Monday, May 21, 2018

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

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