Tons of Spiders

   Elder Johnson and I have been living the high life. We straight up just been eating way healthy and going on good runs trying to make ourselves feel as good as possible when we tend to spend a lot of time on a screen. Everyone walks around our apartment building all day long so we see tons of faces but none that we are allowed to stop and talk to :(. It totally kills us both to just have to walk on by people that we know could use a little light:).

     I got to have my first one on one meeting with President Strong! Although it was brief it was a conversation haha so that was good. We have more rules put on us due to the seriousness of the virus in NorthWest Arkansas so any conversation with someone besides my comp (who is a great dude) is very welcome. 

      We helped a lady weed her garden beds that were full of caterpillars that when you squeeze em they shoot out orange antennas and release a weird smell it was fun to play with. But loads of spiders are everywhere it makes me wig out. We have tons of service coming in but almost as many backing out last second so that's always frustrating. I got to build a little kid playset for a new preschool that was getting put together and it was awesome. It's for reals was like legos for adults. We also mowed this guys yard and trimmed all his bushes which were covered in webs. We load up all this yard work equipment into the back of the mini van and take off on adventures haha. 

     Sunday was pretty ridiculously sweet, one of the most missionary minded families ever just called us and were like hey we invited three nonmembers over who are all interested in our church if you guys wanna come to dinner. We were calm and collected but freaking out inside because it was the first time weve taught some nonmembers in a while! They were all really cool. We talked a ton about the difference between happiness and Joy and how we can recieve more Joy. I kinda sucked at the lesson but Elder Johnson killed it so it turned out ok! One of the guys was super curious about the temple and asked how to get a recommend, we told him all the things that he would need to do and he was all for it! Great way to end the week. 

     Proverbs 3:5 says, "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding"

I have found myself leaning on my own understanding so much in life and it has led me to fail in so many circumstances that I seriously can't even number them. Not even just on my mission. There is a reason we have the gift of prayer and of the Holy Ghost. I did not use them enough. I neglected such a powerful gift our Heavenly Father gives us and I seriously am so sad because of it. But now I am learning on how I can lean more and more on the Lord and really understand how outmatched I am here on Earth without His help. The mission is humbling lol. 

First Mini Zone Converence

It's been a great week. We started it by digging up water lines at horses for healing and replacing the faucets. It's always nice going some odd jobs around instead of the usual chores. Wednesday was my birthday so we celebrated by shaving my head and it feels so good. I look like a goon but I don't even mind it, I just wake up and I'm ready for the day. That's about as fun as it gets as far as birthdays on the mission go! A family ordered us a dinner and some cake! They are a seriously great family they hook up the missionaries all the time.

      This week was more successful as far as Facebook goes! We had multiple calls with people where we just talked and said a prayer with them, then scheduled more conversations. It's always a little awkward for a second but people love to talk about themselves so you just ask them a ton about themselves and they can just go on and on. We called this lady and after a while we asked her if she went to any church, she told us she went to some "mormon" church like 10 years ago and hadn't been back! We had no idea! Shes really struggling, she found out this week she has stage 4 colon cancer and some had spread to her lungs. She has a two year old son and the whole family has really taken it hard.  So we call her every day and talk then say prayers with her to hopefully give her more comfort in her life. Kind of weird but it's one of the only ways we can really do missionary work! 

      On Thursday we loaded soooo much hay out of this semi it gave me the worst allergies of my life! I could barely see after it haha. Then we power washed these nasty rubber Mats that were covered in horse it reeked.

Saturday we had zone conference but only with our stake due to the virus restrictions. I still got a lot out of it. President and Sister Strong are very good speakers. Made me want to push myself a lot harder. The biggest thing that stuck out to me was the two choices we have everyday. We can be a creature of light or a creature of darkness. Every single thing you do everyday takes you more towards one or there other. It helps me focus on my actions and think about what I do and how it will effect everyone. D&C 50:24 says, "That which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day" I don't know about you guys but I wanna grow brighter every day. We also talked about how "by small things the Lord can bring about great things" which has really helped me focus on what I can do now and move day by day instead of getting overwhelmed looking a couple months or even years in advance. It's all about getting 1% better every day. Or even less than that. But growth is growth.
Sunday was kind of fun, I got the chance to have dinner with one of our oldest family friends Marianne Presley/Burkett. It was awesome to talk with her and her new in laws that just so happened to be in our ward!

