WEEK 17 SPRINGFIELD (WEEK 74 OF MISSION)

Hey I have no time today and I am so sorry!  This was a good week we had so much success and Frank committed to be baptized.  We are excited and just trying to set up a date.  The African refugees are good and my Swahili continues to improve!!!  I love you all and hope you have a great week!!!

Love Elder Green 

WEEK 16 SPRINGFIELD (WEEK 73 OF MISSION)

Hello everybody!!! It was another great week out here in the city of Springfield!!! Things were a little slower this week actually and it has been a little hard with only covering one ward now and trying to find work for the whole ward, but we have seen some really awesome miracles too!

 

Mikey and his new young companion, Elder Durrant.

Ice Storm!!!

The first one would definitely be our new investigator, Frank. After praying and searching and getting pretty exhausted trying to find we got a text from our bishop saying that there is a new part-member family that just moved in and that we should call them.  So, we call them and the woman Tammi, said that her new husband needs to be taught and baptized hahaha.  We asked where they had moved into... Our same apartment complex like a 15 second walk haha.  We taught Frank three times this week and he is ready to be baptized any Saturday! He has been taking the lessons for a long time over the phone because he is a trucker with his wife so they are on the road a ton!

Another awesome story was we had a recent convert (Elih Kalamba) a refugee that was baptized in the Southern Hills Ward come up to help teach our refugees this week.  He speaks English and Swahili!  For the first time we were able to really just sit down and communicate with all of our investigators and it was so nice!! It was a pretty tender moment for me when they voiced that they were grateful for us teaching them about Christ and that they were grateful for their friend Kijani (that is Green in Swahili and that is what they call me ) haha.  It meant a lot to me because sometimes it feels like a waste of time trying to teach and baptize them because it is so slow but I was so happy to know that they appreciate the time we have spent with them!

Well there is so much to say but I have a lot to do today!  I am sorry.  I love you all.  Thank you for the birthday packages Mama and Aubs!  I have been able to use those new clippers to give a lot of nice haircuts!   Also thank you so much Grandma and Grandpa and Lani and Cindy and Kathy and Scott and Fiona just the whole clan I love you all so much!!!  Have a great week :) 

Elder Green

WEEK 15 SPRINGFIELD (WEEK 72 OF MISSION)

Another year older and whiter too!

hello everybody thank you for the bday love and wishes it means a lot to me and unfortunately we are suuuper rushed today so I will have to be short! 

Mikey's former companion, Elder Lopez, who has been home 
a while was in the area and they got to see each other :)

My new comp is an awesome kid his name is elder durrant he is from bountiful and he went to woods cross he has been out only a couple months but acts like a seasoned vet!

A sweet member sent me these pictures on Mikey's 
birthday last night of him and Elder Durrant making 
shoes for children in Uganda.

Such concentration!  She also sent me a video of them bringing in a birthday cake and singing to Mikey but it wouldn't load onto the blog.  It was so sweet!

We were visited by elder Robbins of the 70 this week in our mission and man did he tell me just what I needed to hear. He talked all about responsibility and how we are in control of our lives. and how all we do as humans is try to have 100% freedom and agency but not 100% accountability and responsibility. I do this sooo often and we made a huge list of things people to do not be responsible for their actions and then he told us that champions never use the list. Champions take responsibility for their lives and that is my new goal to never try to make an excuse even when I might be right and something might not be my fault I can still take responsibility for the outcome. He reminded me a ton of Rick Davis and I love the talk about how our pride gets in the way a lot of the times. Rick would always say to our investigators or people we met with that were having a hard time say with a boss "would you rather be wrong and rich or right and broke?" or if it was with a spouse, "would you rather be wrong and married or right and alone?" haha I really love that kind of stuff so that is something to think about this week. That if you are letting anything get in the way of the spirit or if you havent forgiven somebody the only person you are hurting is yourself and so if we can forgive it will free our hearts for the saviors grace to enter!

Love you all have a great week!

oh yeah investigators are all great.  We have our work cut out for us though since we lost over half our investigators to the other ward.  The refugees are great! 7 came to church last week!

Cutting Pascal's hair.

WEEK 14 SPRINGFIELD (WEEK 71 OF MISSION)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!

(insert corny joke about how i haven't done something since last year!)

Hello everybody I hope you had a great holiday season!!!!  Mine was actually less than fantastic, I woke up Friday morning just feeling awful and we aren’t exactly sure what hit both me and Elder Strobel this weekend but all signs point to food poisoning haha. Everything inside of my body just did not want to be inside my body anymore!  I lost about 8 pounds in one weekend!  But I was okay by church on Sunday to go and that ended up being awesome!!!  4 refugees came to church and we heard that one refugee got baptized in the stake just south of us and we are going to have him come up and teach all of our refugee friends how awesome huh!? 

Have you all made new years goals or resolutions?  I have thought a lot about mine actually and have too many so I am still going to narrow it down! 

TRANSFER NEWS: I am going to be serving only in the Hillcrest Ward which means I will be moving apartments because our current apartment is in Hickory Hills!  I am very excited!  I am getting Elder Durrant, (a different one than my companion in Mena).  I know nothing about him besides he is young in the mission.

SAD NEWS:  We got a call yesterday from Ann and Jeannie and their brother was shot and killed this weekend so everybody please keep them in your thoughts and prayers. 

I love you all and appreciate the love and prayers you are always sending me.  I heard a good quote this week that was about having clean hands and a pure heart that having clean hands meant merely repenting and being clean when we mess up; but a pure heart is when we lose all desire to sin.  My goal and what I am working on is losing all disposition to do evil.

I love you all happy New Year!!! 

Elder Green