October 9, 2008

Dear Family and Friends,

How is everyone doing? I am doing great out here in J-ville Arkansas! I am loving it. We have still been busy this week. A lot has happened so let me explain. This weekend was conference. It was great. We had 5 investigators come. Kimi and Jimmy Baldwin came and 3 new others they just came out of the blue but I will explain about those in a minute. I really needed to hear some of the things that the general authorities said which was really good.

We had family home evening this week with the Edwards. We watched "Emma Smith - My Story". It was a good and interesting movie. Joseph and Emma went through a lot together for this church. Brother Edwards has a sword that is in his house that he showed me. He said that sword was given to him by his great grandfather. His great grandfather was helping Joseph Smith when he was being taken away to Chartage Jail. Joseph Smith gave the sword to his great grandfather and said "You might need this to protect yourself." So I thought that that was pretty cool so I took a picture of me holding the sword that Joseph Smith had touched! Pretty awesome!

We have a Senior couple that works with us as well. They are the Witts. They come from Brigham City, Utah. They have been out as long has I have and they are so trunky. They miss home so much but they work nonetheless. They are a great couple though, they have treated us very nicely and they like us a lot. I love the Witts.

This week was also Zone Conference so that is why I am e-mailing on Thursday, instead of Wednesday this week. We learned a lot about faith and finding people. So that is really good. I needed that as well!

Now, an update on some of my investigators:

1. Kimi - She is still trying to quit smoking so we gave her a lesson on the "Armor of God" in Eph. in the Bible. We also gave her a blessing and her kids thought that it was weird/cool. Her son came up to me and asked if I could bless him with the ability to have super-human strength and to fly. I told him that blessings don't work that way and laughed. One of the older boys tried to record us giving a blessing and we aren't sure if he succeeded or not. If he did, lets not hope that I am on youtube.

2. John - Unfortunately, We have dropped him because he called us and said that he wanted to stay at his uncles church because "that is where he is supposed to be." We as missionaries can only do so much.

3. Jimmy Baldwin - We kind of found out that Judy isn't really interested because she isn't at the lessons anymore. We still need to figure out what her deal is. We are still teaching him the basics but I don't think he quite understands all of them yet so we are working on that so he does understand.

4. Gabby - We had a chat with her mother. She has a couple of warrents for her arrest she told us for not going to court for accidents and what not. She said that she can't go to church because she doesn't want to but she wants Gabby to learn more before she gets baptized. It is only a matter of time before she comes around.

5. Maurice - Still reading scriptures with him. Still hoping that he will get an answer about his baptism date.

6. Destiny and Ebony - We invited them to conference and there Less-active mother kind of got mad at us because she didn't think that they would like it or sit through it and that we didn't tell her anything about it. We thought she knew but apparently not. We just have to go see them again to see what there deal is.

7. Whitney- She met with us wondering why we stopped visiting with her. I guess she didn't get the point that we dropped her. She said that she found the right church and is now going to that.

8. Jimmy Allen and Family- This family just showed up to conference on Saturday morning. We talked with them and set up an appointment. We went and talked to Jimmy. We found out that he has read 3/4 of the Book of Mormon before we even met him. His older son is Mormon and introduced it to him. He told us that his soul hungers for more and that when he reads the book of mormon, it fills that hunger. I think this is going to be the first time that I am going to say that he is "golden". We are so excited to teach him more! I will keep you updated!

Well, that is my busy week. I am having a great time. Trying to stay motivated can be hard but I am doing it! I really appricate all of your prayers and thoughts in my behalf. I guess I have a website now which is kind of cool. Talk to my dad for more info. God bless you all!

Love,

Elder Parker