We are losing two of our sisters and the other Elder companionship is getting a third to them but now our district contains 4 of us so these meetings are just going to be weird. It's pretty sad I liked the sisters that were leaving so kinda bummed.

That's about all, I hope you all have a great week, lots of love

Elder Toronto and I after digging holes all day.

Our stake after zone conference.

New birthday haircut and cake from the members:)

Our stake after zone conference.

The Burketts and the Elders!

Things I hate, I love

Days fly by even when we have to be inside a lot haha. I learned a lot through study this week. We email our mission presidents once every other week and just kind of give him a run down on what's been going on and I asked him some questions and like a teacher would he didn't really tell me the answer but he did tell me where I could find it. So I spent a considerable amount of time studying patience. Elder Uchtdorfs "Continue in Patience" is an amazing talk by the way. But I studied mostly for myself and also a little for what's going on as far as missions go right now. I'm learning more and more about how to have effective studying and I enjoy it. Scriptures are pretty sweet. I also began to read saints and its intense haha. Lays it all out. But it has helped me grow my testimony more for the restoration of the church and I love it. Joseph Smith is an amazing guy haha I'd like to say I could handle hate like that but I don't think I could. It also makes me ask myself why the heck I am whining haha. So many amazing people brought this Gospel forth for us and I am forever grateful for them. 

      Other than that it is still a lot of the same old :) weed whacking and mowing huge pastors and cleaning up after the horses. Makes me appreciate the gift of education and not having to do this for the rest of my life. 

     My comp is a great dude and some super weird dramatic stuff happened in our district council which is so annoying. People are so interesting and people love attention haha. All that I'm gonna say. 

     We had a youth devotional for one of our wards that seriously rocked. Everyone participated and accepted out challenges and we made awesome comments. I finally got to meet some more people in the ward! I seriously can't wait for church to start up! It was funny, the audio doesnt work a lot of the times when you screen share videos on Zoom so my comp decided to read out the whole "a man without eloquence" video in his best Brigham Young voice. It made me cringe pretty hard hahaha but hes a stud for trying. 

     We had a BBQ with a way fun family that have crazy kids that remind me a ton of my nephew Gabe. Made me miss the little guy like crazy. But we stole some rocks from the church and painted them with Bible verses on them with the kids then left them on peoples doorsteps it was a good time. 

     We set up these ads on Facebook listing us as free service to try and just get out and help more people. This lady asked us to help pack up her dance studio. Because of changes in the family life she had to close it down and she was so sad but extremely grateful. After we moved everything she let us take some things if we wanted so I grabbed some pins that were from winning different competitions and put them on my hat haha. She then shared her story with us and asked us if she could say a prayer before we left. Shes straight gold but shes leaving so hopefully she is recieved by the missionaries well wherever she goes.  :)

     We met with this super catholic guy at sonic and all he wanted to know is if the sisters in our mission were "hot" so that was awesome to get excited about talking to someone for nothing haha but hey the sisters have an in if they want to try. We asked if he had any questions and he told us we didn't know enough for him to ask us questions and asked for our mission presidents number lmao. Hes probably right if hes talking about me but my comp is a freaking scripture smart dude. 

     A lot of things really helped my testimony grow this week. Things I hate have been turning into things I love and things I used to love from home are turning into things I hate. I seriously wasted so much of my time. I hope you guys are anxiously engaged in a good cause cuz I know I rarely was. LOVE YOU ALL HAVE AN AMAZING WEEK! 

