WEEK 22 SPRINGFIELD (WEEK 79 OF MISSION)

Hello everybody!!! We had another great week here and I had so much fun!!! 

This week I had to go back down to bentonville to go on splits with the assistants and they are both really good missionaries and I learned a lot as well as had a lot of fun seeing president and sister loveland and being back in my old stomping grounds of bentonville! Then we came back and had the traveling assistants (elder wilcox and my main man mgd83 degooyer) with us and we went out and had a lot of fun teaching with them. We have two more elders coming in tomorrow to come on splits with us!!!

Our investigators are doing really well, and frank received the aaronic priesthood this week. The refugees are good and we are really excited to see what this swahili speaking branch in SLC can do to help us with teaching them. 5 or so have asked us to baptize them but we are holding off until we can have a translator to really teach them the best we can and hopefully should have some really awesome things in this area soon. We have so much support from everybody around us which makes it so awesome and we also found 7 more refugees who want to take the lessons this past week! 

I hope you all have a really great week, I studied in Ether a lot this week and realized an interesting concept. God prepares the brother of Jared to cross the sea by helping him make his ship very tight, because in order to get to the promised land the lord must send fierce winds which cause large waves to push him accross the sea. I think it is a great analogy for when we go through hard times that maybe the lord is sending the winds to get us to the promised destination he has for us.

Love you all!!! Green

WEEK 21 SPRINGFIELD (WEEK 78 OF MISSION)

HELLO FRIENDS AND FAMILY!! 

How is everybody doing?? 

Mikey in the van full of sister missionaries!

MLC with Elders DeGooyer and Roberts

I had a great week this week full of great experiences.  Tuesday we had MLC so Elder Hewlett and I took a van full of sisters all the way to Bentonville and MLC was very good and a lot of fun.  On the way home we got a call to stop at one of the hospitals and give a blessing.  The lady in the hospital was not doing very well at all and when we walked into her room they had just brought her food.  She couldn’t cut it or eat it though and she did not have anybody that was coming to visit her.  Being able to cut the food and feed this elderly woman and then bless her with Elder Hewlett was an experience I will never forget. 

Compare my experience with this elderly woman to how we must appear to our Heavenly Father.  Sick in all of our sins, unable to partake of the bread of life for ourselves.  But as we ask in humility the Lord will always be by our bedside to feed us and lead us to safety and peace.  One of my favorite scriptures is from King Benjamin "before God are not we all beggars?"  I think about this scripture probably daily as I see the many homeless people of Springfield and think about how to God we all appear that way.

The refugees are doing okay, we did not have as many come to church this week. Unfortunately, I think it will take a miracle for them to really grasp the gospel and we are praying and doing everything we can for that miracle. 

 

So many haircuts!  Teaching the refugees how to use his clippers.

I saw many miracles this week and the Lord's hand in many ways, preparing many people, including working in the hearts of the members to change them so that they reach out to their friends or associates in faith. 

Love you all,

Elder Green

WEEK 20 SPRINGFIELD, (WEEK 77 OF MISSION)

HELLO!!!  How are all of you this week?? I hope you are having a good week!!

Well, well, well, my week was a good one. The biggest highlight of course being Frank being baptized and confirmed! He was so prepared from the get go and it was super awesome to be a part of teaching him and seeing him baptized.  The service was a really good one!  My favorite part was that Geannie came and even said the closing prayer! How awesome that as such a new member she already would come to somebody else's baptism to support them, etc.  Also Tammie and Frank are just awesome to us and look out for us so well (they live in the same apartment complex as us).

 

Frank and Brother Caruthers.

Before the Baptism.

After Frank's Baptism with his little boy Jesse.

The refugees are still doing very well.  We just ate dinner last night with all like 14 of the Gasana family and then we read the introduction of the Book of Mormon with them.  We also met a man named Jimmy and his wife and 2 daughters that are refugees from a long time ago and they are now well-established Americans and they were awesome to us as well. 

Last night while tracting we found a very cool lady named Rosa who is from Puerto Rico and she knows the church.  Her English is bad but she said she went to the Mormon church in Puerto Rico.  We are going back over tonight. 

I feel like my testimony is strengthening a lot on the Lord's preparation of people to receive us as missionaries.  I have noticed that very rarely do I ever convince somebody the gospel is true.  It is more just about finding those that already know it is true and telling them the things they have already believed their whole life. 

Love you all.  Have a great week!

Elder Green

WEEK 19 SPRINGFIELD (WEEK 76 OF MISSON)

Transfer Day.  Either Mikey is blinking or falling asleep standing up haha!

Hello everybody sorry no time today!

However this week was super good we saw a ton of miracles and we will be baptizing Frank this Saturday! The refugees are doing super good and everything is going great!

Mikey forwarded me (Emily) his companion's group email today, I guess because he wrote so little that he thought he had to do something haha, but in it he talked about how they deliver food to old people every Friday.  He said that the elders in the area next to them couldn't help this week because of car issues so they did theirs too and it took 3 hours.  I thought that was neat and never knew they did that! 

Elder Green

WEEK 18 SPRINGFIELD (WEEK 75 OF MISSION)

Staying in Springfield

Yesse, Martin, and Baby Ejeni Ya with Elder Durrant, Mikey and Elder Bueler

Main Man Je'taime

Yesse after English class with his fresh haircut from Mikey

Hey everybody! Its been a great week and a half out here.  I am not being transferred actually and I couldn’t be happier to stay in this area!

 

Mikey's favorite baby, Mjoto

Look at that face!

Chillin'

We will be baptizing Frank next Saturday! Which is so exciting and hopefully going to the temple soon after and helping them prepare to be sealed someday! 

The refugees have been a big focus for us this week and they are doing good.  We had a couple of families come to church this week and the progression is still slow but it is getting faster!  Their English is getting better and so is our Swahili so we can communicate fairly well at this point!!!

Love you all hope you have a great week! 

Elder Green!