Week 26: Aggressive Driving

Since the last email I sent we were able to talk to Camille again and gave her a second lesson. She told us that right before we came over she had been praying and asking for forgiveness for something and felt that there might be something more that she needed to do. So it was no coincidence (because there is no such thing) that we talked to her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ which includes sincere repentance and baptism. We told her about the joy of repenting and having our sins washed away when we are baptized and the promise that we make with God that we are going to try our absolute best from then on. She accepted to work towards baptism on the 13th of January so we are really excited to continue working with her and helping her see how the restored gospel can help her and her family feel more happy and more united. 

On Saturday I was able to go on exchanges with Elder Muhlestein who is going to be home in one week. I was able to pick his brain a little bit about things that he has learned on his mission. We had a good time together and tried to make his last ever exchange memorable while also working hard. We were able to teach our investigator Christine who we haven't been able to see in a couple weeks. We went back over the Restoration because we hadn't fully taught that to her yet. That's the joy of the new lessons that we have. We don't just go through memorized lessons in order, we can pick and choose what to share based on the needs of the investigators.

For anyone that knows me, I love cars. I love working on them, looking at them, learning more about them and driving them. It was awesome when I flew into Ontario and headed to Rancho on my first day because I was surrounded by amazing cars everywhere. I felt truly blessed to be called to California and knew that there were specific reasons that I was here. (The Lord still has a sense of humor though cause he has kept me in the desert for 6 months where the amazing cars are few and far between). The reason I bring this up is because in our mission we are also blessed to have cars to use for transportation. Right now we drive a 2017 Toyota Carolla. We also have these little devices that plug into the OBD2 port (the place that the guy at Autozone would plug his computer into to read the codes). This little device is called Tiwi and it keeps track of our location, speed, acceleration, braking and turning. Basically it's what every parent of a teenage boy has dreamed of. Naturally I hate Tiwi. But I had been doing good and had not gotten a single violation since I started driving the car about 4-1/4 months ago. Well yesterday we were on the way home from church. We were driving down the road (Mojave) which has a speed limit of 60. Sometimes, if we are lucky, we will get a green light through the intersection (crossroad is HWY 395). Because California desert road conditions are quite poor, when we cross the 395 we hit quite a few bumps. Now most of the time we have to slow down for different reasons. Maybe the light is red or yellow, maybe we are behind another car, maybe there's a cop. But yesterday the Lord blessed us with a longgg green light and no cars in front of us so we were able to cross the road at a good speed. After some animalistic ape noises that came from everyone in the car in anticipation for our flight, we crossed the HWY and if the car had wings we probably would have taken off. We had been able to cross this section of road before at pretty good speeds but never before had the entire limit of the law been utilized to cross. So we cross (land) on the other side and Tiwi announces that an aggressive driving violation had been recorded. Everyone cheered for the accomplishment and a round of high fives was due. This morning, while we were out shopping, I was contacted by the Vehicle Coordinator because he calls for all Tiwi violation. We had a good talk and all is well. I've changed on my mission a lot already but deep down we are still ourselves and that is how the Lord uses us.

I love you all and hope y'all are getting ready to eat a lot of amazing food while passing out on the couch with the game on.

Love,

Elder Puzey

Only picture this week was of a sunset.