Wedding

1/30/17 Email:

So this week there isn't a whole lot to talk about,  but I did get to go to a couple of weddings, which was nice considering I missed my brother's.  One of the weddings was for one of our investigators who is on fire, Thomas Littleben.

It was a great wedding, and I'll be honest I got a little trunky, but thats okay.  Now Thomas can get baptized, but we had to push the date back 2 weeks because he didn't come to church this past Sunday...  

But other than that, we had a pretty good week, got a lot done, and had a good time.  I have been sick all week though so that makes things rough, but oh well.  

Something really funny that happened this week was Saturday before we went to the wedding we had to get gas.  So we go to the gas station, and it is pretty packed, so we decided we would wait behind this white lady (It's a rarity to see white people, not to be racist or anything).  But we pulled up behind her, and we instantly busted up laughing!  The struggle between this lady and the gas pump was for real!  She would try and push every button, and then she would pull on the nozzle/hose like she was trying to take down the pump so she could put it in her gas tank.  She did that over and over again, without any success.  So we didn't want her to see us laughing at her, and make her feel bad, so we drove and waited behind someone else.  It was just hilarious watching her fight this gas pump!

But that is about it for this week.

Love you all,

Elder Takis

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The Rez Dogs Strike Back

1/23/17 Email:

So this week has been a really productive, spiritual, exciting week for us here in the wonderful land of Tuba City.  We are working really hard with one of our investigators, Thomas Littleben.  He is on fire, and really wants to get baptized. The only thing that was really holding him back was he needed to marry his girlfriend.  They are getting married this weekend, so although I missed my brother's wedding, I will get to go to a different one. He was actually considering doing his baptism in between the wedding ceremony and the reception, which would have made it a waptism, but they have decided it would be too much for one day, and they would like to enjoy their marriage. But he is getting baptized the following week. So that is exciting.

It is amazing to us, because one of our other investigators, who is a little girl about 9 years old, hasn't been to church much, can tell you everything about a tithing slip.  We were teaching her and her older sister, and she just laid it out for us which was pretty cool.  

We also had an appointment with a family we met tracting, and they were so prepared for us. The parents, who are in their 70s, are less actives and haven't been to church in at least 40 years, said that they have been praying for some help and guidance, and then we knocked on their door, and they took that as their answer.  So we had a bout a 2 hour lesson with them and when we were getting ready to close we asked the father to say the closing prayer, and the spirit was so strong, and everyone in the family was in tears.  So that was really, really good.

I went on exchanges with my district leader, Elder Stott, and I had a great time with him, and I am really glad that he is my district leader, because he really shows how much he cares for each of us missionaries.

On Thursday, me and Elder Hudak had a lesson with another less active man who pretty much told us that our choices don't matter because we are all predestined for things and it doesn't matter what we choose to do as long as we believe in Christ. So we had a long lesson with him, and he would use these really weird analogies using mother earth, horses, bananas, and nuts... it was so confusing, and I was lost for most of the lesson, but it was funny.

We also met with Sariah Yazzie again, and she seemed really sober this time, so that was good, and we had a really good lesson with her and her son about the Plan of Salvation.

But Saturday... So we went tracting, in the morning, to one of the areas that are usually safer to tract. So this is where the title comes in...  I have always been nice to the dogs here, and I try to give them a good rep, but all the missionaries disagree with me.  So most dogs that may not seem very nice I can sometimes reason with them and things are chill. Well Saturday I was proven wrong. We walked to the door of this one house, and I couldn't exactly tell if it was growling at me or if it was just being cautious, so I didn't really pay it much attention and turned so my back was facing it.  Well obviously he didn't like me and he came up and bit me. It wasn't that bad, just put a couple of holes in my pants, they aren't big holes, and he scratched up my leg, but there wasn't any blood so we were good there. After I was questioning to say that I was done for the day but we decided one more house. That one more house was a less active man that has wanted to come back to church, and he told us his life story. He is a  Vietnam veteran, and had a troubling life, but knows that the gospel is right and he needs to be there, so that was a blessing for not giving up.

Sunday was a really good day. We had quite a few of our investigators and less actives at church!! But the usual teachers weren't there, so we taught Gospel Principles, haha.  After church we went over to a birthday party for one of the kids of one of our investigators. He just turned 2 and is just a bundle of energy!  But it was fun, When we were leaving I accidentally dropped some pesto on their floor... I felt like a clutz but I did clean it up as best I could.

