Stormy here in the Deep East

Subject:	Stormy here in the Deep East
Date:	Mon, 9 Apr 2018 16:13:07 -0500
From:	Brett Hogg

Hola Fam squad!

Fist of all as you can see by the pics we've had some gnarly storms! The first was Tuesday, on our way back from Longview for a meeting. I was driving the truck and the clouds looked kind of weird, and we were like, "those clouds look kind of weird" then all the sudden, BAM a downpour and crazy wind! We thought it might have been the beginnings of a tornado. We could only really see the tail lights of the guy in front of us and we hoped he knew what he was doing because we couldn't see anything else. We had to swerve a couple time to avoid fallen trees and a trash can in the middle of the road (not sure where it came from either, because there really isn't much between Longview and us, there certainly wasn't any houses around that we could see). Also small sticks were and things were hitting the windshield, and giant thing of mud or something hit the windshield, we thought it was a rock but it didnt crack or anything so I guess not, it was really loud though! 

Well eventually all traffic stopped and we sat there for a bit and while it cleared we saw it was a fallen tree blocking the road. So we sat there for a while until someone could come move it. 

While were sitting there we took some selfies and contacted the guy behind us. He was a nice guy with a nice truck. Elder Mears knows everything about trucks so they talked about that, turns out the guy is in High School! Anyway he said missionaries could come by, and the Nacogdoches Sisters are going to get in contact with him. Can't believe God sent a tornado through East Texas so that he could meet missionaries. Anyway we made it home and all it was good.

Then Friday it stormed again, but not until we were in for the night. It didn't seem that bad, the power went out for a sec a couple times, but that was it. The next day we went by an inactive member/investigator family and a huge tree was totally ripped up out the ground and blown over by the storm! They also said we were on Tornado watch. Crazy!

Other than not much new. Our one investigator who was the neighbor of a member on a mission, we'll he texted us and told us he won't be coming to church anymore :( Last time we met with him we asked him to talk to his dad (who doesn't live with him but is technically kind of in charge of him I guess) about baptism (he had a date to get baptized), and like the next day he texted us that he is going to be going to church with his dad somewhere else. It's kind of funny because he never went to church before that...

We went on splits this last week, and Elder Nelson got to go with a member that has an awesome 1968 Chrysler Newport convertible, it looked awesome!! We also had a service project at the church. The church is kind of in a neighborhood, and the people that live around of have some old leaning or otherwize broken fences, so we had a service project to start tearing them down and building new ones. That was the day after the storm, so we got all muddy and had to wash our shoes and socks and stuff. Then they hot dogs after. Dang I love Mormons. We saw a thing that had to get done, so we just said hey everybody lets all come together, spend a chunk of your Saturday and let's do this thing, and heck we'll have food, make an event out of it. It was awesome!

Other than that we just had a slightly drunk guy at dinner (at a burger place) try to get us to come to a monster truck rally, a hispanic guy we contacted on the street that knew a ton about history, even Mormon history, and a conversation with a Hardcore Catholic (the hardest core I've ever met, and I spend all day talking to Hispanics (who are 99% catholic) about Jesus), that turned a little Bible Bash-y unfortunately. But man was that guy Catholic. He just could not even consider even the concept of any other anything. He was almost aggressively Catholic!

From Mom: It's fun to hear about other religions and it might sound funny to hear stuff like above - but Brett loves every minute of it.  He loves all religious people and loves talking to them!! 
Anyway, that's about it this week, love you all!
Elder Hogg