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

WEEK 18 MENA (WEEK 57 OF MISSION)

These pictures came through last week after i had already sent out the group email so i will start with them this week ;)

Mikey called this,
"When you're having a rough day!"

Saying goodbye to Brandon before he heads to Utah to enter the MTC

So many tries but they never got a pic of all three of them looking at the camera haha!!!

When Brandon got to Utah he stopped by our house for a visit!  It was so much fun to talk to him and hear more about the town of Mena.  He is headed to Australia and will hopefully attend UVU when he returns from his mission.

Brandon with cute Aubrey.  I'm not sure Mikey would like his arm around her haha!

Not a lot of time today ladies and gents but we got the big news on transfers!!!!

I am going tomorrow to Springfield, Missouri and I will be in downtown Springfield in a two ward area Hickory Hills and Hillcrest.  It will be a bit of a change of pace from the town of Mena!

This past week was one of the hardest of my whole life and I am so grateful I made it through!  I can’t go into details really but I am so grateful for the prayers of you all and the love I feel for my Savior and Heavenly Father! 

We left Mena in pretty good shape though and really had a good week.  We had 4 investigators come to church and those awesome girls Haley and Avery are looking to be baptized on October 8^th and also there is an 11-year-old who we found last week who will also be baptized in October.  Also Donny Carroll, who was baptized a few weeks back will be going to the SLC temple soon with his brother to do his first baptisms.  I love you all thank you for all the support!!! 

This is at the baptism of the Pattersons.  A couple Mikey helped teach and got to go back and speak at their baptism.  No pic with the couple but always gets one with Elder Hess haha!

Happy Birthday to my beautiful mom this Saturday!!!!  She is my best friend in the whole world and I love her and don’t know what I would do without her. (But literally I still have no clue what I am doing out here, who knew you couldn’t put dawn in the dishwasher?)  I Love you Mama!!!  Have a great birthday Mama! 

Elder Green 

WEEK 17 MENA (WEEK 56 OF MISSION)

Hello there family and friends!

This week was a little bit of a crazy week! Our district is doing so awesome! Man I am so proud. However, because of the awesomeness of them that requires a lot of driving for us hahaha A LOT.  This week I did 3 baptismal interviews and it required easily over 10 hours of driving.  Since I can’t drive it really is a lot on Elder Doman's shoulders.  I feel terrible every time we have to make another long drive and Elder Doman is so awesome about driving so much.  He is a trooper for sure.  This upcoming week looks to be no different either.  With many more baptisms coming up I know I will at least make another 4 hour round trip.  On the way back from one of these adventures to a city called Gore, Oklahoma we stopped by in Greenwood.  They were having a barbeque and games etc. for all the investigators and recent converts and members of our stake. Unfortunately, nobody from Mena could make it because of the distance.  But because of our travels I know all the investigators from the other areas and it was awesome getting to see them :)  Also there was a zipline there and my best friend Elder Hess so that was a great day haha.

Greenwood Barbecue with Hess Daddy.

 While driving home Sunday morning we ran into what might have been a tornado to be honest. I could see the signs with the sky looking a little purple and some funnel clouds forming.  It was a wild drive but we made it home safely!  Once again Doman is the best for driving through all that haha.

This week as far as the work goes in Mena things were tough.  I feel bad for Elder Doman starting his mission off in the hardest area.  However, we are not letting the difficulty of the area get in the way of the things we can control.  We knock a lot of doors and teach a ton of people.  I need to work on getting people to accept commitments because it seems as though we try so hard and teach a lot but there’s that darn agency that people have haha.  This Sunday was killer.  We went to wake up all of our investigators that we had just barely seen the night before and had awesome tear jerking lessons with... Only to get ignored, slept in on, and screamed at to go away haha. I’ll tell ya what, we are resilient though. 

I hate to seem dreary in this letter because I really am not!  I am in a very good mood and my spirits are high!  They used to say that the Fort Smith zone and especially our district is "dead" and now we are some of the best areas in the mission and I could not be more excited about that.  There is no such thing as a dead area and I know Mena has people out there too and we will find them when the Lord see's fit.

Also let’s not forget we have Avery and Haley that are such awesome and prepared girls to hear and accept the gospel.  I hope they get baptized before I get transferred! 

Also due to the storm the lights and PA system were out at church on Sunday haha it was funny to only have emergency lights and no microphone.  I guess that’s the blessing of the smallest branch in the mission is you don’t have to speak very loudly for all to hear :) 

Love you all.  I was going to include a spiritual thought but this is already long so I will just leave one of my new favorite quotes from Elder Kapishke of the Quorum of the 70 when he was asked, “How do we balance our busy lives?”  He answered, it is simple when you run, you run; when you walk, you walk; when you lie, you lie; and when you sit, you sit. 

Live in the moment!  Remember the most common phrase in the Book of Mormon, "and it came to pass" all things in life will come to pass so cherish the moment!

Love Elder Green