Week 88

  Happy post Easter!  I hope that you had a great day!  Our Easter here was awesome!  We were able to eat withthe Stake President and his family, eat some chicken with Dee and then as well have another dinner with anothergreat family here in the Searcy Ward.  It was a great day to top off our successful week that we had.  

  

  The week stared off by seeing Auburn y Joey who are a family that was found on the blitz the previous week.  We showed up Monday night, and he was waiting for us at the door.  He let us right in and we were able to share the restoration with him. He agreed with some parts, and then had a lot of questions.  He is super knowledgeable in the bible, and even knew some BOM scriptures.  We had a lot of discussion but he is super sincere and wants to learn more.  They even offered us dinner in our first visit with them.  So tonight we have a dinner appointment with them, and we are excited about that.  We know that they would just soak up the gospel, as long as we can get over a few small doctrinal concerns.  I'm just grateful that we have the promise of the Book of Mormon, and know that it work if we are sincerely searching for truth.  

  As well this week we were able to finally meet Cori and her family who was another family found on the blitz.  She was a lost member and has 4 kids living with her, and her husband is not a member.  She really knows and wants to get back into the church, and she stays in contact with her best friend almost every day who is an active member in Utah.  We were able to teach the family a couple lessons this week, and we set 3 baptismal dates with her kids (Hayden, Brayden, and Payton)!  They are excited about their baptism and we already have plans to see them several times this week. The miracles just keep on coming here in the Searcy area.  

  On Easter we were able to visit with Dee and share her a short Easter spiritual thought with her.  It went really well, and after she said she wanted to give us a note.  She had written her testimony down and it was awesome!  She is doing super well and just loving the gospel.  We taught her son Joseph more this week, but unfortunately he read a lot of anti a few days before his baptism.  That was kind of sad, but we know that we will eventually come around.  It always amazes me all the time and effort people will put into going against the true church of Jesus Christ, it's the exact same situation when he was on the earth.  We have knowledge of eternal happiness, and people have such a hard time accepting that.  

  Everything is going great here in the Searcy Zone and this week I was able to return to Jonesboro and go on exchanges up there with Elder Johnson!  It was a great exchange and I was able to see Claudio y la familia.  I had a great discussion with his wife and made some commitments with her on working towards her baptism.  Claudio say as that his daughter is getting closer y closer and asking a lot of questions.  That was awesome to hear about that, they are such a great family!  I thank you so much for the Easter package, it was great!  And I survived the Easter weekend without eating any candy!  Love you lots have a great week!

                                             

                                                

Week 86

Elder Geddes and Elder Ludrick

  Solid week here in Searcy!!   This week we had Specialized training for the zone, so at the beginning of the week we were doing a lot of preparing for that.  We had that on Friday, and it was a really good meeting!  During the meeting we had a blitz where 20 companionship's that went out into the area to find people.  There were a lot of miracles, one companionship's found a less active, and she has a bunch of kids and knows she needs to come back to church.  We have been in contact with her y we are seeing her this week.  There were also some other really cool people found, and we are going to the see a family tonight that sounds way cool!  

  We have been working with Joseph, and saw him several times this last week.  He is still exited for his baptism, but one day we went over and he had some concerns about Joseph Smith and what he really did as a prophet.  We decided to read the intro to the Book of Mormon, and it was all cleared up to him!  He was excited and said thank you for clearing some stuff up that I have read.  On Sunday we were expecting a ton of investigators to come to church, but at the end of everything only 1 came.  But it was Joseph, so he is still looking good for this Saturday! 

 We are still working with Jeremy and we pushed his baptism back for a couple of weeks, because he couldn't get work off.  But he told us that he wants to go teaching with us on his days off this week, so that would be pretty sweet!  As well we have been seeing Paige y Milan, and they both have strong desires to change!  We were able to set Baptismal dates with them after an awesome lesson, and they are really excited about everything.  

  I was on exchanges this week with Elder Ludrick who is from Micronesia, and Elder Pearson went with Elder Geddes up in Paragould.  Me and Elder Ludrick were able to teach the his sweet guy who has a sister y friends that are LDS, and he really wants to learn more about the church.  After that there wasn't much luck the rest of the night.  But as we pulled into our apartment our neighbor was standing outside,  and he asked us if we were Jehovah's.  I explained who we were and a little bit about our message.  I asked if we could come share more and then he asked if he could come to church with us.  That was a great way to end the night, and we are hoping to talk with him a few times this week and get him to church this next Sunday!  

