Down in the Arkansas

This past week has been the last full week of President and Sister Hansen's time presiding over the Arkansas Little Rock Mission. They leave on Wednesday when President and Sister Cahoon fly in. The Hansens have taught me a lot. They have made me laugh. They have inspired me. They have helped me strengthen my testimony. I really am going to miss them.  We did get to interact them a lot this past week which has been nice. We had MLC on thursday. It was a really good meeting. We as a mission have been focusing on teaching the atonement in a more personalized way. The roleplays we did were super insightful and have helped us as we have taught the atonement a few times since.  We also filmed our Music Tribute at the North Little Rock building on Sunday. It will be shown on the Facebook page at some point in the future. As far as song selection goes, this has easily been my favorite Music Tribute. There are a few Mack Wilberg arrangements in there.  We also had a lot of lesson...

The pipes, the pipes are calling. I did have to work on my pipes, that's for sure. I have never been one to seek out opportunities to sing (much to the dismay of my former ward choir director mom), but this week I thought I might give it a try, and it was fun. On Wednesday this past week, Elders around Little Rock who had singing capabilities met and we filmed a digital choir of "Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy." It is posted on our Facebook page as the Father's Day Live Event. Go watch it if you haven't lol. It actually turned out pretty good. We have an absolute wizard of a video editor (and technology in general) who put it together.  That wasnt the only singing I did. The Mission Leadership Seminar is going to happen this week. Because of COVID-19, they won't be meeting all together, and neither will the usual choir of missionaries from the MTC. So missions have been notified that a virtual choir will be made. Where missionaries all over the world wi...

This week has been a pretty awesome week! It made for a great last week of the transfer! We had the zone focus goal of having three new people being put on date for baptism, and on Tuesday, we just got rained with miracles. The missionaries in Hope, Camden, and Monticello all had someone accept the invitation to be baptized! Tuesday was definitely one of the best days of my mission, definitely as a zone leader. And on Sunday, one of the set of Hermanas here in Hot Springs put someone they are teaching on date!! It was super cool to experience. Elder Probst and I are staying together this next transfer, by the way. Excited to see how everything goes this next transfer! We also had zone conference this week. It was great to see the whole zone in person! It was also President and Sister Hansen's last zone conference. We had a great time. President Hansen gave a great instruction on the atonement.  Those are the big highlights for the week. Stay blessed!  Pictures 1) last week we ...

Dear yall It was a pretty interesting. In one of our call-ins we asked the elders to describe their week in a type of cereal. If I were to describe mine as a type of cereal it'd be "Oops! All Berries." That's because: Oops, we had basically no time to do any sort of proselyting. Elder Probst and I spent most of our time filming or editing a video for the Church of Jesus Christ in Little Rock Facebook page (if you haven't seen it you should watch it). We edited the portion where children are being interviewed about the Godhead. There were some HILARIOUS answers. The best one was where a girl says, in an answer for what God has done for them, said "he told Liam(?) to get all them animals and put them on that ship." Yes, that was Liam.  Go watch it please. It's so good.  That was basically our whole week. We did teach some lessons, which was great. Especially on Sunday. Sunday was crazy busy! Kind of awkward too. In the morning this guy messaged us and ...

My week has probably been a lot less eventful than yours. My heart goes out to the people of Minneapolis and those whose lives have been affected, especially the family of George Floyd.  One really cool thing happened this week. We had a lesson at the church! It was the first in-person lesson in over two months!! We had to wear masks, but at least we got to see each other in person. It was really refreshing. I like teaching over video call, but I don't having it be the only method of teaching. It was a good lesson too! We talked a lot about the priesthood and the apostasy. The spirit was definitely strong.  We also drove a lot. We drove to Pine Bluff 4 times. Fun fun fun.  Also the Bryant Sisters, the Sister Training Leaders, are no longer in our district, so it's back to just us and 4 sisters in the district. We still work with them because they are the STLs over our zone, but now they are not even technically in our zone so the dynamic of how involved they are in our zo...

Good day to yall.  This past week has been a good one in Arkansas. And also Memphis. Yeah, we got to go to Memphis! The MLC (mission leadership conference) got to meet in person for the first time since I have been a part of it. We socially distanced ourselves and wore masks..... We met in Bartlett and it was a great time. one of the things we discussed the importance of reaching out and inspiring the other missionaries in our zone to help them reach their goals.  Also, instead of getting 50 missionaries this week, we are only getting around 15. But to accommodate even more missionaries the mission is renting some cars. And we got a rental car! It's a Nissan Kicks. No Tiwi, and no limit on our miles. There's no telling how fast we'll be flying and where we'll go! (Except we will stay within the zone because we are obedient, and mostly within the speed limit because I'm usually a careful driver).  We had a cool lesson this week with someone we are teaching. It was a ...

Another week has come and gone, and it's been quite a trip.  We started off the week with an online training. The Hot Springs and Benton zones met together and we discussed for many hours how we could improve our Facebook page. Not something I expected to do on the mission, but it was good. We also had our interviews with President Hansen. Because of the large amount of missionaries now in the mission and because he finishes his tenure as Mission President on the first day of July, he is doing his final round of interviews, so this was my last time being interviewed personally by him. I really am going to miss him. He has been a very inspired leader over the mission. I got some good council and direction from him that I will treasure for the rest of my life.  We also had exchanges with the Assistants this week. I was with Elder Okland and Elder Probst was with Elder Phillips. We thought it would be great to go visit and minister to some missionaries in the zone so Elder Okland...