WEEK 16 BELLA VISTA (WEEK 18 OF MISSION)

Friends and fammmmmm!! I hope you all had an awesome time and a good Christmas!!! I had a pretty crazy week and simply had a wonderful Christmas time!

All-Mission Christmas Party!

So many missionaries all together!
There are around 200 in his mission.

A little toast to celebrate Christmas Eve with the boiis
(Dr. Pepper)

Diving into a little hot cocoa.
Mug and beanie provided by besties Anna and C Livi

Skype! So great to see him talking and laughing

Christmas Dinner at the Hansens.
Not sure what the crowns are for and Mikey
said he didn't know either, haha!

We got ourselves into some pretty weird situations this week. As we always seem to haha so me and Elder Lopez on Saturday didn't have anything scheduled because, well everybody was doing family stuff still. So we decided we were still going to show the Lord we cared. So we went out to door knock for the whole day!!! We had some success which I will tell you about in my spiritual section. However, while we were door knocking the weather took a turn for the worst. The rain came down like I had never seen before. But we didn't stop we just kept knocking. After a little while we started to notice that like nobody was answering or even being outside. Finally, somebody answered and was like what are you guys doing? We are under a tornado watch! hahaha and me and Elder Lopez didn't even know because our phone is so crappy! So we drove to Walmart and had to hang there for a while. haha later that night we had to help somebody move in during the craziest rainstorm I have ever seen!!! My mom has a picture of us haha it was sooo much fun actually.  However, like all of Bella Vista is flooded and it is pretty rough.

Moving Sister Christofferson during Tornado Warning!

Mikey & Elder Lopez had to rescue the other
two elders after their car slid off the road!

A super cool spiritual experience we had while we were having this rough door knocking day. I was getting pretty down on myself. Talking with the fam and then having to come back to kind of the harsh reality of door knocking for hours was not doing too well and I was being super selfish in my mind. Thinking like why does this have to be so hard? Why do I have to do this? I want to be home with my family! Then, the words of our prophet rang in my ears, "Why should it be easy for you, when it was never easy for our perfect Savior." I picked myself up and started to look outward and care about others. Immediately the day turned around. We had investigators show up to church the next day (where I spoke in both sacraments ;)  haha but man sacrifice really brings forth the blessings of heaven. 

Have an awesome New Years!!! Bring on 2k16 and Meek now enters "His Dark year" haha the only year I will not be home at all haha keep me in your prayers please haha love you all!

Ya boi Elder Green 

WEEK 15 BELLA VISTA (WEEK 17 OF MISSION)

Hello everybody back hommmme!!!!!!!!! 

I am having a great time out here in Arkansas getting ready for Christmas!!! Me and Elder Lopez had an awesome week this past week and taught a ton of lessons and got a ton of new potential investigators! The Christmas time seems to soften everybody’s hearts and I love this time of year. 

Mikey and his new companion, Elder Lopez, while emailing from the church ;)

I had a cool experience when I was teaching Sherrie this week. She is an awesome lady and we really have been pushing baptism for her and trying to get her to commit. She has a lot of questions and this last visit while we were teaching her she started asking some questions really none of which I knew the answer too. I bore probably my most humble and most powerful testimony I ever had because I looked at Sherrie and just said something like this, "Sherrie, I have no idea what the answers to any of your questions are. We could find them and I could find them. But they don't matter. I know Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus Christ and that is all I had to come to the knowledge of to know this church is true. Sherrie if it wasn't true you wouldn't meet with us and be feeling the spirit you are right now. Sherrie I love you and I want you to feel the Joy, peace, and comfort I feel with this gospel. I know you know what I am saying is true Sherrie." Pretty bold and I did not know really what I was even saying as the words were coming out of my mouth. All I know is I love this lady so much and I know how awesome the gospel is and I want her to have it so badly in her life. We challenged her to pray and really ask God and went over how to have real intent etc. We hope to set a baptismal date next visit.

