WEEK 7 SPRINGFIELD (WEEK 64 OF MISSION)

Hello Everybody!!! 

Well this short week was a very good one and things are going really well!!!

The Betlyons (recent converts) are doing great and preparing to go to the temple soon!!! 

The Harpers are so awesome who were baptized last week and they are progressing so much, they are already referencing things in the D&C and the Pearl of Great Price and everything it is just so awesome to see them so converted and they just want to do what’s right!  We are going to be teaching the rest of their family the gospel for Family Home Evening.  They are so funny and always make jokes about how they are black etc. So they are always making us try their black foods (fried green tomatoes, grits, pig’s foot etc.) haha so this week they were like what kind of food culture do your people have? and Elder Roberts and I just start laughing because we don’t have like a culture so we told them that white people eat casseroles and funeral potatoes lol so this Thursday they are making a combined white person and black person dinner with funeral potatoes and fried chicken!! haha we are excited! 

On Saturday we were up to our normal tracting.  Since the baptisms have happened our teaching pool has fallen down a little bit but we had an awesome miracle while knocking doors one day.  We see these black kids riding their bikes and it was obvious that they were foreign because of the way they were dressed, and we have been searching a ton for some refugees to teach English and there are some refugees that have already converted in our ward.  So anyway we go walk over to where they are and we find like this family of I think 15 people that have only been in America for 2 months and they are struggling and we are going to teach them all English and also yesterday we had a man and woman that speak French from our church go over and teach them the Restoration (the speak Swahili and French) and so we taught them and the one man, Sebastian at the end of the lesson just says, "You come teach me every day about God." haha pretty cool so we are really excited to teach Sebastian and Gabriel's families both English and the gospel! 

Yesterday was Stake Conference and it was so awesome!  We sat with Ann and Jeannie and they just loved it and they got to meet President and Sister Loveland and man it was just a good day!

I am doing a lot better this week and just trying to act with faith. I think this is going to be as Elder Bednar would describe it, more of a rising sun spiritual experience than the flick of a light switch, but I am excited for the journey and thankful for all of you so much!!! 

Again happy b-days to all my fave people Jmatty, Wally, Aubrey you are all so old now haha also congrats to Parker and Jenna! <3 can’t wait to meet you some day Jenna :) Welcome to the fam.

Love you all, 

Elder Green!!!

WEEK 6 SPRINGFIELD (WEEK 63 OF MISSION)

Hello hello family and friends!!! 

It has been a long time since I have been able to email you and a lot has happened!!!

On Saturday Geanie and Anne got baptized and it was such an awesome baptism!!!  They are some of my favorite people in the world and they are some of the most genuine people I have ever met and it was just great! The next day they were confirmed in Sacrament Meeting and then Anne got up and she bore her testimony to the whole congregation!  They should be going to the temple soon and they both are reading 6 pages of the Book of Mormon a day!!!  How awesome are they huh?  They are such good examples to me and I am so lucky to be able to have met them!

I have now memorized a couple talks just from reading them so much and doing my best to have faith and press forward and I can testify that if we do as Dieter F. Uchtdorf said and "doubt our doubts before we doubt or faith" God will provide safety for our soul and I am so grateful to my Heavenly Father and for the forgiveness and relief He can provide! 

Lastly, one of my favorite times of the year is right now with the fall and football season and basketball all starting it is so awesome!!!  Also I would like to wish three of my favorite people Happy Birthday, Wallbeck, Aubs, and Jmatty!!!!!!!! 

I love you all thank you for the prayers and everything please continue :) 

Elder Green!

WEEK 5 SPRINGFIELD (WEEK 62 OF MISSION)

Hello family and friends!!! 

Happy Halloweeeeeeeen!!!!!!

Well this week was super eventful and I am very excited about some things that we have going on right now!

First cool thing is Ann and Geanie's baptisms are this Saturday!!!  The whole ward is excited and everybody just loves them and they are awesome!  Their whole family came to the ward Halloween party there were like 10 of their family members there!  Then they came to church and invited us over for their Sunday family dinner!!!!  They are so sweet they are always saying, "Y’all are family." haha  Their baptism on Saturday should be very awesome!

We went to the temple this Friday!!!  We went to St Louis, (Colton I was thinking bout your Cardinals the whole time) haha but the St. Louis temple was a ton of fun!  It was so good to be in the house of the Lord and to ponder and pray about some questions I had! It was a lot of driving though haha. 

The House of the Lord.

Mikey with former comps, Durrant and Hess.

Me impressing a crowd with my bubble blowing talent. (All respect goes to the master bubble blower JMatty) but there is a bubble in this pic!

Perfect Form!

