Email sesenta y uno

October 16, 2017 

I'll go ahead and break the news. We had a a "missionary musical" yesterday in Walnut Grove, were all the missionaries on the Tennessee side of the mission came together and sang songs and hymns about the Savior and the Restoration of the Gospel for investigators and members. Right before we started, President Hansen pulled me aside and took me outside. He had this look in his eye and his demeanor was very serious. I was a little worried for a second. Then he looked me square in the eye and said "Elder Smalley, I'm going to call you to train." My stomach dropped.

At the beginning of the transfer, President told that in the next couple months he wanted me as either a Zone Leader or trainer, so I knew something was coming. Also, this whole transfer, I kinda had a feeling in my gut that I was going to train. I caught myself thinking so many times thinking "If I train...I'll do this" or "If I was training, I would do this..."

President had also told me that this would be my last transfer with Elder Merrill. I'm super excited to train, but extremely nervous. I really liked the sound of Zone Leader, for good reasons, but also not the best motivations. Full car. Promise of a strong companion. Leadership. Recognition among other missionaries. The more I thought about, the more I realized that I wanted to be Zone Leader to be in the spotlight, for the praise of man, so I could show everyone how hard working and obedient I was.

This week as I was studying from the book of Mark in the Bible, I received some spiritual chastening. In Mark chapter 10, verses 35-45, an account is given of two Apostles, James and John, who come to the Savior with a sincere question. Verse 37 says:

"They said unto him, Grant unto us that we may sit, one on thy right hand, and the other on thy left hand, in thy glory."

They sought their own self-glorification. In verse 38 the the Savior responds.

"But Jesus said unto them, Ye know not what ye ask: can ye drink of the cup that I drink of? and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?
39 And they said unto him, We can. And Jesus said unto them, Ye shall indeed drink of the cup that I drink of; and with the baptism that I am baptized withal shall ye be baptized:
40 But to sit on my right hand and on my left hand is not mine to give; but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared."

Then Jesus hits home the true meaning of leadership.

"42 But Jesus called them to him, and saith unto them, Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them.

In other words, man's way of leading is to be a boss and a tyrant, using others to serve yourself
43 But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: (the Savior here reminds them that their apostolic calling is not of the world, and that he who leads in the kingdom of God is he who serves)
44 And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all.
45 For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many."

President Nelson said regarding those who lead in the church that “...it does not matter where they serve, but how. Position in the Church does not exalt anyone, but faithfulness does.
On the other hand, aspiring to a visible position--striving to become a master rather than a servant--can destroy the spirit of the worker and the work."

Jesus Christ didn't come to this world to be in the limelight. He came to do the will of the Father. He came to serve. He came to have "descended below them all." (D&C 122:8)

Going along with the principle in verse 40, the calling of Zone Leader is not President Hansen's to give, that calling comes from the Lord. But the Lord didn't call me to be a Zone Leader, he called me to train. It is my commission to faithfully fulfill that assignment.

I'm really nervous, training Elder Giles didn't necessarily go as well as I hoped it would in Jonesboro. I always chastised him for little things that weren't obedient, and it drove him insane, and made it hard for us to get along. I really hope I get a trainee who has a strong desire to be obedient, because I told President Hansen I'm going to "give him the book". Exact obedience will be the number one priority, and if this new Elder doesn't like the sound of exact obedience, well things might not go so well for us. For that reason I'm super nervous.

This week we walked, because Elder Merrill can't ride with a broken wrist. Last week's email, y'all might have noticed that all it said was Elder Merrill broke his wrist, and then the rest of the letter went on as normal. I never got to finish that sentence because I needed to send the email before 6. We went roller blading last P-day and Elder Merrill got going pretty fast and hit the wall with his hand. We weren't able to do much this week. Elder Merrill has been struggling with getting up on time for the last few weeks, and his motivation to get out was pretty shot this week.

However this week, we met with a new investigator named Antonio, who we knew from English class. He told us he was really interested. We had a really good Restoration lesson with him and focused on the Book of Mormon.

