The Book of Mormon is the word of God

Hey guys!  This week was great.  My new companion, Elder Asay, is pretty 
funny.  He is from Caldwell Idaho, near Boise, and has been out serving for 
about 20 months.  We have gotten to get to know each other pretty well this 
past week and get along fine.  He seems to like Batesville so far.  

Tuesday was transfers so we spent most of the day in Little Rock. When we 
got back to our area we got all settled in.  Wednesday was a good day.  We
had a lesson with our top investigator Kenny.  His baptism date is set for June 
16th and it still looks pretty promising!  We then had a correlation meeting and 
our Book of Mormon class that night.  

Thursday we went to a neighboring town called Salado.  We did service with 
Habitat for Humanity and also went to a little thrift store.  

Friday was a slow day because a lot of people just weren't home.  That night
was awesome though because we had a fun branch game night.  We played 
Phase 10.  We also had an awesome lesson with an excommunicated member.  
We hope to teach them again soon. 

Saturday morning we went and helped again at the Methodist breakfast.  That 
is seriously always a blast.  After we went and walked around and found a few 
less active members.  We are really trying to go through our entire area roster 
and clean it out.  

Sunday was a wonderful day.  We had dinner with our Branch President.  He is 
really a wonderful person.  We talked with him about going and visiting all of the 
branch members and asking them to help us with missionary work.  We are all 
missionaries in some aspect and need to share this gospel together.  

This week in my studies I focused on Alma.  That book is awesome!  Specifically 
Chapter 5 - for some reason this chapter really stuck out to me this week.  I love 
verses 45 and 46:  

45 And this is not all. Do ye not suppose that I know of these 
things myself? Behold, I testify unto you that I do know that 
these things whereof I have spoken are true. And how do ye 
suppose that I know of their surety?

46 Behold, I say unto you they are made known unto me by 
the Holy Spirit of God. Behold, I have fasted and prayed many 
days that I might know these things of myself. And now I do 
know of myself that they are true; for the Lord God hath made 
them manifest unto me by his Holy Spirit;and this is the spirit of 
revelation which is in me.

I love how it talks about how he came to a knowledge through the Holy Spirit.  
I know that this is the only way to receive a witness of the Book of Mormon. I 
have had a lot of spiritual experiences with the Book of Mormon and I can tell 
you guys it is the word of God.  So keep reading it - or begin reading it - just 
read it - everyday if you can!  I love you guys! 

Love Elder Merrill

Elder Merrill with his new (and last) companion -

Elder Asay - at the Arkansas Little Rock Mission Home

A very humbling experience

Hello from Arkansas!  Well for my last transfer I’m staying in Batesville 
as the District Leader.  My new (and last) companion will be Elder Asay 
(pronounced AC).  He is an English Elder who I have never met before 
so it should be an adventure! 

My last week with Elder Pickering was a good one!  Tuesday we helped 
out the building maintenance guy at the church with some things.  He is 
a member from Jonesboro who teaches seminary that I know pretty well.  
He is also very knowledgeable in the gospel.  We had a couple doctrinal 
questions from people that we needed the answers to.  So after working
at the church we went to lunch with him.  We basically had a companion-
ship study with him so he could help us find the answers we needed. He 
really knows his scriptures.  I’ve never met someone who can connect the 
Old Testament so well with the Book of Mormon.  It was awesome!  That
evening we had another lesson with our top investigator Kenny.  We have
set a promising baptismal date with him for June 16.  His sister is a member 
and she is moving to Batesville soon so that will be exciting!  

