Thanksgiving on the Farm!!

We didn't have too many exciting things happen this week, but we did find 8 new investigators! So our finding went really well this week. The Blinn college campus was closed for the holidays so we didn't really get to go on that.

My new companion is Elder Sanchez! He is a beast! He's awesome and we are probably going to be together in Brenham for like 3 months, so I am excited about that! 

We spent thanksgiving at the Knox family, who are my favorite people in the Brenham Branch! They are great, they live on a farm in the middle of nowhere.  The Branch we cover is huge, we have Brenham right in the middle and we can go 30-40 miles in any direction! And it covers a total of 5 counties It's awesome! All the members live super far away and have tons of property and animals and such!

But thanksgiving at the Knox's was a lot of fun. We had smoked turkey and brisket. It was delicious!! We got to pet all their animals, they have horses, donkeys, chickens, dogs, cats, bunnies, and geese! So it was cool! 

The only thing I really missed this year was grandma's pumpkin pie!!!! 

Guy the Horse!

Smoking the Turkey and Brisket 

Ella the Donkey

Brenham District

My Desk with my little Christmas Tree!!

Go To The Temple....Harry said so!!

I am doing well! We had some good experiences this week, we found a
college student that has been reading the Book of Mormon and is loving
it, so we are hoping to set a date with her soon! 


Other than that, we
didn't do too much, the highlight of the week was of course was
getting the chance to go through the temple! Got to love the temple!
Once again, you and dad better be making time to get the temple as
often as y'all can!  The temple is the best place in the world! So you
better be going, it makes everything better when we consistently go
and come closer to our father in Heaven!

New Area/Baptism!

Can you believe I am going
to hit my year mark in like the blink of an eye! I swear i still feel
like I have been out for only like a couple months... time is flying!
We didn't really do much for halloween, we had to be in early, so we
had to do our 3 hours of proselyting during the day, so we went out to
college station for a few hours to hang out with the district just for
a little. We just played bumper pool, ping pong, real pool and board
games at the institute building that's across the street from Texas
A&M. It's weird being back in the same place almost that I was when I
started my mission. But farther away, when I was in Bryan, Bryan is
literally the same city as College Station, they are mixed together.
But Brenham is like an hour away from College Station. We are
seriously like in the middle of nowhere, but I love it here, its nice
out here. and its really fun doing all the work on the Blinn College
Campus.



We baptized Liticia this week! She is awesome and is such a
sweetheart! So that was an awesome experience! It always is an awesome
experience to baptize new converts!

Transferred and Robbed!!!

 I might as well be herding cows... I am now in the Brenham Branch... which is out in the middle of nowhere... and it's been a little rough of a transition. I am not a big fan of the country.

When I told his Aunt Megan about his transfer and the new area he was in...She said Brenham is "the land of contented cows" AKA, Bluebell Ice Cream which the creamery is out there!! At least that part should make Harry happy!! 


So this week went alright, we are teaching a lot of people here in Brenham and we are just about to have a baptism this weekend! Her name is Liticia! She is super excited for her baptism! And so are we! It has been great to see the change in her! Also what happened this week was the occurrence of us being burglarized! We got in our car like Tuesday morning and I noticed that the seat was moved really far back! (I'm the only one that can drive) so I knew that somebody had got in the car because there was no reason for the seat to be back. And then we looked around the car and saw that the gps and my MP3 were stolen... so that was a real bummer! But I consider myself super blessed though! I had kept my wallet in the middle console overnight and apparently the person who decided to steal stuff decided to leave my wallet and everything with it and as well as our mission gas card in the glove box! So that was such a blessing that those things weren't stole. 

I was talking Texan to him in my email to him and this is his response....

And also... that was terrible Texan! You just used like two words that are Texan... so y'all better be fixin to work on that there Texan ma'am or you'd best be ready to be tumpt o'er. See... that's a Texan sentence!! Get on my level momma!! 

That child!!!!!! He is very entertaining!!

Last picture with my "son" AKA my trainee!! :(

My new Brenham District!

High School Football/Senator Service Project!!

So, I'm behind on updating the blog but it's been a couple of slow weeks for Harry!! He did finally get to check out a football game which is the one thing he wanted to do in Texas!

This is his response to the game.....


And yes the High school game was fun! The team we were cheering for was destroying the other team... but in all honesty, the stadium is bigger and there are more people there, but it was not as crazy as ours! Like I swear even before our student section got bigger and crazier, our section was a lot louder and a lot crazier than they were. Their student section was super boring and didn't do anything! 

Their ya go.....STALLIONS RULE!!

Not totally sure about this mascot!

We did this big service project we did down in Houston. We had about 14 missionaries at this thing, where we were being basically servers for some huge senior citizen convention. But ya it was ran by some senator named Sylvia Garcia. 

Senator Service Project!

Apparently, he says he's buying this car...A Bel Air!

Can't Hang!

First of all, It was a really good week! We had a lot of great stuff happen this
week! Mostly the fact we found 3 new investigators, and we haven't
found one in a really really long time... This area is really really
small... So pretty much most people we talk to, have like talked to
missionaries every 2 months. So it's tough to get people to listen.
But we have these three new investigators that are all super solid and
so we are excited to see how it goes with all of them.

