WEEK 14 MENA (WEEK 53 OF MISSION)

"One Year Older and Wiser Too.  Happy Year Mark to You" ;)

What a Goof Ball!
This is the inside of the awesome package
Shumways sent him ;)  

Well if it isn’t my family and friends not being missionaries. How are all of you? haha thank you for all the love and support!!

So, yes I hit my year mark and to be honest it feels really good haha just the thought that I actually did it feels super good and that I have enjoyed and endured it feels really good to me! Also it is weird to think that on this day next year I will be with all of you haha. Strange.

 

Some cake and a candle to celebrate!

Which treat to eat first???

Any who, this week was an absolute rollercoaster. The work is still going well but it is just soooo difficult to find people in this town. We don’t give up and we won’t ever give up but man oh man it is just hard to find somebody haha and this last week we actually found people!!! So I could not be happier about that!!! 

Sherry, who we have been teaching and working towards baptism, made it church again this Sunday and we will be going out to her place to do some service this week and also to teach her a lesson which I am hoping and praying goes well because she is at such a critical stage in her life right now!

Unfortunately Webb had a rougher week. He was kicked out of his house and forced to leave town to stay with a friend because he lost his job at Davis Brothers as well. We have been in contact with him and he still has his testimony but is really struggling and that has been hard to see.

Some other sad news was that I got a call on Saturday night from a random number and it was Carmel. My long lost best friend/convert from Tulsa. She had requested to President Loveland that she could have a conference call with me and Elder Nau. She recently has been told she only has weeks if not days to live and her dying wish was to talk to the missionaries that baptized her.  It was a tough night hearing that but so awesome to hear her testimony and joke around and laugh with her again.  I really miss my old Mingo Valley area and I was glad to have made an impact and built a love with somebody.  I hope that Carmel can just be at peace and feel good and healthy whether that is through a healing in this life or by passing to the next! She is such an awesome lady.

At church this Sunday one of my closest friends out here and somebody who has helped a lot named Brandon Sibbett gave his farewell and it was soooo awesome. Even though I hope Brandon doesn’t see this because I would hate for him to think that I like him... haha Brandon is a 19-year-old out here and he has got to be one of the funniest people I have ever met and we have such a good time when he comes on exchanges with us. So anyway, Brandon gave his farewell on Sunday and it was super cool, he is going to the Sydney Australia North Mission in a couple of weeks and he has an amazing story that I will have to tell you all at a later time.  But that was a very good spiritual experience. 

I have had so many spiritual experiences in the past year that are very special and sacred to me, many of which I choose not to share in casual settings or emails but after this past year I would just like to bear my testimony that God lives, his Son Jesus Christ broke the bands of sin and death so that we all may have some hope of happiness and redemption and exaltation. I have witnessed miracles and the greatest of those being the day to day change of peoples’ hearts as they draw closer to God and their Savior! I know it is true and I am grateful for the opportunity I have to serve! I love you all!!!! :) 

Thank you so much to my awesome Mama for the package and all the love she always sends me as well as the rest of the Fam for the letters, and also Gma and Gpa for the letter.  I love you all.  Also thank you Shumways for the package and especially Aubs! I know that took a lot of time and effort and I am so grateful and feel of all your love and prayers!!!

Shoutout to my man Walbeck for hitting that year mark with me this week too!!! See you on the flippity flop my friend!!! 

Elder Green 

WEEK 13 MENA (WEEK 52 OF MISSION)

"Missionary work made easy!"

Hello Fam and Friends!!! Love and miss you all!!! 

First off congrats to Kayla!!! That is so awesome and I am super excited for you. Also kind of upset nobody is waiting for me to get home before they run off and get married... haha jk jk but I’m excited to meet my new cuz in law someday!!! 

Waiting for the Baptism to begin.

Well this week was super good and unfortunately not a lot of time to write today but Donny got baptized!!!!!!!!!! It was so awesome and I am so happy for him and now he will be going to do the temple work for his wife asap!!! So it is really cool.

A miracle this week was when Elder Doman and I were weekly planning at the church a random lady walked in the doors and said that she needed some serious help and that she just moved into town etc... She was pretty anxious and talking fast so we calmed her down and talked to her about how we will help her with anything she needs and that what she really needs is the gospel. She came to Donny's baptism the next day and she came to church Sunday and has been reading all our material and we have a work force to go out there tomorrow and fix up the house/storage unit she is living in and she is an awesome new investigator!

Well I gotta go thank you for all the love and support I love you all and I am doing good and the work continues out here!!!

Love Elder Green 

WEEK 12 MENA (WEEK 51 OF MISSION)

"MEEKNA"

Well well well transfer calls came this week and they went with no changes to the 2 boys out in Mena! Looks like we’ve got 6 more out here to further the Lord’s work in this little section of the vineyard. I am excited and to be honest a little bit worried just because the work has been so hard out here and I am kind of overwhelmed thinking how on earth can we bring more people to Christ and everything, but it is all good!

You might notice this is on Wednesday because we had a weird week this week. President is now having transfer weeks have Wednesday P-days which feels weird but it is good haha.  It feels like it has been forever since I emailed though and a lot of really awesome things have happened!

 

Goober Green!

First, Webb got baptized! It was so awesome! My mom has pictures from Sister Loveland I know from the day but it was really sooo awesome and to just be with President and Sister Loveland was awesome and Webb was so excited and he brought his kid Michael Webb Jr.  And Webb made it to church the next day too to receive the Holy Ghost and also the priesthood which is just all super awesome!!! Just goes to show you that the gospel is for everybody.  I love the way the Savior teaches this in Matthew when he explains that healthy people don’t need a doctor, the sick people do.  Haha sometimes we get too wrapped up in prejudging people on whether they could become members of God’s kingdom when the only way to know is to invite.

