Down in the Arkansas

Sadly the title of this email did not actually happen. Almost. On Tuesday, we got a special treat. Elder Bednar joined in on our mission-wide zoom call for a little over an hour! He, having lived and raised his family in Arkansas and taught at UA in Fayateville, loves Arkansas and asked at the very beginning of the call "should we call in the hogs?" Sadly we didn't end up doing it. Most missionaries in the mission do not know how to call hogs anyways. The call was really good. He shared really good insights, especially on listening to what the spirit says and not particularly on what the speaker says. Because you want to learn by the spirit, not just learn what the speaker is saying. He likes to through down on people taking notes on what people say in General Conference because he says "you never look at them ever again and usually lose the notes anyway." Take notes on what the spirit tells you. That will be most important than the details of the info...

After just a few weeks, I am now in a new companionship. On Monday we drove to Little Rock and dropped Elder Ashworth off at the Mission Home. It was the first time I had been at the Mission home since I entered the field. There I would pick up my new companion: Elder Probst! We have both been the mission for the same amount of time. He was just in a different MTC district, so I didn't meet him until we were leaving for the airport. He is from Utah. Neither of us have previously been Zone Leaders before this transfer so we're a mess.  We had a great week! We have been getting a lot of referrals, both member referrals and online ones. Last week a member met a guy selling life insurance and had the prompting to invite him to meet with us. We had two lessons this past week, and he is really cool and clearly understands everything we say and has a lot of feedback for our lessons. Very sharp guy. He is from Wisconsin, and he sounds like it to. I immediately recognized that he wa...

Happy Easter everyone! Here in Hot Springs we had a good Easter. Our church services are done in our Districts. With the self isolation and the things we are doing because of it, the districts in our mission have grown a lot closer and united because we see them almost every day. For part of our service, we watched President Monson's talk "He is Risen." It is really good!  Elder Hakes went home this past Wednesday, and Elder Ashworth goes home tomorrow. I am getting my new companion later today. However, I do not know who it is. I am used to that. For the past 3 weeks, I have not known was tomorrow was to bring, so I'm not even mad. We had a great time in a trio. We were basically the three stooges.  Also so one thing we are doing as a mission is creating these sweet Facebook pages for different regions of the mission. We share uplifting posts and videos, and we get experience managing a social media page for when we are all on the marketing team for a multi...

Good day everyone! I hope you had a great General Conference and were able to Hear Him as I did. I thought it was really good, especially the Sunday sessions. Elder Holland, Elder Christofferson, and Elder Oaks gave great, memorable talks. I also liked Elder Anderson's because he talked about the upgrades to the SLC temple foundation, which I learned about some of the methods of foundation design they are implementing while at BYU. We have been able to keep fairly busy. It may be good that I am a zone leader actually, because we do stay busy helping the zone out. Otherwise I may be getting driven up the wall with all the monotony. I still have no idea what I am doing. As for our teaching, Elder Ashworth found a guy on a Bible group who asked a question and we offered to DM him answers. The man is from Liberia and had some questions about the atonement. Elder Ashworth explained the atonement a little bit, and the man's response was "have you experienced this Jesus?...

In a rather poetic form, I am again in a trio where I will be ending the missionary service of both companions. That makes 5 total "kills" at the end of this, half of the total amount of companions I have had in the field thus far.  Elder Ashworth and Elder Hakes are my companions, and they were my zone leaders when I was in Benton. Little did I know I would be joining them. I enjoyed having them as zone leaders, and am now enjoying having them as companions.  Elder Hakes is leaving for home any day now, due to health risks surrounding the corona virus, and Elder Ashworth leaves in 2 weeks, due to older missionaries being sent home early to make room for reassigned, previously foreign serving missionaries that will come after their quarantine. So in just a couple weeks I will be in a completely new companionship. Hopefully I'm not the senior companion zone leader, because I have no idea what I'm doing haha.  It has been very weird being transferred to ...

I rescind almost everything from my last week's letter. Since wednesday, we became limited to only seeing people in person if you had a set lesson with them, and that no group you are in exceed 10 people, and no contact with anyone over 60.  Since Sunday, Elder Davidson and I (and a dozen other missionaries we have made contact with) have been in strict quarantine. No leaving the apartment whatsoever. Someone we saw a couple days ago may have the corona virus so we have been confined entirely to our apartment, and any missionaries we have seen since. I'll spare you the details. Long story short: I'm never helping anyone with laundry ever again. Service is bad.  The good thing is is that he only MIGHT have corona. We got a call yesterday morning saying he did, but an email last night saying that the tests are not complete. The call interrupted a sacrament meeting we were having at a member's home with someone we were teaching. We had to leave and never came back. Su...

This last week has been an interested unfolding of events and announcements. It's wonderful that just a year and half or so ago, we were introduced to a church curriculum that focuses studying the gospel in the home, and two years ago were introduced to a higher and holier way to minister to others. We are truly a living church lead by a prophet who receives revelation from God. Also, remember to take your vitamins haha.  But the question remains, how is missionary work conducted amid this trying period of time. The answer for the ALRM: not much different than before. It has thrown in interesting twist into church attendance, that is it. Since church has been cancelled, members are now authorized to administer the sacrament in their homes under authorization at the bishop. So our goal to getting people to church has now shifted to trying to get people to a member's home for a short lesson and the sacrament, which counts for us in sacrament attendance. That switch ha...