WEEK 11 ROGERS (WEEK 92 OF MISSION)

Hello everybody! Hope you had a great week our week was really interesting haha.  

Mikey with an old friend who is back in the mission selling pest control.
Maybe he can help control the chiggers this year!

So we had the chance to go to the temple this week, of course it was wonderful and I really had some sacred spiritual experiences.  I actually took my first family name ever to!!!  I have caught that spirit of Elijah.  I was able to start with baptism and go all the way through the temple for my 6th great uncle on my mom's side!  How cool huh? 

Also this week was very good as far as teaching goes. We have some very solid investigators that continue to amaze me!  Carl is doing great.  He came out teaching with us last night and Mely is awesome she was just called to be in the Relief Society Compassionate ServiceS.  I am so proud of both of them. 

 

Elder Leavitt with cute Marshallese kids.

This past week we were going to this Marshallese Family Home Evening that is held for our ward that has been organized and it was supposed to be the first week that it was held actually.  We have been working hard preparing for it.  However, there was a bump this week because it was one of the girl’s birthday parties on Saturday haha so instead of having FHE we got invited to a Marshallese party.  How can you say no to that right?  So we rushed to Walmart and bought the girl a volleyball because she loves volleyball.  The party was not like any party I had ever been too.  It started with a prayer and the father stood up before all these people and told his daughter how much he loved her, then he personally thanked God for letting the missionaries be in his home.  Then they served us a huge dinner and treated us like kings!  They are such awesome people, then there was singing and birthday cake and gift giving and then all the sudden this man said something in Marshallese and everybody turned and was just staring at me hahaha this is so funny but anyways all the kids who translate for us are like, “Elder Green its your turn to dance... I am like dance???” haha.  So anyway here I am standing up in an apartment complex full of Marshallese people and they are all waiting for me to dance.  I was not sure if they wanted me to do like a traditional dance or something but then they drop a beat on these huge speakers and it was JuJu on that Beat hahaha and when life gives you lemons ya know... so anyway long story short I hit that juju on the beat and everybody was dying laughing etc. it was sooo funny and they all were videoing so anyway if the video "mormon missionary juju's on that beat" goes viral I will be very embarrassed!

 

This guy wasn't quite ready for church haha.
That's a box of beers.

Haha well anyway, I love the work and had a great week! I hope you all have a fun Memorial Day!!! 

Elder Green

WEEK 10 ROGERS (WEEK 91 0F MISSION)

Hello everybody!!! Another great week out here in Rogers!

Things have really picked up with our finding and last week we had tons of miracles.  We had 3 exchanges with zone leaders last week and they always bring a strong spirit of finding and that helped us a lot. 

Carl is still doing great, as well as Mely.  They are both solid as a rock and Carl now has the Aaronic Priesthood and Mely is awaiting her first calling!

A cool story from this week that isn’t very significant but just really opened my eyes was we are teaching a lot of Marshallese people and a lot of kids who are not members, one of whom is named Mercy.  She is 17 and pretty shy and I think maybe nervous about speaking English because she is still learning.  But she always wants us to come teach her and is really sweet about us teaching.  Well the other day while we were all sitting in the grass having a lesson, a white girl was kind of hovering around wanting to listen but feeling awkward (she may have even had disabilities) but Mercy made the effort to go and tell her that she was welcome to come listen to the missionaries and she did all of this while holding paper towels to her mouth that was bleeding because she had to have all of her teeth pulled.  It was a tender moment.

We have so many people we are working with and so many that are Marshallese.  I really do love the Marshallese people and culture.  They believe that everybody should share everything they have and they really live by it.  Every home we enter gives us something before we leave. 

Our ward is doing great and Bishop Gubler is so awesome.  They are always looking for solutions and ways to help us rather than just getting annoyed with investigators’ lack of commitment etc.  We are so grateful for them.

Love you all,

Elder Green

WEEK 9 ROGERS (WEEK 90 OF MISSION)

"I was slapped by a little Marhsallese girl....with a piece of pizza!"

Hello friends and family!!!!!

This week was another great week here in Rogers.  We have ramped up our exchanges to 3 exchanges a week so we have a lot of work that gets done and we are extremely grateful for the zone leaders that come in and help us so much.

We have had a lot of success working with the Marshallese people here in Rogers.  They are a very loving people and they all are familiar with the Mormon culture because they all have been to the Mormon church in the Marshall Islands.  We have had a lot of awesome experiences and this week 34 islanders returned to church!  It was a huge blessing and we saw the Lord's hand a lot.  Our ward is so great and they helped with rides, invitations etc. 