Mikey, Webb, Elder Doman and Webb Jr.

Selfie with Sister and President Loveland.

Elder Doman, President Loveland, and Mikey before
the Fireside and Baptism.

Next, Donny has been interviewed and he will be baptized in two days so I am pretty worried at how we are going to pull it all off because we just got the interview done and approved and now have two days to plan it all out, but the lord will help us.  Donny has investigated the church for over a year now so this should be awesome to see him now get baptized.

Also one of the nicest things of all time happened to me this past week. I came home one night to a package. I looked on the label only to read Elder Holman. Jared sent me the sweetest Virginia hat and two of his ties and a super awesome and encouraging note, and I just feel so blessed for the love and the people I have in my life!!! My sweet mom mails me a letter every week and sent me cookies from her and Aubs and the fam and I love you all so much.  You will never know how much it means to me even though I can’t really express it back as often as I would like.  I am so grateful for all the love!!

 

Sweet Gear from Jared!

Also B day shoutout to my Pops last Sunday!!!!  The big 52!  Man that is nothin Pops! You are still super young! I bet you could clear those medal posts on the trampoline if you get a good run-up! hahahhaha love you Dad.  Thank you for all the support and love I have had throughout the years.  I am so glad I have had you as a role model to look up to my whole life!  Thanks for all you sacrifice for our family!!!!

Meek 

WEEK 11 MENA (WEEK 50 0F MISSION)

The Whiteboard Technique went viral and the whole mish is enjoying it now!

Exchange with Elder Linam

Exchange with Elder Olson.
I think that is a nose hair trimmer!!! haha

Miracles in Mena

Well hello family and friends!!! 

I hope all is well back in the 801 or wherever you are! This week was awesome!!!!!! We have really been working hard and trying to get some new big things started up and going! First big news!

My dear friend Webb! So Webb used to smoke around 140 cigarettes a week... This week he quit for three days smoked one, got extremely upset, and hasn’t smoked one since!!!! From 140 to 1 in one week. We did this stop smoking workshop with him which involves flushing out the tobacco with vitamin C and grapefruit juice and brushing your teeth and using mouthwash as well as praying and involving God a lot more than people normally would when trying to quit! Webb is such an awesome man and has quit smoking and it has been so cool to see him completely change his life around!!! We met his 7-year-old son who Webb is working towards baptizing in January of next year when he turns 8 years old! Webb also has a job interview at Davis Bros (A local satellite company owned by some members out here). I really hope he lands the job it would be huge for his life and especially working with and around a lot of other members!

Sad news was that Shane's dad passed away unexpectedly.  Shane is a recent convert and Elder Durrant and I baptized his two boys and Shane's dad passed and it has been extremely rough on him and their family so we have been praying a lot for them!!!

We had 8 people make it out to church this week which was so awesome! Webb is bringing all of his friends into the gospel and really is an awesome missionary and it is so cool to see how excited he is about sharing the gospel. We are having a fireside before Webb's baptism this Saturday so that all of his friends can come and check out the church and President Loveland is going to make the drive down to teach the Fireside and then we will all move into the baptismal area to watch Webb be baptized!!!! How awesome huh? 

Anyway we have a new family of 7 we have very high hopes for and really think they have desires to follow Christ and I am so excited for them and the potential. The branch has really been supporting us a ton and it has been awesome to see things come together like they have!!! 

Look at me ramble haha love you all have a great week! Remember your Savior this week. Don’t be selfish, look outwards alright!!!! 

Love elder GREEN

WEEK 10 MENA (WEEK 49 0F MISSION)

Webb has Been Found!!!!!

(These are some pics I saw on the blog that the Mission President's wife keeps.)

Mikey and "The Ladies"
Didn't have names but I just thought it was so cute!

Zone Conference

DeGoooyer, Mikey, and Hess Daddy

Transfer Day

Man awesome news this week about our dear friend Michael "Webb."  After a lot of crazy searching for a long time he again has been found!!! He actually left his one friend’s house where there was a lot of smoking going on and he left to get away from it and we are going to go buy him all the stuff for the quit smoking workshop tonight and he is going to start and quit this week and get baptized the following Saturday and I am so stoked!!!! He is my dream contact on the mission and such a humble guy and he has changed my life a lot just from the process of how we found him. Which I actually will tell you about because I think it was pretty awesome! 

One day Elder Durrant and I were so discouraged after 100 straight doors (I actually do keep track of our tracting numbers) and after 100 doors nothing had come of it and we were feeling like their wasn’t 1 person in the 7000 in Mena that we could find and teach. We found ourselves sitting on this park bench just praying and wondering where to go next when we see a guy in the park and so we go and talk to him and he says to come over the next day. Well the next day we go over excited to teach this guy and so we knock and this guy’s brother opens the door and ends up cursing us out and kicking us off of his apartment step thing... Pretty down in the dumps we start walking to the next door. Well guess who was in the next door and came outside because he heard us get yelled at? Our dear friend Webb. My testimony is that God is in the struggle and the grind of our lives and is in all the little things. There aren’t any coincidences!

I spoke in Sacrament meeting yesterday about a parable of washing dishes and how much easier it is to just rinse them right when you're done rather than letting things sit and get sticky and hard to clean. I am so grateful for the chance the Lord gives us to clean ourselves every day and renew our covenants weekly with the sacrament!!!

I love you all hope you have an awesome week!!!! Shoutout to my Maiiiinn Man Jmatt on hitting the year mark this week!!! So grateful for all my friends I have! What a year it has been!

Love Elder Green