Wednesday was an interesting day.  We had a district meeting and then a 
fun potluck meal after.  That evening we had a Book of Mormon class but 
only the Sister Missionaries, our Branch President and our mission leader 
showed up so we had a correlation meeting instead.  This is when things 
got a little interesting.  The sisters currently live in Newport which is about 
thirty minutes outside of Batesville.  They have been trying to find rides for 
their investigators so they can come to church.  We have discussed some 
solutions with the Branch President before but he has always seems to tell 
us we won’t be able to get people to give them a ride - they haven't before 
and you can't just get people to change. Things got a little heated while we 
were talking.  As missionaries we can not give anyone a ride so we rely on 
members to help us.  For all y’all reading this, please be willing to serve no 
matter what your calling is or what you are asked to help with.  It really makes 
everyone's lives easier if we can all just serve each other.  It has been kind of 
a struggle but we aren't going to give up.  We will continue to do our best to 
help in anyway we can.  

Thursday was good.  We had another lesson with Kenny, did some service at 
Habitat for Humanity, and had basketball night.  Friday was kind of a slow day.  
We had our weekly planning and then went out to work but not a lot of people 
were home that we tried to visit.

Saturday was an awesome day!  We helped clean the church for the baptism 
of an investigator the Sister Missionaries have been teaching.  Elder Pickering 
baptized her - it was great!  There was a good turnout for the baptism and even 
a few investigators came.  She was last member in her family not baptized so it 
was so special to witness the pure happiness.  

On Sunday I had the wonderful opportunity to confirm her.  That really was an 
amazing experience for me.  It was completely different that performing this 
ordinance in Spanish.  It is always a very humbling experience to participate 
in a saving ordinance for another person.  We also spent some of the day visiting 
people so Elder Pickering could say goodbye.   

Today we had a District P-day.  We spent a little over 3 hours down by the river 
cooking BBQ, throwing a frisbee, and playing sand volleyball.  It was really fun.  
Luckily it is a little overcast so the sun wasn’t unbearably hot.  I guess that’s all 
for this week.  Love you guys!

Love Elder Merrill 

District P-Day

The Light of Christ

Hey guys!  It was so great to talk to you yesterday!  Happy Mothers Day 
Mom!  This week was great!  I went to Jonesboro on Tuesday with Elder 
Russell.  He is from Richmond so we talked about a couple mutual people
we know.  He is a pretty funny guy.  We got to go see the Welch Family!  
It was so awesome.  We talked for a while and caught up on life. They 
were both really happy for the Goodwin family.  

Elder Pickering and Elder Merrill in matching Walmart ties!

Elder Merrill with the Welch Family

I returned to Batesville on Wednesday.  On Thursday we headed over to 
Habitat for Humanity to do service.  After we headed to the neighboring 
town of Salado to contact a referral and find others.  It went pretty well.  
We met a lot of old people who said they would never leave the Baptist 
church.  There are always a few of those people around.  

Saturday was really fun.  We went to serve at the Methodist breakfast in 
the morning.  After serving there we went and taught a lesson in Hardee’s 
and set a baptismal date with a guy.  It was awesome!  We then went and 
knocked on some doors in a neighborhood - I think we talked to 3 people 
in almost 2 hours.  We tried......and we will try again.   

Sunday I gave a talk in sacrament meeting.  It must have been a pretty 
amazing talk because people told me after they didn’t notice that thirty 
minutes had gone by because they wanted to listen.  I talked about the 
Light of Christ.  I really enjoyed studying about his subject and learning
more about it.  Everyone is given this light when they are born.  When 
they are baptized the light grows even brighter with the gift of the Holy 
Ghost.  Then that light grows brighter and brighter until the perfect day, 
or in other words, until we have a perfect knowledge.  Good stuff!  I am 
so very thankful for that gift as a missionary.  The light of Christ helps me 
everyday!  Serving here in the South I have gotten to the point where I 
notice more when the light is gone almost more than when the light is 
present in someone's life.  I absolutely love seeing people being touched 
by the light of Christ as we share this true gospel message. 

It was also wonderful to stay to all three hours of our block meeting.  Since 
I have been singing in all of the missionary musical tributes for the past six 
weeks this was the first time I was able to stay and get to know the people 
I am serving here in Batesville.  After church we went to the Wahlquist home 
for the rest of the day.   The best part of the day was talking to my family!  
Thank you so much for all of the love and support you give me each day.  
I love you guys! 

