Week 14 - Brownsville, TX

I will first start out by telling you my week.

Monday: I went to Chick-fil-A!!!! It had been like 5 months since I have last had chick-fil-a. It was really yummy. I got the #2 meal with a large fry and the new cookies and cream mocha shake. The shake was okay. Not the greatest but still good. I had missed Chickfila.

At the church we played basketball and poisonball again. We started with poisonball.

In the first five seconds I got a huge rug burn on my knee. It didn't hurt as bad when I was

This is about two days after the rug burn.

playing. But I have been taking care of it. We actually had a little bit of time extra so we played Zarahemla in the apartment. it was a lot of fun. That night we found 4 new investigators. Miguel and Bonita. Husband and wife, but we haven't had the opportunity to sit with them again. The other was Hugo and Marcos. They are friends. But they are pretty cool. They have some good questions and want to learn more. We haven't gotten to talk to them for a week but we are having a lesson with them tonight.

Tuesday: Since it was Labor Day Monday we email on Tuesday. Afterwards we had lunch at a members house. Gustavo Hernandez. It was pretty good. Elder Guillette got a big stain on his shirt. It was pretty funny. But we later cleaned it. We went cowboy hat shopping after lunch with the members. Elder Bawden and His companion elder Newland have permission to wear hats. Elder Newland has a skin condition where he burns super easy. He can even burn through his clothes.

Wednesday: We had lunch with the Castillos again. We went to a place called Taquito Express. All you can eat tacos. I ate 18 tacos. Another elder ate 25. He holds the record for I think the zone. I know that I can do 25 but I know that my stomach would hate me for the rest of my life. I would be super stuffed. We were able to get 2 member present lessons that night. We had 4 planned but two couldn't come. Being a missionary I now know that members are super super important. We had raspas that night. They are pretty much snow cones but better. The ones we got were natural flavored. I had a mango one and Guillette and a pina (pineapple) one.

Thursday: Not a lot happened. It mainly rained. We had lunch with the Marquez family. I don't remember what it was called but it was a super good soup. Later some members dropped some food off for us at the church - giant container full of spaghetti. That night we went to a members house and were having a lesson. When we were done they gave us some tacos. Man I absolutely love Hispanic food!!!!!

Friday: Nothing happened either. It rained all morning. We went to the Olveras house and had lunch. And that night we went to another less active members house and mowed her lawn. The same one as the pictures before when I was mowing.

Saturday: We had lunch with the Torres family. I think they are one of my favorite families ever. So funny and they can talk English…thats partially why I like them. haha We had more tacos there and she mad a boss Chocolate flan cake. AAAGGHH! It was amazing. I loved it. I am trying to get the recipe because I know that you guys will love it! I know that you will be making it a lot when the family gets together.

That night we had a church tour with an investigator and a member. But when we went to go prepare we walked in the church doors and smelled sewage. It was stinky. We looked in the bathrooms and they were fine. Then we looked at the font.....it had a pool of sewage. It had rained every day this week and so all the water made it back flow up the pipe.

Well, you know what this is. GROSS!!

Sunday: Well none of our people came to church. So we are pretty bummed about that. But that morning we got there and Elder Guillette and I went to go clean the font. The water was all gone. But there was just a dry brown layer left. We had to clean it so the other elders could have a baptism. We got all the stuff out scrubbing it. Then we put soap in it and scrubbed more, then filled it for the baptism right after church. Only like 3 other people besides us knows that the font was full of poop just a couple hours before ;)

So that's my week.  Alright so to answer your questions.

I am doing pretty good. Just doing the work. Working my hardest, and having fun. But our mission president is cool. We are going to have Zone Conference this Wednesday in Harlingen with the Harlingen zone. But I still haven't heard anything about visas. Not even anything about tourist visas. So I have no idea.

Santiago and Ashley are doing good. The ward is doing pretty good with youth. There is a good number of them here. The primary is good. Marquez who we ate lunch with is the primary president.

So the Chili. Holy Smokes its good. You could probably look up how to make it.
Everyone just makes it a different way. It is mainly just peppers that are blended up. Like a guy told us he puts jalapenos on the grill to gets juices going and then he sticks it in a blender and its done. It mainly goes on tacos but its just up to you.

So I am absolutely stoked for Allison, Steven, and Uncle Van and Aunt Wendy. That is super cool that there are going on one too. I am sure that you guys cant wait until Jared is gone so that you can go.

So when we get a chance we are going to go shopping in the downtown area. It is a bunch of street stores that area really cool.

So I think that is all. I will send another email with pictures. I hope that you guys have a great week. I love you!!

-Elder Dawson

A tie that Allison sent me when she went to the temple.
Super awesome tie!

A sign that was on the door of a house we visited the week before.
 But we don't think it was intended for us. When we talked to the
guy he said some other missionaries had come by earlier. We
are pretty sure that it was the JDubs (Jehovah's Witnesses) 
because they are the most common.  But so we think they came
 back again to his house during the week and the people then put up the sign.

This is the Brownsville Elephant. People just drew a face on it

Just a cool thing that was hung up outside of someones house we visited.