To answer the question if it is cooling down or not... I'll
answer by saying no... It was 10 at night and still 93 degrees
outside... AT 10 AT NIGHT IT WAS 93 DEGREES!!! ITS RIDICULOUS HERE!!!!
I AM SICK OF THE HEAT!!! I SWEAT BUCKETS!!!

So whenever we are planning for the week if my companion falls asleep, I take these pictures of him and say "Can't Hang"!

I can't believe I FELL ASLEEP!! Good job to my awesome companion!!

New Diet Plan!!

Some members took us to the Natural History Museum last week for pday! They have

this butterfly exhibit where you go in and it's like a huge jungle

with all sorts of plants and there's streams and a waterfall and there

are like butterflies of all kinds just flying around you, it was

pretty cool! Except when the big ones almost hit your face!!

So he sent me this picture of a huge bug and these signs about insects being a healthy alternative to meat???? WHAT!!! The one picture shows how insects compare to beef and chicken! I didn't include the other information pictures he sent but one of them says this...

"Its purely a matter of taste. We savor their close relatives, the crustaceans! So the next time you think about shucking a crawfish, dining on lobsters, or munching on soft shell crabs, Why not snack on a grasshopper po'boi instead??"

I did email him back real quick and told him that I didn't want to hear he was starving!! He could make endless amounts of cockroach tacos!!! hahaha

Not too much happened this week, I had a lot of meetings I had to do
as a district leader. We had our Missionary Leadership Counsel which is
a 8 hour meeting and then the next day I had a 4 hour meeting for the
New Leadership Training. Other than that we have been trying to do
things like find a weekly service project  we can do, and so that
was the picture the member sent, we went into a goodwill and were
signing up to be volunteers there. So ya we did that, we tracted a
whole lot and then we helped this one guy who was pretty funny but we
pulled up and asked him if he needed help and he let us help cut and
trim his bushes. Then we shared a bit of our message with him and then
he told us to come back sometime, so hopefully something comes from
that. As we were leaving he was telling us that we were like what  Christians should be, telling us that we were like Jesus because we
stopped and offered our help and then shared the gospel so he was
happy about that. So neat experience!

Picture at the goodwill!

District Meeting!

1st Birthday on the Mish!!

So for his birthday I sent a package with party hats that you could decorate, those annoying things you blow on to make noise, and even sent pin the tail on the donkey. I ordered pizza and had it delivered to the ward building for his district! Aunt Megan also brought him a cake and cupcakes for everyone that day! 
So this was his response to that...

My birthday was good! We had a lot of fun with all the things on
Monday, we only took like one picture though. REALLY only one picture...that kid!! 

But I have quite a few
pictures from the Dinner I had with my recent converts on Saturday! I
love this family so much! They made me a cake with candles and
everything and then they gave me a gift.... Which was a super nice
camelback... And I was so happy!!! It was such a
thoughtful gift!

Anyway the week went good, my first district meeting went really well, nothing else happened this week, we really didn't have much

happen this week, we basically have just about knocked on every door

in this area now, and we still really haven't had too much luck. But

we are still doing our best to find people who are ready to receive the

gospel and make the change in their lives for the better.

Temple Work/District Leader!!

My week was really good, we had a pretty exciting week! On Wednesday
we went though the temple, it was our Temple day, so I went through
with my own ancestor name which was a great great grandpa from Grandma
Stringhams side. His name was John Reginald Wood. I got to do the
Baptism, Confirmation, initiatory, and endowment for him. It was
really awesome!! I love the Houston Temple, it's like one of my
favorites! When you come to get me when my mission is over, we need to
go do a session in it! 

Anyway, we also did a ton
 of service this week, we did some service at
the Peanut Butter Factory, and at the Houston Food Bank so that was a
lot of fun.  And then on Friday we set
another baptism date with one of our investigators named Andrea, she
is a non member of a part member family. But we set the 24th of Septmeber
for her Baptism. That's pretty exciting, the other thing that I did
this week, was that I bought a super fancy pair of large scriptures at
the distribution center when we went through the temple.

So the big news I have is that I have just been made the District Leader over the Houston North District.... And that it's really
frightening...

Service and Confirmations!

I did my first confirmation! So that was really
neat! And ya we had Katherine baptized! So it went really well! 3
baptisms in 2 months! The work is really moving! The lord is hastening
the work!

We got to teach at President
Mortensen's sons baptism. His youngest son  had his baptism
and we taught a little lesson during the changing period. And then we
got to be in the confirmation circle and that was pretty exciting.

We also did some service at an elementary school called Kuenhle
elementary! (I bet you can't pronounce that word ;) but anyway we just
pretty much put together paper packets for two hours, but it was fun!

Ummm then we started doing our youth lessons this week. We started in
the Ward a program where we teach the youth 14-18 the first three
discussions. So that they can be treated like an investigator and they
can go through the conversion process as well, so they can a
foundation in the gospel that will help them through high school and
through their lives. So that was fun beginning to do that! The kids
thought it was pretty fun! Other than that we really didn't have to
much happen... There has been rain everyday for awhile and  this
week its supposed to rain off and on. 