Love Elder Merrill  

We found a Batesville Facebook group community page.  We took 

some chill pictures of us in great poses with service-like tools.  We posted 

the pictures and waited for people to respond with service opportunities.  

Instead, they deleted our post......

Talking to Elder Merrill on Mothers Day!  Yay!

Happy Cinco de Mayo!!!

HAPPY CINCO DE MAYO

from Elder Merrill & Elder Pickering

from Batesville, Arkansas

When the spirit is there - conversion will follow

Hey guys!  It was a pretty good week here in Arkansas. The weather is 
beginning to warm up so hopefully I can sweat off some weight - ha ha. 

On Tuesday not a lot happened.  It was a day where literally all of our 
appointments fell through.  We were able to see one of our investigators 
and talk for a while. They are renovating their home so we probably won’t 
be able to have a lesson with them there for awhile.  Later that day we 
went to the creepiest apartment complex I have ever been in.  It looked 
pretty normal on the outside - but the inside was like a creepy rundown 
motel.  It had super thin doors and windows that pointed into the hallway. 
It was also really dark and smelled like cigarette smoke. Needless to say 
we didn't stay there long - we didn't even find who we thought lived there.  

Wednesday we had district meeting and then went on exchanges. I stayed 
here with Elder Bleazzard.  He returns home the same time I do so it was 
fun to work with an experienced missionary and get to know him more.  We 
worked well together and found a couple new investigators on Wednesday 
and Thursday.  Wednesday night we had an awesome lesson with an ex-
communicated member about possibly being baptized again.  We have a 
follow-up lesson next Tuesday with them so we will see how it goes. 

Thursday evening Elder Pickering and I were back together.  We stopped by
to visit a couple people then headed to basketball night.  There is one young 
family in the branch with a couple kids that we play with.  They are usually the 
only ones who come but it’s always fun play and we all have a good time. 

Friday was a good day.  We started off with weekly planning and then went 
out to serve!   We went back to Habitat for Humanity and reorganized their 
entire movie section.  It looked pretty good after our work. Then that night we
went to visit our recent convert.  We had a great lesson about the priesthood.  
It went really well and we were able to answer some of his questions. 

Saturday was a busy day that began with service.  We went to Cave City, a 
town about 20 minutes outside of Batesville.  We helped a part member family 
there we have been working with.  We built a dog pen for them so we spent 
about 3 hours pounding post holes.  We were pretty tired after but it felt so 
good to work.  After that we headed to dinner with another part member family. 
The couple is planning to get married soon and then the husband wants to get 
baptized.  We go over there and just read the Book of Mormon with them so 
they can gain a bigger and better testimony.  

On Sunday we went back to Memphis for our last musical tribute.  There were 
some super powerful testimonies born and the songs were perfect.  It's sad to 
think I probably won’t see any of the missionaries I know there again before I 
go home.  I guess that’s what Facebook is for.  We drove back that night and 
got back to Batesville about 10:40 pm so not too bad. 

This morning we went fishing and we all caught at least one fish!  After fishing
the family took us out to lunch to a place called Coltons.  It's kind of like Texas
Roadhouse with yummy roles.  This afternoon we are going disc golfing at the 
college so that will be fun.  

Lately I have been studying the Doctrine and Covenants.  I am in the sections 
where everyone is being called to go and preach the gospel.  It has been really 
amazing to read about the promised blessings they were given.  It is even more 
amazing that I have experienced some of these same things here on my mission.  
I love how it tells us that when the spirit is there - conversion will follow.  As 
a missionary I am definitely a witness to this.  Every lesson we teach I know my 
testimony is strengthened through the presence of the spirit.  It is truly an amazing 
feeling.  I love you guys! 

Love Elder Merrill

Batesville District