Elder Taylor Bassett: Just another week in paradise

Thanksgiving was great. We had two meal appointments spaced out several hours apart, so we were intelligent about it. The first one was with the Hunt family. The food was good there, but so was the second meal! We spent some time talking with them and ate.

It was hard to be productive the rest of the day, but I tried to do some good studies and fell asleep in my chair, because we had just eaten. In the morning, we couldn't study, because we went to the Turkey Trot. Some people in West Point put it together for a boy with cancer. He passed away the week before Thanksgiving, so it was an emotional week for a lot of people in West Point. Elder Harper and I sold raffle tickets, and Elder Harper got on the loud speaker and auctioned off the live turkey, $600. We know the guy that bought it and are going to kill it and eat it with him and the Kristiansen’s on Christmas Eve. It was sooo cold at the Turkey Trot.

At night, we at with the Facer family, and they also invited the Kristiansen’s over. So we got to eat the turkey we killed! It was pretty good, but I'll be honest turkey is turkey. They say the non-frozen one would be so much better, but it all tastes the same. I ate a pretty good amount and had some pie but not as much as usual. No one sent us home with leftovers!! SO there were no leftovers this year, but that's ok; I am still very grateful.

So that was obviously a slower day and we were ready to get back at it. It is harder to do that in areas like this even working hard just feels slower. There's nothing like coming back from a holiday like a day of tracting, but it looks like those days are gone.

It snowed and stuck to the ground today, so it was cold this morning on the way to the gym. This is the first snow that stuck so far this year. That's not true; last week I think it did but just barely, this is the first real snow. I am sure the mountains are covered.

The Kristiansen's are great. Fin was the tough one at first. He ended up reading and praying. He said something after a lesson when we were talking about baptism in Danish, and Kristina got wide eyes and said tell them in English! And he looked at us and said, "I'm ready." So he is ready even though we haven't even taught him about the commandments yet. They already started drinking ‘mormon’ coffee (some barley drink). He is ready and has completely changed, but the doubtful one that says he doesn't want to is Anders (pronounced Anas), the 12-year-old. He felt the Spirit watching the restoration video but just thinks a lot of it is weird. It's hard for us to communicate with him at all, but Kristina and Fin want him to do it. Kristina is almost there; she just wants to know more details. We took them to a baptism last Saturday. It was for some English missionaries in our zone. We got there, and they are all Mexicans. There English was ok, but it definitely should have been given to the Spanish missionaries. I am biased in that sense, so I was pretty ticked. They had five Spanish baptisms that day into the English units, oh well. The frustrating part was the baptism was a mess; the ordinance was done wrong twice; someone else was using the font, so they had to share; everyone showed up late; the program was butchered; and the bishop had a 20 minute rant at the end even when he was asked to wrap it up after they got back in from changing. We gave some feedback to the missionaries, and I think they understood. I guess I am just critical. Either way, Kristina said she was glad to see everything go wrong, so she knows what the worst case scenario is. Anders' birthday was yesterday, so we went to a little party their fellowshiper had for them. We had a Piñata and Mexican food. The white guy doing it doesn't know I was a Spanish missionary and tells us that we have never tried good Mexican food until we tried his Mexican cooking. A white guy told me that, that doesn't speak Spanish. I got over my pride and ate it anyways (wasn't even spicy or that greasy!) and was grateful for his effort. Eventually, he saw my Spanish badge and realized his error and acknowledged my Mexican food eating skills, so I felt better. Ha-ha. Elder Harper can tell when I get prideful about Spanish. People will occasionally tell us a Spanish dish or a Spanish word and then tell us what it means in English. Or they will tell us something about the Mexican culture that isn't entirely true, and I have to fight with my whole being not to say something.

But Anders does love us that's for sure. We asked if they had questions at the end of the lesson last week, and he said, "When can you come back?" It made us happy. We love them; keep praying for them.

Gavin has been kind of avoiding us, but I taught him last night with a split. I did the first half of the plan of salvation and talked a lot about this life, and why bad things happen which is a big concern he had. I think that helped him out.

J. M. is new but could get baptized pretty quickly. His whole family got baptized a couple months ago and are really solid. J, right now, lives with his grandparents up the street. They hate the church and kicked their kids out (the M. family) except their grandson J. once they started taking the missionary lessons. They were in a homeless shelter for a little bit until Elder Harper found them a home that was in the stake. Then the dad got cancer the next week, so that softened up that heart a bit. We teach Joshua in the M.’s home, and his grandparents aren't happy, but that’s the way it is. He is about 13 or 14, I think, I can't remember.

Other people are going off and on, but those are the more solid ones we are teaching. We are focusing on new names and finding new people that aren't on the list of potentials that has been looked at for months with nothing happening. So pray for that! Oh, except Theresa. She decided to get baptized January 25th. It is a ways out there, but that's ok; we will keep her readying and praying until then. Her anti-Mormon daughter will in in town for the holiday's so that'll make things tough, but we can get through it.

Oh and good news. Angel got baptized!!! Ana didn't show up, so she still has issues, but he did it, so I am happy. He is from Jefferson 2^nd, the solid family we were teaching that dropped us. I am pretty happy. They asked who he wanted to baptize him, and he said, "The missionary who taught me before. I can't remember his name; the angry one." (That's me, ha-ha.) They had a member do it, so that is much better. It's good he remembered me even if it was for being the angry missionary.

So about that suit that tore, I got it fixed! I was so excited and wore it again and bent over to pick up my backpack, and it tore again. Guess it's time to retire the suit.

We went to the Kristiansen’s one night and had a fun game. They had some huge donuts, and we had a competition to see who could eat theirs the fastest without ever licking your lips; it’s harder than it sounds. Anyway that’s all for this week, I think. Yesterday we had milk, and it went well. I love you all!

Elder Bassett

PS What’s the update on Grandpa?

And Mom, The family Mejia! They make the best Mexican food I have ever eaten! They live in Preston. (They commented on Elder Bassett's Thanksgiving post on his Facebook page.)

If we found out we were related to the Kristiansen’s, that'd be awesome! I told them about Grandpa Gene the first day I met them, and I guess everyone says that to them ha-ha…that they have a distant relative from Denmark.

I love these pictures of Emma so much! she is so cute.