Down in the Arkansas

I think talking about biking jinxed me for this week, because now we're not even biking. One of Elder Paopao's bike inner tubes tore and we didn't have any patches and our attempts to cannibalize old inner tubes as makeshift patches failed. So since Friday we have been walking. And it rained Friday. It poured. And we brought no gear. We got drenched, and my bag got slightly damaged from getting that wet. The leather from the strap buckle bled onto my white shirt, so that shirt is likely ruined. Also the tie I was wearing is now all tattered and wrinkled from it. It's lost its silky smoothness. Whatever. We are likely getting a new tube today though, so hopefully we'll be back on bikes within the next day or so. Walking in Memphis, however. Has given us the chance to take things more slowly and talk to people that we may have otherwise just passed by and said "yo" before. I like how much people here are open to talking about religion. Pretty much everyo...

Biking in Memphis for the most part is pretty fun. I like being able to go slow enough to see everything. There is something interesting at every corner, whether it's an out of place. Boarded up building, a cool mural, someone to talk to, or so on. But it also comes with drawbacks. There's glass everywhere. My companions have said they've popped numerous tires in Midtown. Hopefully the beefy tires I got do me well. Also, it got fairly cold and snowed one day. We had to go all the way across the area that day (and lady we were supposed to meet wasn't even there). Being outside and biking in the cold and snow was rough. Elder Perkins and I got a cold last week, and I think Elder Paopao got one from us just yesterday. There's no hope if your companion gets sick. Especially so if you have two. Luckily the snow melted a day later and it's been in the 60s for the past two days. Elder Perkins' bike broke a couple days ago. And pretty far from the apartment, so we h...

A wide variety of things have happened since last email. Namely, I am not in the MTC anymore. The Virginia Chesepeake and Mesa Arizona missionaries left last Tuesday and us ArkanSquad left on Wednesday. It was sad to see the others in our district go because we had become such good friends. The gang was broken up.  So Tuesday was a rather drag of a day because they were all gone. Just us five Arkansas-bound missionaries. The Tuesday devotional was given by Elder Ochoa and his wife. Sister Ochoa gave a powerful testimony of the Book of Mormon and Elder Ochoa talked about faith.  So when we left early on Wednesday (we checked out at 4:45am), we took a coach bus to Provo Station. Then we took the frontrunner up to SLC. on the frontrunner we met some cool people. Then we took the TRAX to the airport. Then we fly to Dallas. But interestingly, Elder and Sister Ochoa were on our flight! We saw them walking up to the gate and our group of 8 missionaries (5 from our district, 2 f...

I have been arkanseen in Arkansas. [mother's note: that's the entirety of what he wanted posted on the blog] A rando took this picture at the SLC airport and sent it to me. EM must have given her my email address. Arkansas, Little Rock! EM and Pres Faulkner, a friend of my sister and brother-in-law

Week 2 of the MTC. It definitely went faster than the first week. This email is just going to be a splatter of experiences, descriptions, and stories probably. More about my companion: Elder Miller is from Arizona. He likes basketball, and played on a national team in high school, which is pretty rad. He's pretty goofy and can make everyone in the district laugh. He likes rap and country music the most, so we're kind of on the opposite when regards to the music spectrum.  MTC cafeteria food is a hit-miss. The breakfasts have gotten old really fast. It's the same "egg loaf" (scrambled eggs that's really more of a loaf than a scramble), bad ham, and oversalted hash browns every other day. The lunches and dinners range from great to bad. For the most part it's better than what I ate in college, but that's because I was paying for food and being super cheap, I ate sandwiches and rice. We sit together as a district for most meals. We're all pre...