04/29/2019 Out of the Delta and into the hills

April 29, 2019

Arkadelphia is beautiful! There are hills and trees everywhere. The city of Arkadelphia is a small college town. With a population of 10k, there are two universities, Henderson State and Ouchita Baptist. So about half the population either goes to or works at one of the universities.

While I am in the Arkadelphia area. I spent a full day in Hot Springs before Arkadelphia. We had an exchange on the day after transfers, and I was with Elder Short in HS (yes, he is taller than me. I am Elder Shorter). Hot Springs is also very scenic as it's right next to Lake Hamilton and a national park, so it very much felt like a resort town.

My companion is Elder Green. Like I said in my last email, he only has 2 transfers left. He is very tall as well. He is my first companion from Utah. I made it half of a year before having a companion from Utah, which I think is an accomplishment.

The apartment is very nice. 2 bathroom/baths, very quiet part of town, forest right outside the complex. And it was just a sisters' apartment 3 transfers ago, so it has generally been well kept. And we have a car! A Toyota RAV4 (4 wheel drive!). I am so glad we dont have to ride bikes because their are some gnarly hills here.

In Arkadelphia, we have done a lot of service with one couple who is basically redoing half of their house. It's a very old and poorly built home. The joists on one side of their house are all cracked and bowing, causing the floors to bend. It's been good to work with tools a lot. I busted out my safety glasses for the first time. We have been tearing the floors and removing joists. We also did a service project with the Red Cross in Pine Bluff, so we have been going all over.

We haven't been able to see some of the people that Arkadelphia has been teaching, so I am not yet familiar with a lot of the work, but we have found a few people to teach this week.

Interesting fact of this week

Crawfish dig holes and sleep in them at night. At the property with the house we are working on, their garden is full of holes and mounds. Yes, crawfish dig this couple inch tall, and steep mounds.

Pics:

1)me, Elder Green, and Brother Jones at the service project. We drove around town with firefighters in a firetruck installing smoke detectors and teaching people about fire safety. We were pretty pumped to ride in a firetruck. You can also see the height difference between Elder Green and me.

2) me and a wolf. Well, mostly a wolf. 1/16th huskie. The rest, wolf. Brother Jones owns him, as well as like 5 other big dogs and a handful of mustangs. This wolf does not follow orders.