Stuck in the Mud

Subject:	Stuck in the mud
Date:	Mon, 26 Feb 2018 14:14:03 -0600
From:	Brett Hogg

Hola Fam!

It's been a good week!

Monday night we got a couple new investigators. A couple days before we contacted a couple old Salvadorian lady's, and they said we could come back, so we did and wound up not only teaching one of them, but also her husband and her grandson and her daughter! 

When we got there they were eating dinner, and they invited us to eat, so we sat with them and they had pork and espagetti, and talked it was a good time. Then we sat and shared the Book of Mormon with them, and they had good questions and stuff, it was awesome.

Wednesday was eventful! It started with going to Sam's Club for lunch after a meeting (the English Elders had a hankerin' for churros). Well as we are eating there, a guy comes up and starts talking to us about religions and stuff and starts to kind of bible bash a little (bible bashing is not effective by the way, because even if you win (which missionaries are good at) you still lose)? 

Well he had some neighbors that were Mormon and stuff and it was all nice and stuff, a little "anti" but still friendly, and he tells us he moved here partially because of a cult. So there's a church close here in Wells, TX, called the Church of Wells. And missionaries always talk about how it's a cult and stuff and there's legends about it, how they ran missionaries out of town in the middle of night, forever ago, etc. The English Elders lived with the bishop for a week when they were moving, and the bishop lives in Wells, and they said they would always get really weird stares from people at gas stations and stuff. 

Anyway, he tells us that he helps people get out of this Cult and stuff, and I was a little floored because he was really serious about it and looking over his shoulder and stuff. I always thought that was just missionaries being dramatic, but it kind of sounds like a legit cult. Apparently that story all over the news a couple years back about the baby who died because they wanted to pray it back alive instead of taking it to the hospital, was them! He said on the weekends you can hear them howling and carrying on, and when you walk by they mutter curses under their breath. You should google it, it sounds crazy.

From Mom: I Googled it.. and while I don't condone speaking against other churches.. I have a problem when they cut themselves off from family members. Family is central to our church (members or not) and I can't imagine Christ would want it any other way.  I don't know of the other precepts of their beliefs, but I remember the baby from the news and I thought, "God helps those who help themselves" holds true over faith-based-only healing.

Then later that day we had an adventure. The ground is like mostly clay apparently, so when it gets rainy here, pretty much every inch of ground turns into a squishy, muddy mess. Well, we went to go by a young guy that lives pretty much in the center of Lufkin, so like city basically. Across from his house was an empty lot that his dad owns, that the neighborhood uses to park in. 

Well we park there, and after our lesson, we go to leave. Well if you didn't know, it's a rule that when missionaries are driving and have to back out, another missionary has to be standing outside the car guiding them back, for a y-turn, backing out of a parking spot, out a drive way, you name it. SO, because of this missionaries will go out of their way to find pull-through parking. 

Well on this lot we have in the past, we've just done a U-turn, and drove off the lot. So this day, when go to leave, we pull a really big u-turn (to avoid some flooded grass in the center of the lot (and I have it in 4-wheel drive just in case), and the truck just sinks right into the ground. 

Well I pop it into 4LO, and rock it a bunch. This isn't the first time we've gotten stuck in the mud here in Lufkin, so usually just putting it in 4 wheel drive and rocking it once or twice gets us out. Well this time it only seemed to make it worse. We start grabbing branches and random wood that's lying around and putting it under our tires and such, keep rocking it and nothing. By this point all the tires are sunk in the mud and the front right tire is almost to the top in mud. 

A good Samaritan, (a young hispanic guy of course) pulls over and asks if we need help, and we say yes! So he backs his F350, doully (not sure how to spell it, but it had double tires in the back), up and takes out a couple sketchy, short old towing straps and links em together aaand, it wasn't long enough. So he says he'll go get his dad, that has a tire shop down the road. They leave and come back with a different F350 doully, and more short and sketchy tow straps to tie together. 

Well we get it all rigged up and pull... and the straps snap apart. Some of the straps had a weird flat metal hook that wasn't very conducive to connecting to other straps, and we tried it a couple times and they kept snapping back and it was actually pretty dangerous, because the metal part kept slingshotting back, and one may have snapped back and dented our truck a little 🤔. Well we call someone else from the english ward that owns some kind of mechanic shop deal, and he says he can come. 

So the first guys leave and our member comes and he's got a Silverado, with only one set of wheels and was definitely a smaller truck (still like a truck though, not a small truck by any means, just not a 350). So we're a little nervous because we're not sure this is going to help anymore than the last guy. 

Oh yea, and at some point during the first people it started downpouring, so we were already all muddy but now we're all wet too! He gets out his really nice, long, tow strap, and pins it into our hitch thing. Well he gives it a go, and nothing. But we try again, giving both trucks everything they got and it starts to move, then a third go and it pops and swerves right out!! It was actually really cool to watch. A couple neighbors are even outside watching at this point, it was kind of a sight to behold. 

(More Pictures below)

Not sure if this fuels any Ford vs. Chevy debate, or is a testament to how important it is to have a good tow strap. There's probably a good metaphor to the Gospel in there somewhere. Anyway, afterwards we went home showered and changed and got on with the night. The Relief Society President  made us Posole that night! Perfect for a cold rainy day, It definitely hit the spot.

Posole is a traditional Mexican stew/soup. I guess I need to learn how to make that!

One of the coolest parts of the whole thing was that the First guy's dad that came and helped us was actually a guy we've been talking to about the Gospel! We haven't been formally teaching him but we've stopped into his tire shop a couple times and we go back and forth and what we each believe. 

He's a real nice guy, Pentecostal, and his Spanish is a little different, not sure how, can't quite put my figure on it, but he's a little harder to understand sometimes. It's good practice for Elder Nelson and I though.

We also volunteered at an animal shelter. We were looking for more service stuff to do and we signed up over there and it turns out you just go play with the dogs and cats and stuff. You don't even need to clean up after them or anything. So that was cool.

(More Pictures below)

We found some good people that we started teaching this week, nine new investigators. They're all awesome and want to come closer to Christ, or at least hear us out haha. I'll let you know how they're doing after we teach them little bit more.

Anyway, love the work here, love the people. All is well here on the front lines!

Love,
Elder Hogg

P.S. I got the (birthday) card (from Miss Diane - our Neighbor)! I was so surprised!! $50 in the mission is like $1000 in normal life. And I got the package!! It was awesome! Elder Nelson was really surprised about the stuff for him. And between us and the English elders the candy didn't last long. It's pretty much all gone now haha. 

You guys are the best❤❤❤

(Sorry if my email has a ton typos and is hard to follow sometimes, I usually write it in parts)