Party Rock in the Arkansas Bentonville Mission

So this week we worked hard and we didn't get a ton of lessons but we got a lot of good stuff done. For example one night, we were just chilling in the basement we live in and we got a call from a guy in our ward whose name is Bro Wilbur and he's the coolest person in the ward because he's only like 37 and he has a contract to build Buffalo Wild Wings like all over the country and that's only the tip of the iceberg. He has a really nice house, but I digress... anyways he's super missionary minded and the other day he called us and said that he got his neighbor, whose sons go to scouts and are interested in getting baptized, basically to take the lessons. So we got 3 new investigators and they're looking pretty solid.

Honie is doing good. She listens to the Book of Mormon on the gospel library app and she's gone all the way to 1 Nephi 17! So that's really good. I think she's starting to understand the gravity of what we're teaching her. I'm pretty sure she would come to church because we hound her about it every time we see her, but she takes her friend to church because her friend doesn't have a car. Her friend is also an inactive who we've tried to work with before and she's making me really angry because she is stopping the progression of our investigator! It'll all work out though. The Lord cannot be stopped.

We went and did service on Wednesday with the Sisters in Mt Grove and the Houston Elders because we didn't have a district meeting. We planted potatoes and that was pretty much it. Then we went to Pizza Hut and ate the buffet. I'm pretty sure the Sisters in our district think we're idiots because we all acted like it during the service project. When we're with other missionaries it's our only time where we don't have to be super serious so sometimes we overdo it. :/ Then we went on exchanges and I took Elder Skinner who is 26 and has only been out for like 6 days. It was fun. We went and taught a lesson to Darien and it went a whole lot better. Darien wasn't as distracted as he was the first time we taught him. We'll see where it goes. He still asks us to go fishing with him when we set up lessons with him...

Zach is doing great. He says he believes that everything is true but he doesn't feel ready to be baptized yet. So we told him to focus and pray and now we're gonna pray too and he is reading the Book of Mormon so it's all gonna turn out good.

The other day we were gonna go get gas and we pulled up to the gas station and we couldn't find our gas card. So we looked and looked and then went to our basement and looked in some pants pockets and then we still didn't find it. Luckily we said a prayer so we knew we'd find it. So we went to our last appointment of the night and ate dinner there and then we went home and Elder Chapman sat down in his chair and he thought he sat on something and it was... the button on the back of his slacks but then he started looking around on the chair he was sitting on and lo and behold he found the gas card! So that was a pretty cool story. 

On Sunday I was driving and we were going to church to eat some cereal for breakfast because all our food is at the church and there was a bird that flew right in front of the truck and I hit it. He died. I'm a killer...

Love all you!

Elder Naegle

When I drove our truck through a river

Zone training meeting with President

So I forgot to mention in my email that our mission just got a big change. As of July 1st the name of the mission will change from the Oklahoma Tulsa Mission to the Arkansas Bentonville Mission. It's not getting split or anything just the mission office and the mission home are moving to Bentonville. Our President has been trying to get this to happen for a long time. He also wanted it to be in Rogers so it could be ARM so we could call it the Lord's ARM but he's pretty sure that Elder Bednar made it so that it would be in Bentonville so that's probably what happened but it will be nice because the President and the APs will be more centralized in the mission. So kewl beans

Transfers

So this last week was transfers. I got a new companion. His name is Elder Chapman. He has only been out 4 1/2 months, so I'm the senior companion which is weird because I don't feel like I know anything about missionary work.

This week has been super slow mostly just because Elder Ewart just wanted to go see a bunch of people before he left. I'm pretty sure all the girls in Ava cried when he left because every single girl had a crush on him. Transfers was fun. It's really nice to see a bunch of missionaries that you know and love for a couple of hours. Then it's really sad to see them all leave, and some of them to the land of endless preparation from whence there is no return. Our ride was cool with staying the whole time too so that was really nice. 

So Elder Chapman's a baller. We are being a lot more obedient than my mission has been for a long time. It's nice to have a companion for once that wants to obey the rules. On Friday we did a really good weekly planning and we set a bunch of goals that we want to achieve before the end of the transfer. We are gonna get Ava bumpin with missionary work. We're planning on visiting everybody in on the ward roster because there's a bunch of inactives in this ward. Also President Shumway is really pushing active member lessons and getting our wards and branches involved so that's what we're gonna be focused on. Elder Chapman also wants to work out so I get to keep working out this transfer, which is good because I have gained so much weight since I've come on my mission. I weigh 230 lbs! And it's all from members giving us food. We have so much cake in our fridge it's not even funny. A member who can bake really well gave us a bunch of this stuff called chocolate chocolate chocolate cake. It's chocolate chip cookies with brownies on top with oreos in the brownies. It's very delicious. I made the joke that she is trying to get us fat and somehow it got back to her and so I just blamed it on Elder Ewart because he's gone and he cares about his body a lot more than I do. 

So we taught Honie and it went pretty well. She kept arguing with me about prophets and how people are supposed to interpretate (yes that's how she says interpret) the scriptures and stuff for themselves. But I think we finally got her to understand what we were saying. We tried really hard to get her to come to church but then on Sunday she didn't show up. She also said that she just wanted to learn more about our church when I said something about how only The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has the fullness of the Gospel, so we'll keep working with her. 