The message that I have for everybody at this Christmas season is similar to the one I shared with Sherrie. There are only a handful of questions you need to have answered to know which church is true. I know the church has been restored. Do not complicate things in our lives by searching for temporal answers for spiritual questions. I am no master of the scriptures, or preacher, or anything related to that. However, the things I do know are the most important and everlasting truths on the earth. They all can be found in their complete form in the restored church today. Around this time I am especially grateful for the knowledge I have of my Savior. I am so glad that our Heavenly Father loved us enough to send us our Savior. I love my Savior so much and love that we get to celebrate his birth at this time. There is no other knowledge that brings happiness and peace to my life as much as my knowledge of our Savior does.

I hope you all have an awesome Christmas. Don't complicate our lives. Keep things simple. I love you all have a great Christmas!

WEEK 14 BELLA VISTA (WEEK 16 OF MISSION)

Hi family and friends!

I had another good week this week!!! A funny story and an awesome story from this week came on Saturday when we all went to this lady that I love who is a less active named Bernadette.  We went and did service for her and we raked around a gazillion leaves for her and it was pretty hard work and she appreciated it a ton and stuff.  After she made some of the slappiest quesadillas you have ever eaten. Elder Gordon whipped us up some of the meanest cheese quesadillas ever on the stove in her house.  After all the work was done we got into a little shenanigans when we found her daughter Pandora's old skateboard.  My main man Elder Gordon who also likes to skate, and I decided to try it out a little. So then here I am with a quesadilla in my hand just bombing this huge hill and it was the best day of my life haha just a little tender mercy from the Lord allowing me to SK8 a little.  

Mikey "shredding the gnar" and giving Elders Maupin and Gordon five at the end.

Okay now back to the important stuff.  How service can touch people's hearts.  That next day which was Sunday Burnadette and her non-member daughter Pandora and her baby girl Gabi all came to church and they want us to come over and teach them and it was so awesome to see them be touched by our service and I can't wait to teach them. Anywho hope you all have a good week

Elder Green 

WEEK 13 BELLA VISTA (WEEK 15 OF MISSION)

"Elders Lopez and Green take over all of Arkansas"

Wuzzzzup Family and Friends!!!!!

I hope you guys all had an awesome week :)

My week was rather crazy!! haha it was transfers this week and so I had to say goodbye to Elder Hess. It was kind of weird and hard to do actually. He and I were best buddies and I just felt like I would serve all two years with him. He was an awesome missionary though and my new comp is too!

Saying goodbye to Elder Hess

My new comp, Elder Lopez, is awesome and we had a good week this week teaching. But my spiritual story for this week actually comes from before transfers when Elder Hess was saying goodbye as we taught his last lesson to our investigator Sherrie. We had an awesome time discussing faith and reading from the Book of Mormon with her and she is just so awesome. When it was getting time for us to go the mood of everything changed and I don't think I had ever felt the spirit so strong and Sherrie with tears rolling down her cheeks told Elder Hess thank you for not giving up on her. Sherrie has investigated the church for a couple of years now and she is just awesome. She looked at Elder Hess and said that when she gets baptized she wants him to know that he was a part of her conversion. Sometimes it can be frustrating as a missionary when you don't get to see a ton of results for yourself personally with baptisms. I get selfish and think this too sometimes. However, it isn't about us as the missionaries and it just showed me that the Lord has His time for everybody and is preparing everybody in their own way and I just love my mission and that was so cool. I hope to progress Sherrie as far as I can while I am here :)

Mikey and Elder Lopez at the Pea Ridge Parade.
He didn't say what kind of parade. Check out
all the Books of Mormon under his arm ;)

A funny story from this week is because the window is still out and one day we came home to a bird flying around our house hahahah we were so confused. Haha I love my mission though. Everybody back home I love you guys thank you for all the encouragement and love! Have an awesome week, remember the Savior. He is the only reason any of us can even wake up and smile. Take the time to thank our Father in Heaven for his Son. He is the gift. He saved us all, I know it with all my heart. I want it clear after I pass from this life that I believed in our Savior. Love you all.

Have a ballin week

Elder $waggy Green