  All is going great here in Searcy and I'm really loving it here.  Elder Pearson is a great companion and there are a lot of good things about to happen in this area!   Hope y'all have a wonderful week!  Love you!

Fishing on P-day

Week 85

Agüitas del bautismo en Searcy!

   This week was a great week here in the Little City of Searcy Arkansas!   A lot happened here this week and it was raining all week long. Last night we were under a Tornado watch, and we got some hail and rain but nothing really happened.

   Towards the beginning of the week we went to see Denise "Dee" who had a baptismal date for this last Saturday.  She is a mom of a member that I knew in Jonesboro who recently moved back here.  Her son was sitting in on the lesson and we taught him the restoration, and he really like it so we were able to set a baptismal date with him for the end of March.  Dee was looking forward for her baptism, but we weren't sure if she was going to be ready by the end of the week.  We ended up seeing Dee a few times after that and she was super excited about her baptism, and was determined to do it on Saturday!  She was able to overcome all the problems, and we were able to have her baptismal service on Saturday!  It went really well and there was a lot of support from the ward.  Every time I see a baptism, it's so great to see how happy it makes that person.  As well her son Joseph came to the baptism, and he said he felt really good when she was getting baptized and that he was excited for his baptism.  

   Our other top investigator Jeremy is progressing super well.  We were able to see him a bunch this week.  He is a cousin of a member and is really excited for his baptism coming up in a couple week. He has expressed to us his desires to serve a mission, and to help us as much as possible after he is baptized.  We are looking forward to that, and to keep helping him prepare.  We are also visiting a lady named Johnny, and she is a less active. This week we showed up, and she said God had helped heal her feet with new medication and that she was able to go to church now.  She went to BOM class, the baptism, and as well as church on Sunday! That was great to see her turn around.  

  I was able to teach a couple lessons in Spanish which was pretty sweet, and there are actually two members in the ward that are Hispanics and don't really speak English.  So I was able to meet them this week.  On Sunday Dee was confirmed, and as well I gave a talk in sacrament!  It actually went super well, it was the first talk I have given in English on my mission.  

  It's been pretty great serving here in Searcy, I'm learning the true southern ways.  My favorite quote of the week came from one of the less actives we are teaching she said: "did you know there were 14 presidents before George Washington?  The first was named George Washington Bush and he was black".  Sometimes you just never know what people are going to tell you! 

Well hope y'all had a great week there!  Love you!

    Week 84  

                                                  

                                                                  NLR District

Elder Geddes & the Office staff

This week has been quite exciting!  Towards the beginning of the week we had our staff meeting with President Wakolo, it was my last one as office Elder.  That was great, and after that Elder Lundell y Phillips dropped me off with the Spanish Zone Leaders for exchanges.  I was able to go with them for an entire day!  It was an awesome exchange, and we were able to see their sweet recent convert and a lot of other cool people.  It was nice being able to speak in Spanish all day was well.  That night we set up a special dinner with the Foster's and that was awesome!  It was great being with them, and I was glad to be able to see them again.  We also got to stop by Ana's and see her.  The next day we had a zone meeting.  Later on that night we were able to have dinner with Yader and Joanne before I headed out!  That was awesome, and I'll definitely miss living so close to them.  Yader is excited about being called as the 2nd councilor of the Spanish branch, and has already been doing a great job!  

                                           Elder Pearson and Elder Geddes                                              

That next morning I finished packing the rest of my stuff, and then we headed to the mission office.  Then Elder Cade Pearson came to pick me up.  He is from Pocatello Idaho, and we have been serving for thee same amount of time.  It has been going great so far, we got along really well.  I'm looking forward to this new transfer!  

  The first couple days were pretty crazy, we had to do a baptismal interview in Jacksonville which was moved so we had to drive down there twice.  And as well  we went and did a blitz in Batesville which was sweet!  I got to talk a lot of Spanish over there, so that was great as always!   We have been super busy and that's been really nice.  

  The Searcy area seems pretty great, and church went really well.  We have some cool investigators that we are working with, and we taught a pretty cool Hispanic guy there yesterday.  It's been quite the change going from Office Elder to Zone Leader, but I've been loving getting back into teaching every day!  Other than that, all is going well here in Searcy Arkansas!

Love y'all and have a great week!