Preach My Gospel says that you know you are truly following the Spirit while teaching when you

learn something new as you teach. On Saturday, we had a lesson with Antonio, in which I had a cool experience learning about faith. We were pretty happy to hear that not only had Antonio read the introduction, but also the testimonies of the witnesses, and the first two chapters of First Nephi. So we read chapter 3 with him, and then focused on verse 7, and talked about the faith of Nephi. I felt an impression to turn 1 Samuel 17:32 (a footnote from verse 7). I had know idea what I was going to talk about, but we read it together. It was about the story of David and Goliath. "And David said to Saul, Let no man’s heart fail because of him; thy servant will go and fight with this Philistine." We then compared the story of David to Nephi, I had never realized how similar they were. I then said that faith isn't doing what God wants and expecting to get what you want as a result. Faith is acknowledging that God's plan is the better way, and desiring that His will be done in all things. I had never quite thought about it like that before, and it's really changed my perspective on missionary work, and on life as well.

I'm so grateful for the scriptures. I know they are the word of God. I know that as we search them, we will find treasures in heaven, written thousands of years ago, that apply to us right now down here.

Y'all have a wonderful week!

Email Sesenta

October 9, 2017 

Hey Family!

Elder Merrill broke his wrist, so this week flew by. We really tried to focus on using Facebook to find people to teach, and maintain contact with investigators. We were finally able to find.
.

On Friday Elder Klebingat of the First Quorum of the Seventy visited the Tennessee side of the mission. President asked us to fast in preparation for the meeting, starting at noon on Thursday, and ending at noon the next day. So Thursday at 11, I downed 10 Kings Hawaiian sweet rolls, and drank a whole gallon of water so I would be able to make it through the day on bikes. It turned out to work pretty good, I just had to go to the bathroom every half hour for the next 4 hours.

We went to the library and worked on Facebook for a while. Then we went and taught a lady from El Salvador named C. She told us she knows she needs to start going to a church, so that her kids can grow up with good principles, she just doesn't know which church. She then asked us why there are so many different churches. She said that she had asked the last missionaries that visited her the same question, but they never answered her. I was pretty surprised by that, since that's one of the major questions that the message of the Restoration answers, so we re-taught the Restoration focusing specifically on that question, teaching clearly the doctrine of the Great Apostasy.

The lesson went really well, we will probably have to pass her off to the Hermanas though. After that we went and visited a less active named Rene Hernandez. Rene is from Cuba, he moved to Miami. Then on a trip to Salt Lake, he met the missionaries and went to temple square and fell in love with the church. He got baptized and attended a Spanish Ward in Miami actively for over a year. He then married a Jehovah's Witness, moved to Memphis, and went inactive.

Apparently during that time, he has forgotten the significance of the Restoration. He talks a lot. He basically believes that the only two good churches are the "Mormon church" and the Jehovah's Witnesses. He talked so much that we couldn't testify about the Restoration to him. However, two of his buddies came over, so he had them sit down and told them how much he loves the church. We were able to send them both friend requests on Facebook, so hopefully we will be able to start teaching them. Then we had English class and closed out the day.

The next day was awesome. Being able to hear from Elder a Klebingat was such a blessing. He is from Germany, but speaks perfect English. He served a mission in Colorado, I assume it was the same mission as Dad's. Elder Klebingat isn't afraid to offend people, he says it like it is. I love his bold style, it definitely makes you sit upright and listen.

One of the questions that I wrote down, pondered, and fasted about in preparation for the meeting with Elder Klebingat was "Who am I?". As he was speaking, he looked me straight in the eye, and said "We are going to talk about the pre-mortal life, who you are, and why in the world you're here." My jaw dropped. As he instructed about the pre-mortal life, I learned more about who I am, and peace and gratitude came to my heart as my testimony that he was called of God, and that Heavenly Father was aware of me grew. He also talked about the Book of Mormon, and that using it correctly will serve our mission for us.

I want to close with my testimony that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the true restored church of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is our Savior. To know Him is to know everything that is good. Have a wonderful week everyone!
No photos this week sorry! love y'all!

Elder Jonathan Spencer Smalley
Arkansas Little Rock Mission

Email cincuenta y nueve

October 2, 2017

Sorry guys. Not a lot of time to email this week either.

