Email: treinta y dos

March 20, 2017

Howdy folks!

I don't really remember anything up to Wednesday, so we will start there! Wednesday we drove down to North Little Rock for Spanish Zone Conference, for all the Spanish missionaries on the Arkansas side of the mission. It was really fun to see Elder Sotomarino and Elder Toomer again. The Zone Leaders talked about the importance of using the Book of Mormon in finding, and also how to improve language studies.

We headed back to Jonesboro afterwards because we had an important lesson with Lucia that night. When we got to her house no one answered, so we called her and she said she was still working. That was kinda frustrating, because we had Zone Conference the next morning, and we could have just stayed the night in North Little Rock. So we headed back to the house to do training for Elder Giles, and called it a night because we had zero others plans for that day.

Thursday morning we got up at 5:30 for the second straight day, and got a ride from Calvin Rawlins to North Little Rock. Calvin got home from his mission in Virginia about 7 weeks ago. He is a champ. He was an AP there, and you can tell. When he drove us, he wore a suit, brought his scriptures and Preach My Gospel, and sat through all of Zone Conference with us. He loved it! He's such a great guy and you can really tell that he was an incredible missionary. He misses the mission like crazy. Erinn, you have my full permission to date this guy. In fact, I'm going to try to make this happen.

Zone Conference was incredible. President Wakolo, something about that man just makes me emotional, I think I've cried every time he's spoken. I have a deep love for that man, and I have felt his love so powerfully. He has helped me get through so much.

During Zone Conference, two marriage counselors from LDS family services came and talked about comp unity. They were super funny, and I learned a ton of things that will help me with my companions, and definitely with my future marriage! So because of the mission I just might avoid being in the doghouse a couple times  😂

After Zone Conference Elder York had an exchange with the AP's, and so Elder Taleni headed back to Jonesboro with us. Elder Taleni is the man. He is from Samoa, and has a full ride scholarship to play football at BYU. He actually has never played football before in his life, but he was a star rugby player, and BYU scouts saw some potential. Thursday night I got to see some of that potential. We had basketball night at the church, and usually about 20 black kids show up, and most of them are pretty good, as you can imagine. Elder Taleni told me beforehand that he wasn't very good and had never played before the mission. Elder Taleni is very modest. He was by far the best athlete in that gym. He can shoot, dribble, and dunk like Lebron. Every black kid went nuts as they watched all 240 pounds of muscle get up and throw it down. He balled everyone up. He told me afterwards a couple kids in Memphis taught him how to play basketball at the start of his mission. He also told me that in high school he jumped 6'6" for high jump. At 240 pounds. That's just not fair. I feel like BYU Football will be in good hands.

Yesterday between church meetings, eating, and studies, we weren't able to get out working until 5, and our car only had 3 miles left on it because we forgot to fill it up Saturday night, so we were on bikes. We rode clear to the other side of town for 45 minutes to visit a less active who wasn't home, so we biked to a nearby potential investigator named Rosi. She wasn't there, but her husband, Isaac, was, so we taught him a quick lesson outside because we caught him just as he pulled in. He was very nice and seemed happy to see us. They met with missionaries before a couple years ago, so we are very excited to see them again!

As we were heading back we saw a giant dead gopher in the road, so we decided to stop and take pictures, as we were doing this, three kids also riding bikes came up to us and started talking to us. We talked to them for a little bit and asked them if they knew any Hispanics that lived close by. The youngest one then told us to follow them and he would show us where all the Mexicans lived, so we went and they showed us a couple houses. The youngest kid, Jackson, asked me if I played basketball, and I said yes. He asked me if I was good, and I said: "I dunno let's play." This kid is around 10 years old and he starts talking some mad smack. So I played him one on one, no mercy. I guess you could say it was a lesson on humility😉 We played ball with the kids for a little bit, gave them pass along cards. We then went and tried a less active, and by that time we had to head back home.

This morning we went to a giant park called Craighead Park, or something like that. It has a lake, some sand volleyball, and a cool jogging path. I realized how much I miss swimming. Every time I'm around a lake I just want to jump in. I think when I get home I deserve a nice trip to Bear Lake. Well that about wraps it up!
The Church is true, the Book is blue, and so is Bear Lake too