Hello everybody!
This week has been pretty good! Elder Crockett and I are alive and well! Most of this week was just normal missionary things, knocking on doors and the like. On Tuesday we were tracting in the snow, (which honestly, I didn't like it at all at first. I kinda wanted to punch something because of all the cold white frozen hydrogen dioxide touching my face, but eventually it became kinda fun) and we knocked on a lady's door and she opened up and talked to us for a while, said she'd be interested, and then offered us some of her George..... They slaughter their own cows and they had some fresh meat so they gave us a part of George and he was literally the best burger I've had on my mission. It was also my first time grilling and I had no idea what I was doing, but it turned out delicious! Pictures are provided below. But anyways, she was super nice and we are going back this week sometime. On Wednesday after district council we went to Mellow Mushroom for District Lunch and then we went on exchange with the Zone Leaders! I went with Elder Sorensen to Liberty and it was a lot of fun and I really learned a lot from him!
We have something called a mission tour tomorrow which I'm super excited about because Elder Costa and his wife are coming to speak to all the missionaries! It's going to be very enlightening. I'm excited!
This week missionary work wise was alright. We weren't able to meet with Kevin or Amy at all, which are two of our most promising people we are teaching, but we did get to see John and Maggie again finally! It's been about 3 weeks since we've seen them because something always came up, but I do know that they want to meet with us! If only we could get people to come to church, we'd be doing great! We did meet an inactive member and his fiance last night and they want to be taught and come to church and they have a car and live close to the church, so that's awesome! Pretty much everything a missionary hopes for haha! Hopefully everything goes well with them! But I have definitely seen the hand of the Lord in this work!
And I definitely saw the hand of the Lord last night when we almost died...
Story time!
Aight, so last night we were driving around trying to find former people that were taught that lived out in the boonies, and it had just rained the night before and then froze on all the trees and everything was either soaked or frozen. So we were driving around looking at the map and it told us to go down this small dirt road, so being the true millenials that we are, we followed the technology and drove down that road. Whilst going down, our small white Malibu was scraping against the ground and not having a fun time trying to get down there. The road was supposed to go through to another main road, and it probably might've, if it wasn't for the huge tree that was in the middle of the road..... So we are down at the bottom of this hill on this tiny muddy road, stopped by a tree, and it's almost 5 o'clock at night so it's pretty dark and freezing cold. So the only thing we could do was turn around and try to make it back up, obviously. So we did that, and about 1/6 of the way back up, our wheels start spinning in the mud... So we tried everything to get that car up that hill. We put sticks under the tires, we tried pushing and maneuvering the car, we tried backing up to get momentum, and nothing worked. So we prayed. Right after the prayer I called Brother de Robles to come find us, so he and his wife drove down and we stood out on the main road in the freezing cold with a flashlight waiting for them. They eventually found us, took us back to their house, fed us hot dogs and goldfish, watched a little video called No Ordinary Shepherd (which was super good), and then we went and pulled our car up the hill with some cables and stuff they had. We are both safe, warm, fed, and alive! The Lord is aware of us and knows our needs and I am thankful for him and definitely for the de Robles family!
The end.
Hope y'all have a good week! Love you! Stay safe and uncold!
Love,
Elder Stephen Ray
93 Short Street apartment E
Russell Springs, Kentucky 42642
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| Nametags for the aesthetic and stuff... |
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| Exchange with Elder Sorensen in front of our church |
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| Elder Crockett and I were not a fan of the snow |
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| The best George I've ever had |
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| Brother de Robles helping us with our car |
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| Thank you for freezing our car Kentucky |