This week was awesome. It started out on Tuesday with District meeting. Elder Sotomarino had us read John chapter 4 to study how the Savior taught the Samaritan woman at the well using symbolism and questions. One thing that I took away from that is that I need to improve my scripture study. I need to be able to dive deeper into the scriptures, and use them when I teach.

After the meeting, we went to Buffalo Wild Wings, and I got a burger that had cheese curds and bacon on it. Soooo good. I was pretty good with spending money last month, so I had plenty left to treat myself a little.

Afterwards we had an exchange with the other Spanish Elders. I stayed in our area with Elder Short, Elder Sotomarino's greenie. Elder Short is from Mesa Arizona, but you would think he's from California. He is so tan that he's darker than most of the Hispanics in the Branch. Before the mission, he had hair down to his shoulders. His favorite catch phrase: "What's going on man?!" He's absolutely hilarious. I decided to break him in first thing and go straight to the parking lot of the Hispanic farmers market to talk to everyone getting in and out of their cars. It was super fun. In 40 minutes, we talked to 9 people, and got 8 phone numbers. Elder Short loved it. "Dude. This is way more fun than knocking doors!"

Then we biked to R's apartment. He opened the door. I asked him if he liked the cookies I left. He said they were like sand. My bad haha. They got destroyed a little bit on the bike ride over. He then told us he was moving to Nashville the very next day. So I told him I would send him a Facebook friend request, and that I loved him, and then I gave him a hug. We still don't know if he did move or not, we haven't been back over there.

Wednesday morning we rode over to the English Elders apartment and worked out with them, which was a ton of fun, and really helped me wake up.

Friday we had an exchange with the Zone Leaders, I stayed in our area with Elder Garn. It was fun. This week, I was able to use Facebook a little bit to contact investigators, which was really cool. One thing I focused on was turning myself over to the Lord this week, and I really feel like the Lord has helped me lose my fear and be strong. He is making me into a bike riding missionary machine. "Once you turn yourself over to the Lord, He will make of you far more than what you could ever make of yourself." -Be the Fourth missionary

I loved Conference. Especially Elder Nelson's talk about the Book of Mormon, and of course Elder Holland was amazing as usual. I love my mission, I'm so grateful for the time I still have to serve He that is the source of everything good. I love y'all! Have a wonderful week.

Email cincuenta y ocho

Sept 25, 2017  

Hey y'all,
I don't have a lot of time today because I got to go to the temple today! This was the last time I will be able to go the Memphis temple on my mission because it is closing down at the beginning of October for 18, and who knows when I'll be able to do a mission tour and come back and visit.

I'll cut to the big news...this Thursday at Zone Conference the whole mission got a Samsung smartphone per companionship, and Facebook was authorized for the whole mission. As some of you might have already noticed from my posts, but I am now using Facebook for missionary purposes. The purpose of this is to teach others the Gospel by contacting them through Facebook. As a missionary my purpose is to invite others to come unto Jesus Christ and Facebook is simply another means to do that. Facebook should not be used for any other purpose, which includes contacting friends or family, or checking my feed, or trying to get as many likes as possible.

So far we haven't seen success using Facebook to proselyte, mostly because all the Hispanics have very common names, so when we try to look up the people we contact on the street, there are hundreds or thousands of people with the same name. But not to worry, there are many ways that we can be more creative with Facebook to find more people to teach.

It has been extremely weird using Facebook. To clean out my profile, I had to comb through all my posts and delete any post that had political or controversial material, and I used to post a lot of political stuff (waaaaaaay to much). Also, the temptation to misuse Facebook is definitely very real. Every time I open the app, it automatically opens up at the news feed, which we are not supposed to look at. For a moment I will see a post, and the temptation comes to get a closer look at it. I've seen posts on accident of friends back home getting married, getting mission calls, and other stuff that makes me want to look, but I know I can't. I mean I definitely could look, and no one would know, but I couldn't feel good in my standing with the Lord if I did.

I'm really grateful that the mission is an opportunity to master my use of technology, and let it be my servant instead of my master. Before the mission, I spent so much precious time on my phone! How I wish I could have spent more quality time with my family and loved ones instead of mindlessly spending time on the internet, without a purpose. I pray I won't make the same mistake when I get home.

