Hey guys! Things are still going awesome here. This week
was a good one. The Christmas Zone Meeting in Little Rock
was so awesome. The ALRM (Arkansas Little Rock Mission)
is where I am supposed to be!
We are teaching a lady named Jana right now and things are
really looking pretty good. We have set a baptismal date for
New Years Day and it looks like it is going to happen! We
found her through her husband. The family had just recently
moved here and we received a referral for the husband who
was baptized about 10 years ago. We made contact and went
to their home. We started reading the Book of Mormon with
him because he wasn't able to come to church because of his
job. One night his wife, Jana, decided to join the conversation
because we were talking about family history. She agreed to let
us come back and teach her the restoration. We went back and it
went great. We invited her to be baptized and she accepted. The
last two weeks her whole family has been coming to church and it
has been awesome! And they love it!
It makes me so happy to
see the gospel changing someone's life in so many ways.
Another fun thing that happened this week was that we had a crazy
thunderstorm. We had a tornado warning
on Saturday and things
got crazy. The tornado ended up going somewhere else but a really
big thunderstorm came instead. With the storm came a flash flood
warning and that totally happened. We were driving to go visit a
less active family in the middle of this storm and when we got to the
end of our street it was completely submerged in water. We decided
to go back to the house and wait for it to pass. Luckily it calmed down
before our dinner appointment so we were able to make it to that.
The weather is getting colder here. The cold hurts more here because
the humidity makes it go all the way through your clothes. And there
is literally no snow at all so everything is just brown.
It's kind of depressing.
Christmas is also super weird here. I definitely miss participating in
our Christmas traditions back home but it gives me comfort knowing
that
I am out here doing the most important work in the world.
For Christmas we are going to a members home right after church so
I can Skype any time. I will have the members text you - it will be a
lot easier to set it up that way. They are pretty cool. The dad is from
Brazil so that's awesome! I am super excited to talk with you guys on
Christmas! It is going to be amazing! I love you guys!
Love Elder Merrill
Elder Merrill & Elder Sweeten eating quail
Elders Merrill, Donahoo, Sweeten & Anaya
A member texted us this picture and said this, "I had the blessing
of having your son over to my house for dinner tonight. He is a
blessing and a wonderful missionary. He is doing well!"
Can you find Elder Merrill?
Christmas Zone Conference in Little Rock
Zone Conference Christmas Tree
trimmed with missionary ornaments!
The mission asked us to send a couple pictures of our missionary when
they were elementary school aged for a Christmas surprise. They put
together a fun slideshow to show at the Christmas Zone Conference.
These are the 2 pictures that we sent.
Dear Parents,
Thank you so much for sharing your child’s early life photos with us. The missionaries loved looking at each one and trying to guess which missionary it was. We had such a good time and felt such a good spirit!!!
We hope you will all have the merriest of Christmases knowing that your son is doing a great work for the Lord and for all those they bring to a knowledge of the truth.
We love and appreciate your support!! Merry Christmas!!!
