4-Stater

Well my whole mission I've wondered if I would serve in all four states and now I have. I can go home happy now. Well Sallisaw is awesome. I've got a really cool companion, he's only been out for about 7 weeks now and he doesn't talk much in lessons but that's mostly my fault because I get on a roll and then don't stop... He is my second step-son so my posterity is growing through adoption. The work here is good but we don't have a gps and Elder Kealer didn't do a lot of driving last transfer so he doesn't remember where anything is at... We've already got somebody scheduled for baptism and one other guy who has committed to baptism that we'll be seeing on Tuesday, well I'll actually be in Poteau on exchanges. But Elder Kealer and another missionary will see him. Other than that not much is going on. We have a really interesting investigator named Buck who lives in the same apartment complex that we do. He is very interesting and he thinks he is very unique for his beliefs and I almost burst his bubble by telling him that there's a lot of people who think that it doesn't matter what church you go to and that you can make up your own way to heaven if you think you're still being good, but I didn't. He prides himself on being "unique". He came to church yesterday though and said he really liked it so that was good. We think he might get it eventually, but it will be a long eventually... Anyways the only other news I can think of is that our apartment has a washer and dryer and that makes me very happy. And I bought a Star Wars coloring book today and it came with stickers!! Our address is 102 E Ruth Apt 6a Sallisaw, OK 74955. Also I was reading 2 Nephi chapter 2 today and it was already one of my favorite chapters but today it became my favorite chapter. It's very interesting how the more you learn about the gospel, the more the scriptures speak to you. The Atonement is real!

Love, Elder Naegle

pimp my ride

We found him!

FBI stakeout

It's just like that new Mormon movie "Freetown"

We took this at the lowest elevation of the mission.

Pumpkins we carved.  Mine is the one with the bat

Transfers

Well this last week was pretty good. We were in Mena full time and we didn't really have a teaching pool, so we spent a lot of the time getting referrals and finding new investigators. We found a lot of solid potentials and we also found some good investigators. We're still working on the ones that we've got but we've got a lot of new people to work with now. Not really any progress with anybody though. We're having some trouble getting people to come to church. We haven't even seen Daniel forever, except we saw him this morning while we were walking out of walmart... But one time we were with this kid named Brandon and he had a friend that wanted to hang out so we went to the church and shot some hoops and then started talking to his friend, who's name is Nick, and we ended up having a really good, really spiritual lesson with him. It was cool because it was going good and then we got to Joseph Smith and he was like "I don't believe that crazy stuff" but then we circled around and told him the First Vision story and the Spirit was super strong and then he got really excited about it and he took The Book of Mormon and yeah he even recognized the Spirit. It was cool because he was like: "I didn't know that God and Jesus appeared to Joseph Smith" and then I was like: "why do you think they appeared to him?" and he was like: "because they wanted him to start a church!'' and we were like: "yeah!" Then we went and got a bunch of those little pizza pockets and chocolate milk and ate lunch at the church. There's this really good brand of chocolate milk here called Promised Land and I don't know if they sell it in Utah but it's really good and we get it all the time. By 'we' I mean Elder Nau, I don't get it as often as him. Anyways it was cool that we got all these new people to teach but it doesn't really matter anymore because I'm being transferred to Salisaw Oklahoma. It's nice because it's still in the zone just on the other side of Fort Smith. I'm going to be split training again a guy named Elder Kealer and he's really cool so it'll be good. Also another funny story was they asked us to bless the bread in sacrament meeting and so we were chilling up there and all of the sudden Elder Nau looks under the cloth and he said: there's no bread! so I looked under on my side and I saw no bread. So we got up and went to the kitchen to look for bread, meanwhile they start singing the sacrament hymn and we're in the kitchen microwaving a frozen heel of a bread and we come back with our microwaved bread and the high councilor and one of the speakers are up there breaking bread... so I guess we just didn't see the bread... then everybody was asking us why we left and it was embarrassing but funny at the same time. Well that's all I have for this week. Keep on keeping on. The Atonement is really real. I promise. At times it doesn't feel like you're moving anywhere but when you look back you've gone further than you ever could've imagined, so don't quit!

Elder Naegle

?

This last week full of surprises. Lots of members in Greenwood were getting mad at us for spending so much time in Mena. Our ward mission leader came over to our apartment and ranted to us for a cool minute on Friday. Our Bishop asked us to do this 15 day challenge thing with the members and we never really got around to it and then he got mad at us on Wednesday and threatened to call President and request to have us transferred if we weren't going to do his program... But the craziest news was that some sisters in a different area in the mission had to evacuate their apartment because of something to do with chlorine I think but they didn't tell us the exact reason. Anyways, basically those sisters are coming to Greenwood today and are taking it over and now my my companion and I are going to be in Mena full time. So that's pretty interesting news. We also had our baptism in Mena and that was really fun. Other than that things are pretty much the same. We did find like 6 new investigators last week so that was nice. Most of them are in Greenwood but there was one in Mena. I think it'll be good to have Sisters in Greenwood because they'll be good for some of our investigators. Speaking of our investigators, there's this one lady we've been teaching pretty much since I got in Greenwood and she's had a really hard life, her son is paralyzed from the waist down and she has to take care of him 24/7 almost and I think her husband ran away with her sister or something crazy like that. Anyways, we I first met her she was always really quiet and wouldn't talk much in our lessons and was always super sad. But, the last two weeks she's all of a sudden a lot more happy and she talks a lot more and she' a lot more animated in our discussions and everything! It's been a complete 180. And I'm sure you're all wondering why, well, let me tell ya... She reads the Book of Mormon everyday before she goes to bed and she told us it makes her feel good and it has obviously made her a lot more happy in her life, just by reading it! So everybody read your copies of the Books of Mormons.

Elder Naegle

Turnip

So this last week was good. We had a great exchange with the Poteau Elders. And then we went down to Mena. Daniel is still going strong but he seems to be withdrawing a little bit. It's weird he still feels the Spirit and knows it's true but he doesn't want to set a date, so we'll see what happens with him. We're pretty sure he's afraid to get permission from his parents to get baptized even though his parents already know that he's taking the lessons. He's a smart kid though so I think he'll get there eventually. Aaron Grammar is still struggling with the word of wisdom, I don't think he quite gets the whole progression thing because he told us: so all the other stuff that I've already given up is not enough? But Lindsey Ford is still going strong. She watched pretty much all of conference and she's really excited to be baptized this Saturday. General Conference was really good and I loved pretty much every talk and now I have to go back and re-watch/read them all. What a blessing to have modern day prophets and apostles to lead and guide us in these latter-days. It's been pretty cool because since I've been here in Greenwood, I've learned so much more about the Plan of Salvation and it's been really neat because now I feel I can teach it so much better having the understanding I have now about the whole plan. Love you all!

Elder Naegle

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We have to wear suit coats everyday so shorts sleeves and slacks are 'dead'