This week I focused on talking to as many Hispanics as possible, and trying to talk to every single one that I see. It lead to some interesting finding techniques, such as riding my bike out in the middle of a field to talk to a couple guys playing soccer. I would have been weirded out if I was them, but it actually was a super solid contact, so who cares! We worked hard this week, and I'm enjoying peddling my buns all over South Memphis. Life is good.

Anyways the mission is awesome! The Church is true! Have to go for now, but I love all y'all so much!

Email cincuenta y siete

September 19, 2017 

Transfer #3 started off well.

Monday night we rode over to a neighborhood to try some less actives. No one answered, but I did learn something. As we were coming into a complex, we rode by a telephone wire, and I could hear static electricity coming off of it. I changed the position of my hands on my handle bars, and both of my pinkies touched the end metal part of the handlebars, and to my surprise it shocked me. It wasn't anything bad, just like a static shock from a trampoline. I also noticed that it only shocked me when I pedaled. I was creating an electrical current! Pretty cool.

Tuesday was interesting. That morning at 7:30, Elder Jorgensen sent all the Spanish missionaries a video from the airport, and Elder Anaya sent Elder Merrill some photos. That kinda got me a little sad, because I miss them. I was thinking about it all throughout personal study, then at 10 during personal study I checked my email again and saw an email from Dad that a package for me was at the UPS store, and needed to be picked up that day. The remnants of Hurricane Irma came through Tuesday, and it was raining pretty hard, but right then the rain had died off, so decided to go get it. We got soaked, but it was worth it. Plus, we stopped at Wendy's on the way back.

That was just the pick up I needed to snap out of it. The package was full of Charleston Chews, and little inspirational quotes that Mom wrote, so that was awesome. After finishing studies, we decided to clean the apartment, it really needed it, and it was raining super hard. Then we headed out to make it to dinner, and got drenched. Dinner with the Tirados was fun. Caleb Tirado is a Deacon in the Branch, and super fun to hang out with, he's hilarious. After that we had English class, and like that the day was done.

Wednesday we worked super hard. We found all day long, and talked to a bunch of people. Full bike has actually been really good. It has given us so many opportunities to talk to people that we pass by. That night at around 8 o'clock, Elder Merrill and I were knocking doors, and we both just said "This feels really good."

Thursday was the same, a lot of biking, a lot of contacting, a lot of good feels. All the same except 3 hours were lost changing the tires on my bike, definitely took way too much time. I was putting some brand new tires on and so they were pretty stiff. We finally got out. As we were biking, we ran into the English Elders, who were walking because they don't have bikes. Both of them are new to the area. Elder Raish was trained by Elder Sotomarino in February, and he is training Elder Miller a brand new missionary.

On Friday, we had the Branch talent show. It was pretty fun. Some professional dancers came a

performed some traditional Mexican dances. It was pretty cool. But the best part was the last act. Fernando brought Evelia up on stage and song her a love song and then proposed! It was awesome. The only scary part was that she hesitated for about 10 seconds before saying yes, so we will see how everything shakes. After the talent show, Fernando told us that we need to go see them so that that they can get baptized.

Saturday we went to the adult session of Stake Conference. R took us, so we sat next to him and took turns translating for him. Translating is really hard. On Sunday we had stake Conference, which was pretty interesting. Afterwards, we had interviews with President Hansen and I was able to set some good goals for this next transfer.

Yesterday was a tough day. We went and saw R. R told me yesterday that I am a very disrespectful person, and that all I care about is myself. All this sort of came out of nowhere. Earlier in the week we ate lunch at his house and he asked me to pour him some juice, and I jokingly answered that he had arms too so he could do it himself. He laughed at that when I said it, but apparently it really offended him. He said that I am selfish and don't care about him, and I will never change. It really hurt, and the natural man in me said to heck with that crazy old man, after all it was just a glass of juice. It's an opportunity to learn from it, and to love unconditionally.

Anyways things are going well, we are working, and trying to be better. I know the Lord knows my heart, knows that although I'm not perfect, I want to be better.

I love all y'all, have a wonderful week!

