News from the Mission!

There's one set of missionaries for every ward...except combined areas, and Springfield YSA....they have two sets.

This past week we had a ward chili cook off. My companion got first place with his mother's recipe, A ward member got second, and the Young Men got third. It was a fun time. At the end of it, we helped clean up, I was talking with a visitor who knows how to play the piano real well...we showed off our skills with each other. It was fun. We even "improv"-ed for each other...don't know how to spell improv as in improv show, or whatever, so...yeah.

On Saturday, we went to a baptism that was three hours away. Sad fact is, that's about how far my closest area is ;(...oh, well. It was a really fun day. We had Hardee's for dinner. On Sunday, we had dinner at the home of one of the families in the ward...It was so funny. I love that family so much.

Our district meeting was awesome. On set of elders didn't show, and neither did the Zone leaders...a third of our district was gone! It was a great meeting, none the less. It marvels me how big our district is. Our district is about as big as one of the zones in our mission.

Awesome Weeks!

The past few weeks have been awesome. I can't really use any other adjectives. We saw the Lord's hand many times, of which I will give a few examples :j.

1) My companion and I, after all we could have done, went to a local store to OTM people. While we were in the camera aisle, a woman OTMed us, wanting to know who we are, what we were doing, etc. We answered her questions, and told her snippets of what our church believes, etc. She wants to meet with us to learn more.

2) My companion and I encountered a young kid, who passed by us while we were attempting to make a visit to a less active. My companion had an impression we should talk to him, so he led the discussion we had with him. The kid lied a lot, but that's what you get when you OTM someone in the dark of the night. He talked about being Satanic (we could totally tell he was lying about most of this subject, so don't worry, we're safe), that discussion moved to him being Atheistic...and eventually he said he believed in a God. It was a good discussion.

3) While we were doing service at a food pantry, I started talking to this guy who was seeking assistance from the pantry. I talked with him, and a couple of people around him, and we discussed many things, including our church. A few days later at church, my companion nudged me, and asked who a certain guy was. I couldn't see him clearly, so I shrugged my shoulders. After sacrament meeting, a ward member came up to us, and asked us to talk to a guy in the foyer. We went to the foyer and I recognized this guy from the pantry. We talked with him and taught him a lesson. We answered some of his questions, and gave him a Book of Mormon and we're going to continue to meet with him...I am totally excited!

I loved this past week a lot. I'm excited. We're going to have an awesome week, this coming week, too. The best thing about this week, was that I really was not looking forward to anything. Every day, when I woke up, I didn't feel like doing missionary work at all. I was just not looking forward to the same old thing. Well, as I pressed forward through it...I received a ton of help for all of it, I saw a lot of cool stuff...It was wonderful.

Transfers, Snow, and Car Problems!

Transfers came and went! Over half of my district changed. I have five members of my district left...along with some other people that I know. :j. I got a new companion. He's pretty cool.

I'm pretty excited for this transfer...the sister missionary from my grandparents hometown is going home, though...and another sister missionary is going home, too...They're some of the coolest sisters in the mission.

There is a senior couple in my district, that knows my aunt, grandma and grandpa. :D

We had our first snow for this year. It also went down to 12 degrees Fahrenheit here...and our car broke down in the middle of the week...so we had to walk around everywhere. That was fun :j.
We had a wonderful time at a district outing. The members helped us a lot when our car broke down, also.

Branch is Now a Ward!

I am no longer serving in a branch. As of January 3, the branch is now a ward. It was an amazing switch, and the bishop is experiencing a lot more responsibilities than he had when he was a branch president :j. It is awesome.

Missouri and Arkansas have HUGE firework shows on New Year's Eve...because there are next to no fireworks banned...so we had some crazy fireworks.

We have also had some crazy flooding. I won't go too much in detail, because it REALLY floods down here. I drove for a week straight week because my companion lost his wallet for a time. That was fun having to do 1000 point turns on dirt roads because the area before us was submerged by three feet or so.

We were able to get a less active member to church recently...and he wants to keep coming to church. That makes me so excited.

Mission Blog and Facebook Page!

There's a blog about our mission. I am not sure if you would want to see it...so:

arkansasbentonvillemission-loveland.weebly.com

The Facebook page for our mission is:  Arkansas Bentonville Mission 2015-2018

December Review!

December was amazing!

I love my current area. It is an awesome place.

This month was great! Especially when we started handing out "A Savior Is Born" cards. We definitely received a ton of potential investigators during December through them, and even a couple of investigators. We OTMed more than we have done in the past. The ward members invited us to go carolin', to Christmas parties, etc. We have been trying to serve the members as best we could.

December was such a fun month!

Christmas Came and Went!

The whole Christmas thing went awesomely!  I played a piano solo of "Oh, Holy Night" at the Christmas All-Mission Conference.

I received the Christmas packages from home...including the Christmas tree. I now have two Christmas trees! The sister missionaries that are in the apartment I was living in last December found my Christmas tree from last year, so they gave it back to me at the mission conference! I was so excited.

We're trying to find a lot more people. It was an interesting week. We have a couple of promising potentials. We're still trying to find more, though.

We've received eye-pads....You know those Minion notebook things shaped like a minion-eye? They're called eye-pads. We have those.  We don't have actual iPads, yet. Don't know when those are coming.

We went Christmas carolin' on Christmas Eve :j. The Christmas Zone Conference was great. I love the missionary life.

Finally, I got to Skype with my family on Christmas Day!  The audio was not working properly, they could hear me, but I could not hear them.  So, we used Skype for the video, and the cell phones for the audio.  It was so good to see each other, and hear each other's voices.  (Weird, but good!)...and I got to meet my family's foreign exchange student.