Houston Zoo/ Aunt Megan & Uncle Bill Visit!

First off, things are going good here, we just set a baptismal date
with a girl named Kathryn. She is Letty's, (our recent converts) sister,
she was the other girl that was in the baptism pictures of Letty and
Arturo. But ya things are going great! We are trying to get the Ward a
little more missionary minded and such because the area is small and
the work needs to pick up in the main ward we cover.

Last P-day a member took us to the Houston Zoo, which is out of our area! It was so nice to go and visit the zoo last week!!

Aunt Megan lives in Houston and was so thrilled Harry was called to serve down there! When Matt served his mission many, many moons ago in Oakland, California, she actually lived there at the time! Coincidence??? Maybe?? Regardless, it has been a great comfort knowing she is nearby! She has been patiently waiting for him to transfer closer to her! He is still out of her area but she picked them up last week and took them out for some Texas BBQ!

All in all it was a good for week for these awesome elders!!

6 Months Down!!!!

I was made a trainer this past week and the training is going really well! Elder Tweedie is awesome! 
He is really stoked to do the work which is really good! And I am excited to see
the great stuff that is going to happen in the area over the next
three months! 

So I asked him if he was a fun or an uptight trainer and this was his response....

And I am a fun trainer!! Why would you even think I
would be uptight??! Am I ever uptight?! Are you kidding me?! I am the
funniest and most wonderful person in the entire world! Remember?!

Boy, he doesn't have a big head does he......

This is all the trainers waiting to be paired up with their new companions!

This is the entire picture of all the new missionaries and trainers having lunch together!

His new companion, Elder Tweedie!

Not too much happened this week honestly... It was a really slow week,
I wasn't in my area for a few days while I was waiting for my trainee.
But I was in the coolest area in all the mission!! I was in the
Melbourne area which is like actual Houston and the apartment for the
missionaries is like right next to downtown. 

Downtown Houston!

The mom and son in the middle of this picture are his recent baptisms! He went and did baptisms for the dead with them!

Baptism/Alligator!!

The baptisms went great yesterday! My first real investigators that I
baptized myself. It was really fun, the mom Letty is the best she just
was crying and everything as she came out of the water and she just
was like the most golden investigator! So it was awesome! We are going
to go do baptisms for the dead with them this Friday! That's exciting!

Anyway... ALLIGATOR is delicious!! Haha it was way good! It did taste
close to chicken but it still had a different flavor! So when we are
doing my mission tour we are for sure going somewhere to get some
gator! You have to try it! You will like it! And I bet dad would like
to try eating it as well! 

Yea..I am not going to be trying Alligator anytime soon!! Also he had a great 4th of July! He had a giant nerf war and then they were at a members house I'm guessing since he didn't give me names to these pictures for some giant fireworks or I should say bomb! The video he sent of this so called bomb didn't work:( Let's just say boys and big fireworks made for a funny video!! hahaha

He doesn't really like any teams from Texas....didn't take him long to sport some new Texas A&M Shirt!! Yes, I did make fun of him!! 

Upcoming Baptism/Trainor!!!

My week was awesome, we had a great week, we are still teaching Letty
and Arturo and they are getting baptized this Saturday. And they are
getting so excited for it! We also had a guy named Ron come to
church, and he got to hear me talk... Because I had to talk in
sacrament! So that WAS nerve racking because my mission President  is in my ward!!

I have been
informed by the mission president that I will be training this
upcoming transfer! So that's what I will be doing in like a week and a
half. So that pretty exciting!

So still no pictures of this kid.....just a lovely cockroach! I sure hope he doesn't have these in his actual house!! So gross!!!

Awesome Week!!

The area he is now in is a very difficult area to find new investigators! It is a small area so it takes a lot of effort and work on his part! So I am happy that this week has been a good week for them and they are excited about their new investigators and love them!

I am doing awesome this week! We set two dates with a lady named Letty
and her son named Arturo! They just both moved here from California and
they are so awesome!! We have only taught them twice but we set a
baptismal date and they are so excited and it's just great! We had
them come to church and then we also had the mission presidents
fireside that they went to. Where I also had to sing in the missionary
fireside choir! So that was fun! That's pretty much what happened this
week so it has been a pretty awesome week!

This was at the Mission Presidents Fireside!

For some reason this kid can't take pictures while he's on a bike! I guess he doesn't know that he can stop the bike and take selfies!! hahahaha By the time he gets home, I will have him loving to take pictures of himself??? Yea, probably not!! hahaha 

Canning and Sweating..

I received this picture in a text telling me how he loves these missionaries and their willingness to help out at the factory!

They made anywhere in between 55 to 6500 jars of peanut butter going to the food bank! Harry loved working there and said they treated him really well while they were there and even was given 2 jars for himself!! I guess he will live off of peanut butter sandwiches for awhile! 

His email was short and all they did was tract this week besides the canning! But he did say "Anyway the bike riding is going fine! I am having fun getting to know everybody! But the amount of sweating I am doing is quite ridiculous! " hahaha Gotta love humidity!!