Cryer Ramblings: SPEAKING IN CHURCH

Happy Monday family! So I forgot my notebook with all my notes about what happened this week so I can keep on top of everything and so I won't forget to tell you anything. So this email might be a little on the short side...but the letter should be nice and long! OK, so this week has been pretty good. Let me try and remember what we did...So I gave a talk on Sunday :) I prepared the first half on Saturday during personal study and I prepared the last half on Sunday during personal study. Talk about procrastination! The awesome thing was that it came together super easily and I was not nervous or worried about it at all. I got some butterflies right before I had to get up and speak, but it was only a minute or two and then I was up and talking and I was fine. It was a really neat experience though. I don't think that I have ever felt quite so strongly that I was speaking by the spirit. And you know why? Because I learned more about humility (that was what I was speaking on) when I was speaking then I did when I was studying! It wasn't so much learning about humility, as it was learning about it in myself. Things that I need to work on a be better at, most of all trusting in Heavenly Father and his promises to me. Ask and you shall receive. Open your mouth and it will be filled. Listen with love and I will know what to say. It sounds easy just saying it, but actually doing it is hard. Any way, it was a really cool experience. I was really and truly grateful for the opportunity I had to speak. That's a first! So me and Sister Reese are super excited today because one of our recent converts, Chris, FINALLY got back to us. About a week ago he texted us and said that he "wasn't feeling it anymore," and he "didn't want to keep faking it." He said he would keep reading and praying, but he wasn't going to come to church anymore. Then he dropped off the face of the earth. We texted and called and went by his house and we even went by his work one time. That was a bit of a funny story in and of itself. He works at the Mexican Villa. Let me just say right now, WORST MEXICAN FOOD EVER. Here's what happened. We were out with a member named Jessica. It was the end of the day. We didn't have any appointments so we decided to try and visit Chris. We knew kind of where he lived so off we headed. Well, after driving around for a while we decided that finding his house was a lost cause, and anyway he was probably at work at this time. So we headed to the Mexican Villa. It looked promising and we headed inside. We asked at the front if Chris was working and they said no, he had gotten off at 5:00 and gone home. WHAT? Fine. We were going to leave at that point but Sister Reese felt like we needed to be here for some reason. So we grabbed a table and looked at the menu. We had already eaten dinner so we decided to just skip to dessert. Sopapillas. Never had them before but from Jessica's description they sounded pretty good (kind of like Mexican elephant ears). Anyway so we ordered those and then our waitress brought us the complementary chips and salsa. From the onset the stuff looked a bit questionable. The salsa looked kind of like water that had maybe a tablespoon of tomato juice added with a bit of cornstarch for thickener and little green and yellow and red dots floating around in it. Presumable peppers or something. Any way I grabbed a chip and tentatively dipped it into the salsa. The chip had a kind of stale taste and texture to it and the salsa had,...or didn't have much flavor. It didn't even really have any spice except for an acidy tingle on the tongue. I only had that one chip. I just couldn't do it. HOW DO YOU MESS UP CHIPS AND SALSA???? Well, they did it, even though I wouldn't have thought it possible. I guess it just proves that miracles do happen on a mission. :) The sopapillas were a bit better. At least they were eatable, but even they weren't that great. I don't understand how the place stays in business. Actually I do. PEOPLE LIKE IT! I don't understand! Any way, we ate dessert and talked about missionary work in the ward and how we can do better, especially with new member retention. Then we left. Still don't know exactly why we were there... So, to get back to Chris! He texted today and said "sorry for not responding I just found my phone." HE HAD LOST HIS PHONE! And here we were thinking he just totally didn't want anything to do with us anymore. Any way, he said he has decided to come back to church and we set up an appointment with him for Wednesday. :) SO Happy! Well, I have to go. I will attach a picture from Saturday night. We had dinner at a Japanese restaurant and I got a salad. Check out the carrot!!!