And before we emailed today we went to Denny's and they payed for me to attempt the pancake challenge...

Unfortunately for me I only got through 6 1/2 pancakes before I couldn't go any further... So in this challenge of man vs. food...  Food won.

That is about it for this week, I'll have more to tell next week, so I hope the suspense keeps you glued to your chair by the computer 😉

Love you all,

Elder Takis

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Dumb and Dumber...

1/16/17 Email:

So the reason behind the subject is that, as a trailer, we have come to the conclusion that we are getting dumber...  But we have a book in our trailer that is supposed to increase our vocabulary, so we will go through it every now and again to try and get smarter. I will refer to it later though.

So anyway this week we had to start off walking, like I said last week, but I did get my Tiwi card on Tuesday so have been driving again.  The only exciting thing that really happened for the first 3 days was that we set a baptism date with one of our investigators. so that was about it up through Wednesday.

But Thursday is where the fun begins...  So Thursday morning, Elder Hudak and I made a banana cream pie.

The reason we made it was because it was for a birthday party for one of the members in our ward, it is her favorite pie, so we made one for her 16th birthday.  So we made this on Thursday for the party on Friday.  So after we made the pie, we went to zone training.  It was a good zone training, and there were a few things that we, as a zone, are going to do in order to be better, more obedient missionaries.  

After zone training, we went and got lunch, and I had to take on the Taco 12 challenge.

I told them all I could do it in under 5 minutes, because I thought they were going to be the soft tacos, but they gave me the crunchy ones instead.  So it took me about 12 minutes to eat them all, because they kept falling apart.  And because they were the crunchy tacos, my mouth was shredded after.  But I did complete it!

After all that was over, we went out to do some work.  We stopped by a lady's house who we haven't been able to get in with lately and she was home.  Her name is Sariah Yazzie, and she is an interesting person...  We had an interesting conversation with her, she has absolutely no filter so it was kind of an entertaining conversation.  But we set a return appointment for the next day.  We also had some run-ins with some rez dogs, living in the upper NHA housing, and one of them was straight mean, and it was like a mix between a great dane and something else, but we got scared and yeah, some of the rez dogs are not afraid of attacking you. Elder Hudak has been bitten and there are a fair number of missionaries that have had similar experiences.

Friday was another fun day.  So we went to the return appointment with Sariah, and in doing so she told us that when we talked to her the day before she was corned.  Now the word corned is one that we learned in the vocabulary book. It pretty much means drunk, but she said she was twisted and hammered, haha.  Anyway so she told us that and then we gave a quick lesson to her.  But yeah she is a soul that needs saving, haha.  After we went to the birthday party.  Well, most of the food was good; they had chicken/shrimp/broccoli alfredo, which I loved, but I ended up trying this soup called Manuto, or something like that.  It has a variety of things in it but the 2 main parts are this corn thing, and then the meat.  All I was told about the meat was that it was some kind of beef.  Turns out it was Tripe (Cow Stomach).  It was soo gross, it was like rubber, with zero flavor, so I only had one bite of it cuz it was just nasty.  So that was Friday.

Saturday was a little more relaxed, we had a couple of good lessons, and we gave one to this less active guy who has gotten into a ton of bad things, and has lost hope and faith, but that he wants to have that hope and faith again, so we are trying to help him.  But when we were at the grocery store getting dinner, we ran into a couple more corned guys.  They started asking us questions, and one of the questions was, "Do you think that Jesus died for you?"  Then Elder Hudak just simply bore testimony and said " I know he did" and the guy stopped talking so the power of testimony is very powerful.  It was really cool to see that.

Sunday we went to Church and did all that, but after church we ended up giving a couple of blessings, and that was really neat.  We took a couple of teenage members with us, one was the birthday girl I mentioned earlier.  And we had a really good lesson about the Plan Of Salvation.  We also gave a blessing at that lesson as well, and the Spirit was so strong during the whole lesson, and we challenged one of the investigators to really truly ask Heavenly father if being baptized is the right thing to do.  So that was good, and that is how my week went.

