Hot and Humid July

Our music actually consists of mostly men's accapela (acascuse me?!? sorry) and Nashville tribute band. which the first time i heard it, i thought, "this is dumb country." i then thought a few weeks later, "HEY NOW PORTER, GOT AN EYE LIKE AN EAGLE, SWORN TO SAVE THE LIFE OF THE PROPHET OF THE LAMB, MANY MEN ARE LYING UNDER SIX FEET OF GROUND, FIRED FROM THE SMOKIN' GUN OF MODERN DAY SAM." now i think, "destroying angel, troubled man, i won't judge the blood on your hands." basically, we've listened to so much NTB that we can sign the whole album. as well eclipse the men's acapella group. that song i was quoting earlier is a song about Porter Rockwell by the way. he has got quite an interesting story. you could probably find the song on youtube or something. but i digress, some of the motab song i like better as vocal and some i like better instrumental and vocal. it's all better than what we've been listening to.

    Dad was talking about the temple, from what I heard before i left, the open house should be starting on my birthday.

So, yet another interesting week. I'll unfortunately have to start with what i remember. i forgot my journal at home. anyway, so yesterday, Sunday the 13th of July, we had to ride our bikes to church and this bike that I'm using has a bent sprocket which has a tendency to through the chain off. so it did, and i got off to fix it and while i was putting it back on, the car pulls past me slowly, pulls up to my companion, says something to him, my comp thanks him and he drives off. i asked him what he said. my comp says that the driver said, "Y'all need to stop preaching the false doctrine and get saved!"

    That's OK. the pharisees rejected Jesus too. yesterday wasn't too good of a day. elder Allen and i had all these plans and literally everyone of the people we were going to see at church or after church, canceled. oh well. cwmali. (come what may and love it) also, I've been having a lot of back and knee problems lately so we went to a chiropractor in the sisters ward that does adjustments for free. don't worry, I'm not going to take advantage of it every week. we're only allowed 5 chiropractor visits on our missions. so one down. I am going throw major media withdrawal. luckily the resident above our apartment likes dubstep.

    Met a really cool teenage kid in a trailer park out by the Nissan plant. (if you look at Smyrna on Google maps, the Nissan plant is that giant building that is a mile long.) his name is Landon and he has got an interesting back story that was kinda personal so i won't go into detail. but know this, he is really awesome. we taught him the restoration and the whole time he was focused right on us. he was amazed at some of the things that we said. now if only we could get back into see him. doesn't help that he is on the complete opposite side of town that we live on.

    Still haven't gotten Tyron to church. we saw him on saturday and our plan was to teach him the law of chastity and the word of wisdom. however, that evolved into word of wisdom, law of chastity, law of the tithe, fast offerings, and some other commandments. so that was fun.
    Brooke has been struggling as of late. since she got the new job at McDonalds, she hasn't been to church and she says she's been falling behind in her reading. and her daughter is still being crazy giving anyone near her shell shock.

    We've basically lost all contact with Allen. Tammie's lost interest in baptism but still likes us coming over. we haven't been able to catch Sherri. and we got another investigator with a baptismal date, but anytime we try to go see him, he's always on his way out the door or not home. so ya.

    this morning, after the chiropractor, we were driving home, and we passed a large cemetery, we then passed a visitor center and determined that it was a cival war visitor center. which it was. it was the battle of stones river. lots of death. not good. they actually had a place you could look up your last name and see if you had a ancestor in the battle. of course, i looked up felix. nothing. i then looked up beal. there was one named jacob beal from ohio. company e. i then looked up edwards and there were about 35 results.

I do believe that's all for now. so chow.

                                         -Elder Felix

P.S.

forgot to tell you, we went to see some less actives in the ward and i got on the subject of guns with the brother. he then goes into the hall way out of view and i'm saying to myself, he's going to grab a gun to show me. and sure enough, brings out a nice composite, stainless steel, mini 14. 5.56 caliber, iron sights, well polished. He checks the action, and holds it towards me. Unfortunately, it says in the white hand book of rules, missionaries are not allowed to participate in dangerous activities such as...handling fire arms, fireworks, or explosives of any kind. which also stinks cause elder allens family sent him a package with fireworks in it. just small ones like smoke balls and sparklers. but they are still fireworks and also not allowed on the apartment property. we should probably get rid of those. but i digress, (hope i used that right) i told him i couldn't handle firearms and he apologized and put it back. i had a thought in my mind of an angel smiling cause i followed the rules.

the following pictures are significant to me because the first one is a soldier that witnessed the first hydrogen bomb in the bikini isles.

the second i thought was funny cause it has my swear word.