Darien didn't show up to church which kinda bugs me because his parents (he's adopted) are members and should be helping out. It's gonna be interesting with him because I feel like because Elder Ewart and I showed that we aren't too serious about the church through our disobedience around him and so he doesn't think he has to be too serious about it either. So we'll see...

Zach is going good though. We taught him on Sunday with his mom and his step-dad who I just barely met because he's been out of town for so long. We taught him a good lesson about the Plan of Salvation. But because we had to leave to drive for like an hour to our dinner, we forgot to ask him about baptism and if he's been reading the Book of Mormon. I think that having Bucky (his step dad) home will be good for him though because Bucky is an awesome convert. 

That's about all that's going on. In other news I ran over a squirrel yesterday, zone training meeting is this Friday and we have interviews with President! Those are always the best. We have one more zone conference in June and then that will be the last I see of President and Sister Shumway :( We also figured out a way to break into the Family History center so that was fun. 

Love Elder Naegle

This is a picture of the squirrel that lived in our attic from when I was in Sprinfield

Izaiah and Elijah's baptism

Only in Missouri...

                            me and Elder Chapman picking up chicks... don't tell president

Dirty atheists and old houses I mean old atheists and dirty houses

So this week was a pretty interesting one. First of all, a couple of weeks ago we were on splits, and I was with a priest named Gabe and we were driving somewhere and we drove past a house that apparently Gabe and the Elder I replaced went to once. Long story short, Gabe said we should try by there again sometime. So we did. The guy that lives there is old, like 72, and hardcore atheist. He was super nice and respectful, but he really didn't believe in God. Elder Ewart tried to bear his testimony but the dude pretty much just cut him off. Then the guy tried to tell us that supposed miracles are only in people's imaginations. Yeah we're never going back there. We also had dinner at a family's house who are in our ward. Their house was the most disgusting thing I have ever seen in my entire life. It's like those reality tv shows where people just have disgusting houses and the pros come in and teach them how to use a vacuum. Stuff was just everywhere. There was so much dirt and gunk on the carpet, food just sitting out on the table, banana peels and fruit on the floor. I have never been so uncomfortable in my entire life. Then one of their kids was so annoying. He kept wanting to play games with me and my companion and he was super touchy-feely and kept grabbing my leg and trying to sit in between me and my companion on a little bench. He kept grabbing my companion's tie and trying to whisper in his ear to play telephone. I really hope they never sign up for dinner again. Their excuse is they have 5 kids....

On a more cleaner note, the baptism went well. It was pretty stressful and we forgot some things like the baptismal record and my suitcoat, but it all turned out well. 

We found 3 new investigators this week. They all seem pretty solid. There's a lady named Honey (it's really awkward seeing her and saying 'hey Honey' esp in public) who we see everywhere: Taco Bell, Subway, Walmart, the gym. She's friends with a less active member and we finally asked her if she wanted to learn more. She's really nice and it should go really well teaching her. There's also this kid named Darien. He is either the adopted son of some members or in foster care, I don't actually know for sure. Anyways we know him pretty well and the other day we ran into him and Elder Ewart just asked him if he wanted to be baptized and he said yeah. So  we went right then and watched the Restoration video and he fell asleep. But we heard from some other kids that he brought his Book of Mormon to school and was apparently serious about reading it and taking the lessons. I don't think he has a long attention span so I don't know how it'll go teaching him especially because I think he likes my companion a lot more that me and my companion is getting transferred. By the way we had transfer calls and I'm staying here and Elder Ewart is going to Fort Scott Kansas. My new companion is going to be an Elder Chapman. I'm going to be the senior comp and nobody knows who he is so we all think that he just got done being trained so we'll see. Also the guy who invented blender bottle, his son is going to be transferred into my zone so that's cool. Anyways, the third new investigator who we picked up this week his name is Zach. He is the son of a recent convert and he comes to church all the time. He didn't really want to take the lessons before but the other day Elder Ewart asked him if he wanted to take the lessons and he said yeah so we taught him yesterday after church and it went really well. He believes Joseph Smith was a prophet and that he couldn't have just made it all up. We asked him if he wanted to be baptized but he said no but he said he'd pray about it. 

We got invited to a bible study by a guy, named Adam, who we know from the gym. So we went and it was really nice. Adam is like a preacher or training to be a preacher or something like that, and he is like the nicest guy you could ever meet. I feel like he's a good ol' southern boy with southern hospitality. He taught the lesson and it was actually doctrinaly sound and Adam seems to know his stuff. He really loves God and I think that if we could somehow teach him he would totally join. Elder Ewart gave him a Book of Mormon so you never know but I think because he's a preacher he wouldn't really want to take lessons.

So Elder Ewart told me that he had a son and it was really convincing and I totally believed it after a while but then he told me he was lying and I was really mad, but it was funny so I let him off the hook. Elder Ewart is a good guy and he wants to be a good missionary but a lot of the time it seems like he cares more about lifting and girls and listening to music that is not approved and having fun than he does about being a consecrated missionary and it has made this last transfer stressful for me. The one week he was super obedient and focused on the work was this last week and that was when we had the most success, but today he seems to have reverted to his old ways... sigh.  It was good to serve with him but I'm kinda glad that I'll be getting a new companion. Hopefully the pattern of my companions getting worse ends, because it's really frustrating.

Love Elder Naegle