Pictures:
Elder Anaya and Elder Jorgensen the day before they went home.
The Benitez kids
Elder Langford, now Zone Leader in Southaven
Elder Shrute

Email cincuenta y seis

September 11, 2017 

This was a weird week.

On Tuesday I exchanged with Elder Sotomarino. We didn't have a car or bikes because Elder Merrill took the keys to the bike closet with him. So we were dropped off at R's house by the other Elders.

R has a kidney stone right now, and when we got to him, he said he needed to go to the hospital right then. So we drove to a Medical clinic to see if he could have his prescription changed, but they said no, so then we drove all the way to downtown to get him to the emergency room. He needed us there to translate for him. We ended up spending the whole day at the hospital. I didn't really know what to do because R was just laying there on the hospital bed moaning in pain. I felt so bad for him, kidney stones seriously sound awful.

There was a tv on in the room, and Judge Judy was on, so in a moment of weakness I decided to change the channel to ESPN. I watched a rerun of Georgia Tech playing Tennessee from two Saturdays ago. It was cool to watch football again, but I probably could have better spent my time calling investigators and setting up appointments. I'll have plenty of time to watch football when I get home. I was disappointed in myself because of that decision.

R finally was cleared to go at 9:15, so he drove us home. We decided to extend the exchange because we weren't able to do anything that day. The next day we went with R again to the hospital to fill a prescription that they wrote for him. When we got back, it was nearly 3 o'clock, and we still didn't have bikes, and we knew the day wasn't going to work without bikes, so we called the English Elders and asked if we could borrow their bikes. We ended up having to drive to a far away bike shop so Elder Green could fix his bike, so by the time we hit the road biking, it was nearly 5.

That night on the way home, I stopped at a Hispanic Farmers market to use the bathroom, and a worker came up and started talking to Elder Sotomarino, asking him about the church. He was around our age too, so that was cool, we got his information and hopefully we will be able to see him soon.

On Thursday we had the Zone Leaders drive us over to East's area to do service for some members. The plan was that Elder Anaya and I would then go back to the South area and work, but the members we were going to help pushed the service project back to Friday. So we stayed at the apartment while Elder Anaya packed and cleaned the apartment. It was incredibly boring, again, I probably could've better spent that time making calls, or anything involving missionary worked, but for some reason I never did. I'm also disappointed in myself for that.

Elder Anaya goes home tomorrow, so this whole week he was super trunky, now I don't know if I've ever met someone so ready to go home haha. He told us about all the things he'll be able to do that we can't. It was pretty funny. Oh Elder Anaya, gotta love him.

That night we went to Branch missionary correlation with Hermano Vivas. The Sisters were pretty mad at us for not teaching English class. They called us and asked why we weren't there, and I had to tell them we were in East's area. They had to make up something on the fly and teach the class because I had forgotten to call them and tell them that we wouldn't be able to make it.

By the time we got to the church for correlation, there were still some people from English class outside talking. They teased us a little for not making it class, saying that we got lost or something haha. I was able to talk to one guy named Amuaris, from the Dominican Republic, and set up an appointment with him so that was cool. I called President Hansen and asked if we could stay the night at the East Elders apartment so we could go do service the next day, and he said yes, so it was a ton of fun getting to sleep over haha.

Service the next day ended up taking way longer than we thought, we had to move a ton of stuff out

of a storage shed back to a shed in the members back yard, and all we had was brother Dunn's pickup truck bed. We had to make a lot of trips back and forth. It was fun service though. It was 9:15 when we left the members home, so we got permission to stay the night again. We played Uno and Phase 10, it was super fun, especially because everyone got super competitive about it.

The next morning Elder Anaya and Elder Sotomarino drove us back to our apartment. That night we had soccer night, and a lot of Hispanics came, so it was a lot more competitive this week, but I still managed to score a goal, so I was pleased with myself for that haha.

Then we received transfer news. I'm staying with Elder Merrill for a third transfer! It's crazy, we have served with each other longer than any other companion either of us have had. I was pretty pumped. The only difference is we will no longer have a car. Yup. From now on we are on FULL BIKE. This will be fun.