One sad thing was this week while teaching Ann and Geanie they wanted a flier and we had left it in the car and so I ran outside and when I was running I was kinda like bounding haha and I stepped on a pile of leaves that had a hidden little pothole in the front of the yard and my ankle got absolutely destroyed haha.  I just had to bite my tongue and limp in with the flyer haha.  We finished our awesome lesson with them about the commandments and then I told Elder Roberts haha.  I am recovering though I just can’t seem to heal that dumb ankle haha. 

We are doing really good though and we are loving teaching some other people that are progressing and making steps of faith like Kenny Hugo, Ginger, etc.  Also the Betlyons who were baptized this transfer are just awesome and they are preparing to go to the temple and Jess got called to be the Relief Society Secretary! 

But yeah it was a good week we are starting a couple new things in both wards to hopefully keep the work progressing!!!

I have been thinking a lot about honesty and realizing how dishonest I have been throughout my life and I am changing a lot to just not let myself slip up and tell lies or half truths or anything! One of the things that inspired me to do this was this scripture: 

Alma 5: 17 “Or do ye imagine to yourselves that ye can lie unto the lord in that day and say- Lord, our works have been righteous works upon the face of the earth-and that he will save you?"

I hope you all will strive to be more honest and to have integrity. "Tell me what you think about when you are all alone and I will tell you what kind of man you are." -I cant remember 

haha have a great week I love you all!!! 

Thanks for the Halloween Love!

WEEK 4 SPRINGFIELD (WEEK 61 OF MISSION)

"Mo money....Mo problems"

Hello everybody!!! I hope you all had a great week I am pretty short on time this week so I will have to just touch on all the highlights!!!

Shining up the ole pearly whites. Note the basketball
hoop taped so nicely to the wall, haha!

"Our flock out here."

First off Anne and Geanie will be baptized on the fifth of November!!!  Their testimonies are awesome and they love that they are about to be Mormons because they love the Book of Mormon!  They use it to answer all of their hard questions in life and it is really awesome to see!  They had us over for dinner and we had some bomb sliders and set up their map to baptism last week!!! We are going over tonight to show them some church movies and that should be great!

There is an awesome investigator out here named Kenny, who is married to a returned missionary, Bailey!  He is so sweet and he looks like Clay Matthews I feel like haha.  He has long hair and is sweet.  They feed us too and he is taking the lessons.  Things are going really well and he is moving along great!

Many miracles this week one of them being after we had tracted for a couple hours and got a lot of grumpy and rude responses we headed to dinner, but we were far away from our apartment and since we are broke missionaries McDonald's was the food of choice.  While in McDonald's all sadly poisoning our bodies, a man walked up to us and was like "Hey do y’all have some pamphlets so I can learn about your church?" haha He is great, his name is Anthony and we are teaching him and his fam tonight!

Elder Roberts' Selfie

Great week!!!  Hope you all are doing great!

Elder Green

WEEK 3 SPRINGFIELD (WEEK 60 OF MISSION)

Hello family and friends!!! What a great, great week we had!!!

A picture that Sister Loveland (President's wife) took of Mikey and his comp arriving at Interviews this morning.

We had a lot of success with a whole bunch of miracles and laughs, your typical week I guess.  The coolest miracle is happening with a girl named Bri. She is 20 years old and is newly wed. We found her when we were trying to go see a less active woman and knocked on the wrong house and Bri answered.  She accepted our message with a huge smile on her face and was really sweet to us.  She and her husband are super warm and receptive.  Her husband couldn’t come to church because of work this week but she actually made it to church!!!  That is really awesome huh? 

Also we had a cool experience with two ladies named Ann and Genie. Ann has been having some really bad health problems lately and it has really been bringing her down. We went by to just stop in and teach them about the commandments and hopefully set up a baptismal date for them.  When we went in Ann was very torn up and broken down.  She asked us if we thought that God really cared about her... A tough question to answer when somebody is struggling like she was.  So Elder Roberts offered the smartest thing and that was to give her a blessing.  We gave her one and sat with her for a while and comforted her.  Then we left, she was still pretty sad when we left.  When we went back to see her she said that after we left she felt an overwhelming feeling of peace and love and she is 100% better now!  It was really awesome.  She had to go back to the doctor and on the paper they gave her to fill out for the hospital it said: preferred religion? and she wrote in "Mormon" hahahaha awesome huh?

We had an awesome exchange with the Orchard Hills elders on Wednesday which was super fun and good!!!  Our zone is trying something new from President Loveland where we stop eating member dinners and just use all of our time to find new investigators! Me and Elder Roberts were a little worried that the zone would not be on board.  The zone is so awesome though. They all picked it up immediately and it was a huge answer to our prayers and everybody is working super hard!  I am very happy Elder Roberts is such a great elder and is so funny!!  I hope you all had an awesome week!!! 

Love you all! 

MEEKY

WEEK 2 SPRINGFIELD (WEEK 59 OF MISSION)

"I WOULD FOLLOW NOAH, BUT PROBABLY NOT ABRAHAM!"

