WEEK 24 SPRINGFIELD (WEEK 81 OF MISSION)

Hey everybody!!!  I have some sad news.  I have been transferred and have to say goodbye to all my African family haha.  It will be hard and sad but Elder Durrant is staying here and getting Elder King who is awesome and is just coming from being the assistant in our mission.  I am being transferred to Rogers, Arkansas and I am really excited.

This past week was one for the books and probably up there in my favorite moments on my mission.  We had a Swahili translated church this week.  Somebody from Salt Lake City face-timed us and we blew it up onto a big TV and they could communicate with somebody back and forth and they were able to really understand our message for the first time!  However, we only had 25 there this week, I would expect close to 60 this coming week with Elders Durrant and King.

 

Sister Joy from Salt Lake City teaching the refugees in Springfield, Missouri.

In other news Frank (recent convert) blessed the sacrament this past week and Geannie (another recent convert) gave a talk in the same sacrament meeting.  It was truly a special moment for me to see how awesome and prepared these people are that I have had the privilege to teach!  I will forever be grateful for them and saying goodbye will not be easy haha.

I have a busy day but I love you all and would like to share one spiritual thought with you before I go.  I was reading in the book of Revelations yesterday with a woman named, Jayne, and read in Rev. 7: 14-17 one of my favorite scriptures about the temple.  I would just encourage any of you that are reading this that haven’t been to the temple ever or if it has been a while to read that verse and then set up a plan to make it back!  I can promise that the scripture in Revelations will be fulfilled for you. 

Elder Green

WEEK 23 SPRINGFIELD (WEEK 80 OF MISSION)

Mikey with his BFF, Sister Weiner, for the last time before she came home.  We attended her homecoming in Riverton and it was so awesome to meet her!  Such a great lady and we appreciate her so much!!!

President Loveland teaching Mikey how to shine his shoes.  I'm sure they needed it!!!

Blowing bubbles for Jesse's birthday!

Morgan with Songolo.

Mikey with Elder Hewlett.

What Steph Curry sees when he pulls up for a three!
This is some artwork in Bentonville.

Hello everybody I hope you all had a great week!!! We sure did here.

This week we had 8 refugees at church and are really excited about what we have put together for next week.  We have been in contact with a Swahili speaking refugee branch in SLC and been in contact with their Branch President Emmanuel De'Mzee, and this next week he has actually called somebody from his branch to video call and teach our refugees their own little Sunday School class in Swahili so that they can understand.  It is very exciting for us because many of the people want to join our church, but they just can’t grasp the whole concept of the gospel in English and can’t have their questions answered like they would like to.  I am very excited!  This next week the meeting for our refugees is at 5 pm our time so 4 pm for the people in Salt Lake and I think we are planning on having about 40 investigators there so it should be a very special experience.

This week President Loveland came out on exchanges with me while Elder Durrant was with our ward mission leader.  We had a very good time on exchanges and President Loveland and I were able to go teach Ann and Jeannie and their family (Melissa and D'Shun) it was a powerful lesson about the Book of Mormon and Jesus Christ and Melissa and D'Shun agreed to be baptized.  There is still a lot to teach and to figure out.  They don’t live in our ward boundaries even but it was still a very spiritual experience. 

Yesterday, Ann stood up and bore her testimony.  It was a powerful testimony about how she doesn’t know the reason for all her trials etc. but she is not letting the darkness of her trials overshadow the brightness of the truths she does know and cling too.  Something I loved that she said while battling back tears was, "I’m angry with God, I don’t understand why these things have happened but I have hope, and I can keep going and someday I will understand."  What a powerful witness from a recent convert that is going through a lot right now. 

Okay a funny experience was last night we were eating at the refugees’ house.  A family from Rwanda that speak Kinyarwanda and now they speak pretty good English.  Well anyway we were eating and talking when one of their girls mumbled something in Kinyarwanda, the older boy translated, "She thinks Durrant looks like an angel." hahaha everybody busted up laughing haha Durrant is a handsome guy and apparently even angelic to our African friends hahaha.  We had a good laugh about that and now his nickname is Malaika which means angel in Kiswahili. 

 

The "Angelic" Elder Durrant and Mikey at the Ward Mission Leader's home, Brother Lesue.  The Lesues texted me this picture last night.  This was the farewell party for their daughter who leaves Tuesday to serve a mission in Ogden!  Small world.

Love you all thank you so much for everything!  Talk to you later!!!    

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!