Carl is doing great.  He received the priesthood yesterday and I am so proud of him.  He comes to church faithfully even though he may have a hard time getting there etc.  I love that kid

Mely is great as well, she is such a great leader and we are blessed to have her in our ward and in my life.

We received an amazing referral that we are so excited about from a bishop in Salt Lake. He sent us a referral for a couple, Barbie and Steve.  They have been to Temple Square and sacrament meetings etc.  They seem just awesome and we are excited to teach them. 

There were a lot of miracles this week.  I saw the Lord’s hand many, many times.

Tommy, Mikey, and Mikey ;)

Happy Mother’s Day everybody!!!  It was so good to talk to my friends and family yesterday and I have the most amazing mom!  I love you Mama.  Thanks for all that you do for me!!!  I don’t know what this world would be like without my mom <3

Love you all,

Elder Green

WEEK 8 ROGERS (WEEK 89 OF MISSION)

HEYYYY how is everybody doing???  I hope everybody has recovered from Parker’s wedding haha.  I of course was sad to miss it but I am so happy for Park and Jenna and happy that my cardboard cutout could be there to support haha!!  Also Happy Birthday to Park tomorrow!!!!!  I miss you bro and hope your day is great out in Texas!! 

 

Mikey at the wedding with Aubrey, Anna, and Colton!

This week was a really good week.  We had two exchanges with the zone leaders from Bentonville and Fort Smith and they were both such great days with great missionaries. 

 

Zone Conference.  Looks like Mikey and his Comp said something pretty funny haha!

The highlight of the week would have to be of course Carl's baptism.  The whole $quad came out to see it haha.  All the young men in this ward are great and they are a very close group that just really support and help each other!  Carl is a great addition to our ward and is progressing so quickly.  He is going to come out to teach with us this Tuesday!  I am so grateful to have met him.

Carl's Baptism.
Dusty,Carl's friend who baptized him,
 Elder Leavitt, Mikey & Carl.

The $quad at Carl's Baptism!

The next really cool miracle that happened this week is that we were tracting this huge apartment that is just full of Marshallese people!  I didn’t know this but about everybody in the Marshall Islands has been taught by missionaries haha.  The church is huuuge over there so everybody knows who we are.  Unfortunately not a whole lot of them want to commit to putting away cigarettes etc.  Well we were tracting and having a lot of success in finding people actually.  We found a lot of members just nobody that really still wanted to be active.  Well flash forward to a door we knock on.  A woman comes out and says that she has been praying for us to come knock on her door.  Her name is Li-badeo Aidrickdrick.  She came to church the next day and her husband is coming soon from the island and they hope to be sealed soon!

But I love you all and hope you have a great week.  Remember the Lord rewards effort.  I know that is true I have seen it countless times.  The Lord rewards effort, even when the fruits are not seen.

Elder Green 

WEEK 7 ROGERS (WEEK 88 OF MISSION)

"Love it or Leavitt"

Well, Well, Well look who we have here my new companion Elder Leavitt.  He is just a city slicker from Moapa Valley, Neveda!  Just outside the Las Vegas area.  He has been out one transfer longer than I have so he goes home awfully soon but he is a great guy and I knew him long before this transfer from when I was in Tulsa etc.  We are having a lot of fun and seeing success and God’s hand often!

 

Mikey and Elder Leavitt "after hours."

Missionaries!

Deep deep thoughts!

Okay some wild things that have happened was that ever since Elder Leavitt got here it hasn’t stopped raining.  It was so bad it caused some pretty serious flooding and even cancelled Carl's baptism and church on Sunday. So that was a bummer.  But things are good everybody is okay.  The ward is all okay.  There were many trees broken though and quite a few people affected.  I was surprised.

Updates: Mely, fantastic.  We love her so much, she is the sweetest woman ever.  She takes such good care of us and everybody and she is going to be receiving a calling next week.  Since our church was cancelled she even drove out to Bentonville yesterday to take the sacrament with us during one of the meetings.

Carl: doing so great!  He was all set for baptism and then the rain hit.  But it was good because the ward was a little scrambled getting all the baptism stuff set up so it will be good to have it next week.

Last night we went out with Brother Duncan who is in the bishopric and he is so cool.  He speaks Swahili so we had an instant connection there.  But anyways we had some appointments with him and even walked in on a huge Pohnpeiian birthday party it was awesome!  The islanders have really been coming along and we are so grateful for all of them.

Today we went over to teach the Schureman family and we watched a video about gratitude from the Prince of Peace Initiative.   It hit me hard and I realized that we all need to focus on "living in the blessing" that this video talks about, rather than look to where our lives our lacking.  We need to just live in the blessing that God has given us!

Love you all,

Elder Green