Hello Everybody!!! 

I am so happy today! I love everything that I have going on right now and I am learning a lot still and growing a lot. I think for a little while there I hit a little bit of mid mission coast and I feel like I am back to myself again laughing and having a lot of success and fun!

Sooo... Let's see this week we baptized the Betlyons! They are super awesome and I was honored to speak at their baptism and it was so cool to see Elder Roberts baptize the both of them!  Also, Sister Weiner (from the mission office) made a 2 and a half hour trip up from Bentonville just to show us support and be with us at the baptism!  She is the absolute best and we are bffs.  After, she took us and like 4 other sisters that came to our baptism to Zaxby's and you cant imagine what game was on the tv right above our head.  Yeah the Cougs!!!!  Tender mercy right there.  Let’s just say I was having a hard time focusing on the conversation.  Lol I saw my boi Jamal bust a huuuugggeee run to seal the win at the end of the 4th!  That is what I am talking about hahaha so that was just an awesome day!

The Betlyons at their Baptisms!

Mikey with his BFF Sister Weiner.
I wonder if she's reminding him what an orange is haha???

At the Baptisms with the Sisters ;)

Tenderest of mercies!!!

Selfie at Zaxby's watching the game ;)

On Wednesday we held Zone Training and then went to Bentonville to do exchanges with the Assistants and both of those things went really, really well.  I have been nervous about all of this so I am glad that things have gone well.  We are trying to work the absolute hardest we ever have here in Springfield right now because the work has been down for a while.  The Betlyons were the first baptism in that ward in quite some time.  President challenged us to find like crazy and we have decided to give up our dinner appointments and just eat quick meals in the day and really hit the streets hard. This week while teaching a man at the door we were sharing that white board thing that Elder Nau taught me and that is now mission famous, but we were teaching a man about the need for modern day prophets and Elder Roberts asked him why would it be important to follow these prophets in their day? (adam, noah, moses, abraham) the man replied with my subject line "wellllllllll, I think I would wanna follow Noah, but probably not Abraham" that one was tough to tie together... haha 

 

With his good old buddy from Bingham, Elder Degooyer, at MLC.

Lets see, the members out here are awesome and they are bringing their friends to things and really helping with the work which is super encouraging. 

We met this super cool girl named Bri this past week and she is really loving the gospel already.  She has Mormon friends that she really looks up to.  She has been reading the Book of mormon and we are going over tomorrow night with Brother Miyaki to teach her and her husband Cole.

Man there is so much going on and this is getting so long haha but I had some very special sacred experiences this week that are comparable to stories in the Bible and Book of Mormon that were huge testimony builders and answers to my fasting and prayers!  I have a huge testimony of fasting and priesthood blessings after this week!

Anywho there is so much to say but I will leave it at that! Thank you for all your prayers I love you all and hope you have a great week!!!!

Elder Green 

WEEK 1 SPRINGFIELD (WEEK 58 OF MISSION)

Hello Everybody!!!

Green and Roberts prophecy fulfilled?

This is a picture from forever ago!  My new companion is standing to the right of me in this picture his name is Elder Roberts!!!!  He is such a great guy and I couldn’t be more stoked to be with him and especially in Springfield.  I love my new area! Springfield is basically like South Jordan!  It is a very nice new view for sure!  I do miss Mena though.  Never thought I would say that one, huh!  But yes this is the third state I have served in now!

Mikey with his new companion, Elder Roberts.
He called this "Presh" as in aren't we precious ;)

Posterity Line saying goodbye at transfers.

Mikey with Larry Sibbett.  Such a great family that helped
the missionaries a ton back in Mena.

Man conference was super sweet and Elder Roberts and I watched it at the church. We tried to go watch it with some of the investigators at their house but things ended up cancelling!

We have a baptism Saturday so that will be cool Elder Grey and Elder Roberts were working very hard in this area before I got here so it is super nice to come into an awesome area! 

My favorite thing from conference was that I fasted and prayed because I really needed some direction with things in my life and all 4 of my questions were addressed directly.  I had never tried that before and to see them answered so directly and so quickly was a very special experience.  My favorite talk and I think my new favorite speaker came from Elder Rasband.  I had very recently had the same experience that he discussed about the primary song asking the question "Heavenly Father, are you really there?  And do you hear and answer every child’s prayer?"  I want you guys to know that I know that Heavenly Father is really there.  If you want to feel his love ask him in prayer how he feels about you and then sit quietly and listen.  I promise that your Heavenly Father will fill your heart through the Holy Ghost with the love he has for you! 

Eating with the Elders Quorum.  That's a lot of Brats!

I hope you all have a great week! I am doing really good and loving where I am at and am so grateful to get to learn new things from Elder Roberts!!! 

Love you all,

Elder Green