “Love of the Right”), and continuing to harbor some incredible relationships with our friends and my barrio of Houston 4 Spanish. I adore it here, and while it may not be as insane as other missions, not a day goes by where I’m not content and anxious to go back out into the field the following day. Houston is becoming my home. So, I hope you enjoy this eventful Sunday from my week.
03/10/2024
I am devastatingly tired. I have never hated daylight savings more in my life than today. But, today was maybe the best day of church on the mission ever. Like we get there, I’m just chatting with the bishop's kids and they love me. They tell me all their plans for spring break including watching Kung Fu Panda 4 and I tell them to tell me all about it and they’re like, “next Sunday, we’re going to tell you everything.” They also mention their dad, Obispo Abarca, is going to take their older brother, Eugenio, to Mexico City on Tuesday until Sunday and that they’ll be having a slumber party at their house Tuesday night and how one of them, Tyler, hates slumber parties but his sister, Leah, loves them. I then say bye and say hi to one of our friends, Gustavo, who we’ve just been talking to on the phone and it was so awesome. Bro is like “the happiest person I’ve ever met” according to Obispo. I would agree. As we waited for sacrament to start, Yeisell (we’ve been calling him Jason this entire time when his actual name is Yeisell and we’ve been teaching him for over a month) strolls in and I set him up to sit with a member and then Hermano Mondragón (the ward missionary leader) tells us that the next lesson we have with him, Obispo needs to be there. Because the Mondragon picks up Yeisell, he told us stuff was going on in the house when he picked him up but wouldn’t say much more. Then, the Tito’s show up. They roll up, completely studded out. Like they’re super dressed up and there’s like thirteen people total that they walk in with. Essentially, their son–who is a member in the H1 stake–and his family were with them as well as their granddaughter and her friends, as well as another son and his wife. And they all showed out to come to church with Mama and Papa Tito for their first Sunday together. It was awesome. Papa Tito and his sons all had like these sunglasses on and they all were like in matching outfits. It was so sick. Like think of if The Godfather (1972) happened in Mexico. That was them. Then the sacrament started. I had a realization that I had just found out all of Obispo’s schedule for this week and we could plan a lesson with Yeisell and Obispo without it being inconvenient for both of them, and Samantha texted us she couldn’t make it because she had slept in but that she was really sad and she’d come next time. We then invited her to a baptism happening tonight with another ward and she said yes. Then we invited Gustavo and he said yes. Then we invited Yeisell and he said yes. So now we have three people (maybe more plus Samantha’s kids) going to a baptism tonight which is incredible. I’m so excited. Gustavo loved every second of church by the end of the two hours and Yeisell was the happiest I had ever seen him. Today was like the first day I’ve felt like received love from the ward. Like, I love this ward with all my heart and they love me back (hopefully). Before sacrament meeting, I forgot to say but, this Hermana Abuelita was just cracking jokes about my hair and to my face. She kept cracking them like every single time she saw me, too. Like she would say, “Parece que tu pelo se desordenó en el camino hacia aquí” and then just laugh. I love her so much. The members in the ward are obsessed with my hair, I think (because there was another incident a couple weeks ago where hermanas in the ward have been calling me Bernard from Megamind (2010)). We also had cleaning inspections at our apartment with this guy named Geoff from this other stake in Houston and I talked like legitimately about movies for the first time in so long. Like, we were just going on and on and on. But he was pretty cool he dropped some bars about how our life on Earth and our goals on Earth shouldn’t be to minimize sin but to maximize righteousness in the next life and some stuff about his experience being gay in the Church and his opinions on that as well as how missions should be terrible because they inherently and fundamentally just are like having and expecting you to love a companion, someone that you would never associate with in real life because you are polar opposites, does not happen in real life like in real life you can just slowly not talk to that person but on the mission you can’t do that and odds are the companion feels the same way but anyways tangent we went to our member meal super late because Geoff yaps a lot. The baptism was awesome. Yeisell showed up but neither Gustavo or Samantha could make it and the baptism was actually baptisms because three people were getting baptized. It was super powerful. Also, it was practically zone conference because there were like 17 missionaries there and Sister Richards ended up showing up too. It was so strange. The first thing I did was go up to Elder Bird and tell him about Hermana Dana and I (because Elder Bird is from her home ward in California which are crazy odds). I wish you could have seen his face or if I could find the words to describe it but it was like a cartoon character coming to a huge realization like it was hilarious. He then pulled up this picture of me and Hermana Dana from our farewells and was like, “my mom sent me this and told me to find Elder Ethan Johnson because he is dating one of the Dana girls. THAT’S YOU!?!?” Then after the baptism we talked all about Hermana Dana and the Dana’s, and then he kept calling me Elder Ethan Johnson for the rest of the time it was so funny. Today was actually so good. And the Oscar’s are happening as I write this. And Oppenheimer (2023) is probably sweeping.
I forgot to mention. Check my Google Photos because on Wednesday I also had a spectacular night. We went over to the Titos’ and it was Elder Anderson’s birthday so they threw him a surprise birthday party. Like they did this whole bit where they were talking about how they NEVER forget their kids’ or grandkids’ birthdays but that they had forgotten one of them today because as we walked in they had their entire house was decorated like a party had just happened. Then they like slow turned towards Elder Anderson with smiles on their faces, brought out a huge present, and then whipped out this divine cake that we all got to share. Their last names aren’t even the Titos but because we’re all their grandkids now, they call themselves the Abuelitos. So essentially, I have the coolest Mexican grandparents in the entire world.
If you want to see all the pictures ever, go here.
HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM:
If you want to see just this week's pictures go here.
WEEK 11:
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