First week in Arkansas!

Well I have now been out in the real mission field in Arkansas for about a week.  I love it out here, it is pretty nice and most of the people are very friendly.  I'm serving in the South Little Rock area.  My companion (trainer) is Elder Castaneda.  He is from super awesome and I have already learned a lot from him.  He is from Guatemala and has been out for 21 months, so I will be his last companion.   He actually speaks really good English which is nice.  He is a super cool Elder, and I can tell that I'm going to like him.  He has been serving in the area for 9 months so he knows everybody and everything about them.  

It's been pretty easy adjusting to the mission life in the field, it's way different but I like it a lot.  I'm always way tired by the end of the day, but it is a good kind of tired.  I thought I could understand Spanish, then I came here and can hardly understand anything.  It's frustrating not being able to talk much to the people, or understand much.  But I just need to be patient, and it will come.  I'm serving in a Spanish branch, and there is apparently around 50 members that come every week, so small!  This last Sunday we were combined with the English ward because they had the primary program.  Watching the kids sing and talk is always great.  I have met most of the members already in the Spanish Branch, and they are all super nice and friendly.

So a typical day here is we wake up, and then study, eat and do other things to get ready for the day.  We study until 1:00, we have extended study time because I'm on my first 12 weeks.  We then leave to go to our appointments or knock doors (harvesting).  We have a car for 3 weeks and then we bike for 1 week, it's a pretty good system.  This week we met a good amount of people while knocking doors that seem pretty interested.  We have appointments to go back and see them to teach a real lesson.  We have a couple investigators that are ready for baptism, but they need to get married first.  That's the biggest problem that the Spanish community has, they all live together but are rarely married.  Everyone is always pretty nice when we are tracting and they will always at least talk to us.  I just can't wait until I can understand and talk to the people. We normally go to trailer parks to harvest, the first time I have ever been to one!  They are pretty crazy sometimes, but we normally end up meeting a few cool people.  Nothing crazy has happened yet, only a drunk guy wobbling down the street, that was pretty funny.  Arkansas is really pretty with a lot of trees, the downtown area is super awesome.  It's not in our area but we have driven by it a couple times.

                                                                Capital of Arkansas

This last Saturday we had an activity at the church for Mexican Independence day.  It was a lot of fun, we had tons of food.  We also did a couple skits and there was Mexican dancing.  Elder Castaneda was the star of the show, he danced, sang, did the skits, just about everything.  A lot of the people from the ward showed up including some of our investigators which was nice.  I'm pretty sure that there are 4 Spanish sets of missionaries in our Spanish branch.  

Here in the south there are tons of churches, it's like Utah with churches, except none of them are LDS churches, it's crazy.  I think it's awesome that we have the same churches worldwide, with the same name on them.  Where here they all have different names, and always fighting against each other, or preaching anti-mormon doctrine.  If you know your church is true, why do you have to preach against the other ones?  It just reassures me even more that our church is the only true church on the earth.  I'm honored to be able to share it with the people here in Arkansas.

  My apartment is actually pretty nice, I like it a lot.  Elder Castaneda keeps it really clean as well.  I get to be designated driver which is pretty fun, Castaneda knows the area perfectly so he is the GPS of the car!  

I hope that all is going well at home.  I'm glad to be in the same country as you now. .  All is good here on the other side of the United States.  I love you so much and hope you have a great week.

                                 Elder Geddes  feeling at home on his street in Arkansas

Love,

Elder Braden Geddes