BBQ with a Family

Placing on porches, Scripture Rocks

Lady pins that she gave to me

Loving the Ranch

More Service LOL

This is the first week where I've really felt the heat. It was 94 before 9:30am. It's pretty terrible with humidity haha. But Pday we got to spend some time with an awesome member to go mountain bike for a bit then we went over to this ranch that had a bonfire (even though it was insanely hot outside) and a zipline and hammock and stuff. We went with the district and got to hangout with all of us before transfers. I stayed in my wards with my comp but we had two sisters leave and one sister brought In to make the sisters a trio which has been interesting cuz they are some different personalities haha. We went to that horse ranch to mow and weed whack some more but found a bunch of turtles everywhere which makes it a little more fun haha. One of our friends that's exploring the church decided it wasn't for him which was sad but we are still working with him. Angel is still killing it. That was all pretty much for the week. Pretty slow week. But then Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were just packed full of meetings over zoom for hours and service. This single mom in a neighboring ward moved into a house that was abandoned for 7 or more years so it's pretty wrecked but we got a ton of yard work done for her. The pool in the backyard is just jammed with tadpoles and frogs it's pretty sweet. Water was disgusting but as we worked in the heat it was looking pretty good. Thought about fake tripping to fall in haha. A lot of southern accents too which is funny to hear them say "over yander" and just weird little things, I eat it up, makes me smile. Then we moved a family out of there house in a speedy fashion, all with face masks on not being able to freaking breath. We pulled out yet another tree and planted a garden in another yard. This wasnt one of my families but she told us she wanted to get baptized while smoking a cig which was exciting but we arent really sure if she understands what's gonna need to happen haha. Shes an awesome lady though. But we did it all in some crazy heat and humidity. Sweat through EVERYTHING. Got my first tick too. We did a canned food drive as well with the sisters which was pretty fun to just hangout and talk about fun stuff. I got pretty sick Saturday night and all Sunday day (I think from some fried liver). And it was fast Sunday so I was just straight up not having a good time. But right as we broke our fast a member texted us and brought us over a steak dinner out of no where. Happy days. I honestly can't believe two things. How bad I hate Samsung phones and how much I love morning personal study and comp study. I'm not a morning person really at all so for me it's a miracle haha. Not only that but getting put in two amazing wards with a baller comp. I know theres a lot of things going on out there right now but theres this song that a little girl sings on Facebook about there being no peace on earth but PEACE IN CHRIST. Take some time to find permanent peace in your daily life :) love you all. 

Another Week Down

Well in an attempt to not send my email I deleted it so this this is draft number 2 :) kill me now haha

     What a week, it started off Monday with some crazy tornado warning (meaning a tornado touched down near us somewhere) so elder johnson and I spent our night at the church because our apartment is on the second floor. We had to wait until the storm calmed but I've never seen it rain harder. Everywhere we went was just full of water.

     Tuesday was fun working at horses for healing, we are getting super close with one of the workers (juan) and having good gospel conversations while we work. The fog was insane that morning too it was really cool.

      Wednesday was weird haha, we were having district council when we heard footsteps in the attic and we all were thinking some homeless dude busted into the church so we did some investigation work and it turned out to be some maintenance guys lol.

     Thursday we went back to horses for healing and did some work that made me feel like a man haha. We were breaking rocks with hammers and helped fix an old tractor that broke down it was pretty cool. When we got home our ward mission leader brought us a surprise from his work (owns a pest control company) some baby raccoons!  They were freaking screeching and peeing everywhere which was sad but they were way cute. 

     Friday was awesome! We taught our boy Angel and the lesson went great, hes taking steps in the right direction. Hes determined to read the Book of Mormon twice all the way through before praying about it for some reason but we are working on him :) later that night I went on my first exchange with Elder Cantrell. Hes a super nice dude and hes huge. Hes a goofball and it cracks me up but he lived on a farm in California with 8 siblings so hes a hard working guy and super spiritual. Their apartment reeked haha but I slept good and we spent about zero time there anyways. 

     Saturday we got up and went straight to service for pretty much the entire day. From moving massive piles of cut up trees to ripping out tree and Bush roots. We helped this lady start her garden and they are teaching her daughter and her kids who are all getting baptized which is awesome. We tilled her backyard forever. Then we went and helped a member move their gardening boxes then afterward they took us fishing which was a great way to end a wild day. The grandma we went with had a mouth on her and was the biggest crack up. Addee would love her haha. 

     Sunday was a rough one. Cant explain it really haha. But there was a highlight. When we were driving home there was a snapping turtle in the middle of the road and it would move so we got out and moved it in an interesting way. I have a video I hope it sends but ya :) hopefully we will have a better week next week. love you all :*