December 12, 2016
Well
folks another week has passed down here so lemme tell y'all about my week
Tuesday the
Spanish Zone Leaders, Elder Spencer and Elder Jorgensen drove up from
Little Rock to do exchanges. Elder Spencer stayed in nearby Danville to go
on exchanges with Elder Santiago, and we were stuck with Elder Jorgensen.
Turns out Elder Jorge forgot to bring their phone and left it in Little Rock. Because he is a Zone Leader and has to call a bunch of people throughout the day, and because we were going to have a Teleconference with the Spanish Zone that night, we decided to drive back to Little Rock and do exchanges there instead of Russellville. I was all for, a change of scenery for a day or two seemed real nice. Lemme tell you a little bit about Elder Jorgensen, he's a really cool guy. He's from Sandy, is also 6'3" and 160 pounds, and also loves skiing, so we got a lot in common. We hit it off pretty well.
On the drive down to Little Rock, we listened to Feed My Sheep by Elder Holland, this was my second time hearing it and let me tell ya, it affected me even more this time. It made me really feel blessed to have a resource like Preach My Gospel. I decided I seriously have to start using it more, with more sincere intent. My goal is to read it cover to cover in the next few months. We also listened to this talk in a podcast series called Mr Mormon. One of the podcasts was a 45 minute long talk on why the Priesthood was restricted from Blacks until 1978.
I really thought it was cool so here's what it says in a nutshell: Many
people don't know that when the Church was first organized, the Priesthood
was available to men of all races and nationalities. I believe he said it
was about the year 1848 when the restrictions were placed on who could
receive it, but before that a few black saints had actually received the
Priesthood, the restriction was in affect for only 130 years. The author
goes on to explain that in the time of the Old Testament, from the time of
Moses until Jesus, only descendants of the tribe of Levi could hold the
Priesthood. Not even King David or King Solomon could participate in
tabernacle ordinances because they were from the tribe of Judah, and thus
couldn't hold the Priesthood. Do we know why? No. But we do know that God
loves us all equally and his ways and purposes are greater than the
understanding of Man. The Priesthood was restricted from people of a
certain lineage for 1400 years in the Old Testament, and then again for
130 in these Latter Days, and we do not know why, but God does.
When we arrived in Little Rock, we made ourselves comfortable. The Zone Leaders apartment is SUPER nice, everything is newly refurbished, it felt like staying in a nice hotel.
Then we went and taught one of the coolest couples I've ever met. The wife is from Argentina and has a really cool accent, and the husband is from France and speaks Spanish as a second language, WITH A FRENCH ACCENT. It was seriously so cool. Their two sons speak French, English, and Spanish. The wife is pretty golden, she had read all the way through Lehi's dream. I never thought I'd get to see such incredible diversity here, IN ARKANSAS. So cool. A city of 300 thousand people is a lot different than Russellville. All the traffic seemed pretty crazy in comparison, I felt like I was in California again.
Wednesday as we drove back we listened to Glen Beck's conversion story. Super powerful. He talks about how he
overcame alcoholism, I don't think
I'd realized just how serious a problem and an addiction that can be until
I listened to this talk. He then explained how he he was drawn to the
Church because it encourages seeking, actively testing God for answers, as
if He is telling us "Try Me." I love that about the Gospel. One
thing we try to explain to investigators is that we don't expect them to
believe us, we expect them to go to God and let him tell them the truth.
Thursday we decided to go handout Light the World pass along cards in a Grocery store. Eventually a store worker came up to us and told us we couldn't pass out cards anymore because people were starting to complain. That hurt my heart a little bit. All we were doing was saying "would you like a Christmas card?" And "Have a lovely day." I was surprised, I could see people getting upset in other parts of the country, but I expected more from you Arkansas. I should have known better, you did vote for Trump after all. I'm losing hope for you America. I love you but you're breaking my heart.
I hope y'all have looked in #LIGHTtheWORLD already, such a great message, I cry every time I watch the video.
Saturday we had about 10 lessons fall through, but we taught two new Investigators with Hermano Roque, so that was a miracle. We are gonna teach S and T the law of Chastity tonight, pray for us! I promised I would only email an hour today so I'll have to stop right there, but love y'all.
The Church is True, Book is blue, emailing one hour should be nothing new. (My bad on that one)
Turns out Elder Jorge forgot to bring their phone and left it in Little Rock. Because he is a Zone Leader and has to call a bunch of people throughout the day, and because we were going to have a Teleconference with the Spanish Zone that night, we decided to drive back to Little Rock and do exchanges there instead of Russellville. I was all for, a change of scenery for a day or two seemed real nice. Lemme tell you a little bit about Elder Jorgensen, he's a really cool guy. He's from Sandy, is also 6'3" and 160 pounds, and also loves skiing, so we got a lot in common. We hit it off pretty well.
On the drive down to Little Rock, we listened to Feed My Sheep by Elder Holland, this was my second time hearing it and let me tell ya, it affected me even more this time. It made me really feel blessed to have a resource like Preach My Gospel. I decided I seriously have to start using it more, with more sincere intent. My goal is to read it cover to cover in the next few months. We also listened to this talk in a podcast series called Mr Mormon. One of the podcasts was a 45 minute long talk on why the Priesthood was restricted from Blacks until 1978.
 |
| from our stay at the "hotel" |
When we arrived in Little Rock, we made ourselves comfortable. The Zone Leaders apartment is SUPER nice, everything is newly refurbished, it felt like staying in a nice hotel.
Then we went and taught one of the coolest couples I've ever met. The wife is from Argentina and has a really cool accent, and the husband is from France and speaks Spanish as a second language, WITH A FRENCH ACCENT. It was seriously so cool. Their two sons speak French, English, and Spanish. The wife is pretty golden, she had read all the way through Lehi's dream. I never thought I'd get to see such incredible diversity here, IN ARKANSAS. So cool. A city of 300 thousand people is a lot different than Russellville. All the traffic seemed pretty crazy in comparison, I felt like I was in California again.
Wednesday as we drove back we listened to Glen Beck's conversion story. Super powerful. He talks about how he
 |
| My comp reading a Jehova's witness study reference book |
Thursday we decided to go handout Light the World pass along cards in a Grocery store. Eventually a store worker came up to us and told us we couldn't pass out cards anymore because people were starting to complain. That hurt my heart a little bit. All we were doing was saying "would you like a Christmas card?" And "Have a lovely day." I was surprised, I could see people getting upset in other parts of the country, but I expected more from you Arkansas. I should have known better, you did vote for Trump after all. I'm losing hope for you America. I love you but you're breaking my heart.
I hope y'all have looked in #LIGHTtheWORLD already, such a great message, I cry every time I watch the video.
Saturday we had about 10 lessons fall through, but we taught two new Investigators with Hermano Roque, so that was a miracle. We are gonna teach S and T the law of Chastity tonight, pray for us! I promised I would only email an hour today so I'll have to stop right there, but love y'all.
The Church is True, Book is blue, emailing one hour should be nothing new. (My bad on that one)
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