Love you all,

Elder Takis

The Great Tuba City

1/9/17 Email:

Alright y'all,

So this week has been crazy but fun, and interesting, with a lot of ups, and a few downs.  My new companion, Elder Hudak, is a straight stud.  We spent a long time driving together, since the drive from Farmington to Tuba is about three and a half hours, and we also drove to Page and back which was about a three hour round trip.  We get along great, and we are living with another set of elders, Elder Krauss and Elder Szendre. They are our zone leaders, and they are awesome as well, and we all are having a ball.

Well we have had a lot of lessons this week, and I can say that the law of chastity is now my favorite lesson to teach.  We taught it to a family of kids ranging from the ages of 9-24, their parents were gone.  Anyway the way we teach it is by using the "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" song, and they hadn't heard it before so my companion said that I was going to sing and do the actions for them.  So I did, and it was kinda awkward at first, but it was actually pretty fun, and they all had a good laugh. Then we went through the rest of the lesson, and I taught them about the "no-no square," so yeah, it was fun, and is now my favorite lesson.

We actually can't use our truck right now because Elder Hudak's license expired and I don't have a tiwi card yet, so we are waiting on my tiwi card and are on foot for the time being.  It has actually been a great thing; we have seen a lot of miracles from it, we get offered rides all the time, we wave and smile at everyone that drives by, so a lot of people see us, and we have gotten in with like almost everyone that has been a struggle to get in with before, and we see a lot of change in people, whether it is good or bad.  We actually were walking yesterday and one of our investigators ran after us to talk with us. He looked pretty sober from a distance but as soon as he started talking to us we knew he was under the influence, but yeah that was an interesting conversation, and he confessed some things to us and why he doesn't want to go further in the church and so on.

After our days are over and we are back in our trailer we like to mess around a little and make and sing songs. I have the recording of one, it is the "McDonalds Song," and I will try to send it to you (Elder Krauss sang it).  And it turns out that one of the senior missionaries here signed our trailer up to do a musical number at the senior zone conference. We are working on ideas and one of them was a piano battle, since we all can play the piano. We think it would be funny to have two pianos on stage and each companionship gets a piano and we just battle it out or something just for kicks and giggles, but we aren't sure so we'll see what happens.

It is a tradition that every week is a food challenge, and this past week Elder Krauss took on the 4 Big Mac challenge.  He got down three no problem, so we had to mix it up a bit, and we made him blend up and drink the last Big Mac, which he actually did, and he took it like a champ.  This week the challenge falls upon me and I have accepted the 12 tacos from Taco Bell challenge. The goal is to try and eat them all in under 8 minutes, so we will see how it goes.

We get a great workout in every morning. We go to the Diabetes Prevention Center. I have ran about 5-6 miles in the last week so yeah, that has been great, so I know I'm not going to get fat from these food challenges.

Love you all,
Elder Takis


His mom made a comment about how now that he's transferred it seems he doesn't need all the super warm stuff he'd asked for and gotten for Christmas.  His reply:  "...even though it is like in the 40-50's it is still freezing, cuz it is super windy, and the high desert plays tricks on you and your mind."


Pictures from earlier in the month:

Teec Nos Pos Branch Building

Missionaries' trailer in Teec Nos Pos

Shiprock

Four Corners, Four States

1/2/17 Email:

So this week has been an interesting one...  I have spent it in Teec Nos Pos, with Elder Wiggins. The area is pretty big, and covers the four corners. We did drive by the monument a few times.  But I can say that I have now officially served in all four states!  I have learned a lot about the Rez, and the natives, and I have learned more of the language. I can count to 10 in Navajo haha, and I am pretty sure that I have permanent whiplash from bouncing around all the Rez roads.  I don't have time for pictures right now, because of transfers.  And so, instead of staying in Kirtland, I am being transferred to Tuba City, Arizona.  I am a little sad about that, but things will work out for the best. I am in the Lord's hands anyway so not much I can say about it, haha.  But yeah, so my address will be changing and all that stuff.  But an experience I had this week was when we were tracting, and we knocked this one house, and someone yelled come in, we walked in and it was like walking into a wall.  There were three men, open containers of alcohol and they had been smoking, so we talked to them for like five minutes and told them that we didn't have anything for them today but that we would return with a special message for them.  So that was fun, but I got to go now.

Love you all,

Elder Takis