Last night we finally saw R the stone still hasn't passed yet apparently so he is still in a lot of pain. His baptism is on hold until he gets better. We also had a cool lesson yesterday with a man we found who let us in on the spot. His name is Manuel, and he really wants to know if this is the truth.

I finally came to a point in the mission where I decided that I'm simply going to do want I can, and use the Atonement constantly, and trust in my Savior. I'm done stressing over if I'm working hard enough or not, I'm simply going to go to work. I'm super excited for this next transfer.

Have a great week, love y'all!

Pics: The Civil Rights museum, and the site where Martin Luther King Junior was killed from last Pday; Elder Anaya's funeral; Exchanges with Elder Sotomarino, visiting our friend Edwin, who is black but from Honduras; The last District photo

Email cincuenta y cinco

September 4, 2017 

A couple interesting things happened this week. Randy bought Elder Merrill a guitar. He had been

talking about how bad he wanted one and last week, Randy texted us and said he had just ordered oneon Amazon. It got here on Wednesday. Elder Merrill has been playing it non stop and has actually
gotten pretty good. I'm a little jealous, that's definitely a hobby I want to pursue when I get home. Unfortunately, Elder Merrill texted President and asked if he can keep it, and President says he has to send it home. Elder Merrill is a little bummed about that.

On Wednesday night, we taught a referral named J. He and his family were on vacation in Georgia, when their car broke down. As he was trying to figure out what happened, some missionaries pulled over and helped him fix the car, and shared a quick message and passed his information on to us. One of those missionaries, Elder Hatfield, just happened to be in Elder Merrill's MTC district. Our lesson with J went really well. We taught the Restoration very clearly, and he really enjoyed it. He was very resolved to read the Book of Mormon. His kids are super funny, they are a cute family. J didn't commit to baptism because he wants to read the Book of Mormon first, but things are looking super positive.

Thursday was my year mark, and also the day that the after shock of Hurricane Harvey hit Memphis. It rained really hard all day, the wind got pretty strong as well. I wore my winter coat to keep warm. It made missionary work pretty rough. We thought a lot of people would be home because of the storm, but almost no one we tried was there, and the people who were told us they were busy. One guy even told us he couldn't meet with us because he wanted to take a shower. I was hoping for a miracle year mark day. Eventually when it got late, the storm was getting worse so we went in early because we had no more people to try. No one showed up to English class, except a man named Jorge that we have visited a couple times, except he just likes to question our doctrine. So he showed up with us and started talking about some weird prophecy in Revelations, so we sat and listened for a half hour, then he left. So stayed at the church for a bit then went home early.

On Friday, we found out that we as a mission will be using Facebook, and getting Samsung smartphones, which will go into full effect in January. It's pretty big news, not very many missions have that approved yet. I think the only other mission with smartphones right now is one of the New York City missions. Facebook will be nuts.

On Saturday Elder Sotomarino and Elder Anaya baptized their investigators M and F. That were also married just before the baptism. It really was something beautiful. I was so happy for Elder Anaya. I can't believe he goes home in 10 days. My dad is dying...so sad. His sister is moving to Georgia and

came through Memphis so she visited him on Sunday and we all got to have lunch with her and her husband. Super cool.

In studies I have been reading about Samuel the Lamanite. Helaman 15:15 stuck out to me. Talking about the Lamanites, it says:  "For behold, had the mighty works been shown unto them which have been shown unto you, yea, unto them who have dwindled in unbelief because of the traditions of their fathers, ye can see of yourselves that they never would again have dwindled in unbelief." As I read about this I thought of all the incredible spiritual experiences I've had on the mission, and all the miracles that I have seen. I realized that I, like the Nephites, am quick to forget. I forget all the blessings, tender mercies, and life changing experiences I have had here. I get so caught up in self-pity sometimes, and focus on the negative. There are so many blessings from the mission, I can't forget that.

I am truly blown away with how weak I am, and how much I depend on the Lord. Without Him, I am nothing, and have no purpose. With Him I truly "can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." Philippians 4:13

I have so little time left and so much to do. I pray that I can truly consecrate this last year to the Lord and serve him with all my heart, might, mind and strength.

Love y'all!