April 27, 2009 (Baptism!!)

Dear Family,

So we had a great week. I want to announce that we did get a baptism this week! Kevin Cowles got baptized on Saturday, April 25. But the story of it is hilarious! So, we started the baptismal service and everything was going good. Elder Winegar was given the ok to baptize Kevin. So he gets in the font and puts his hand up in the air and starts to stay, "Kevin Michael Cowles, by the authority of the...." then he realized that he was saying the baptismal prayer wrong and starts to say it and misses a couple of words. Well, me and Elder Hansen were the witnesses. Elder Winegar was about to dunk Kevin but we stopped him and told him that he needed to do it again. So he said it again but he said "by" instead of "of" and he forgot to say "Amen" at the end. Well, before we could stop him from dunking Kevin, he goes ahead dunks him. During all this, Elder Winegar loses his footing and falls backward in the font. Everyone in the congregation starts to laugh. Poor Elder Winegar, he gets his footing again and in a really frustrated voice says the baptismal prayer correctly. They get it done and it was hard to get the crowd to stop laughing. Elder Winegar is still beating himself up. Oh well, it needs to be done right, no matter how many times you need to do it.

Kevin then asked me to Confirm him. I have never done that before so that was a new experience for me. I was nervous but I got the job done. :) I am excited that he became a member of the church. I am so happy for him! I think more people will come into the church because of him. I have no doubt.

I hope y'all have had a good week because I know I did. I'm fixin' to have another good week, I hope! I pray for all y'all constantly. Thank you for the support, love and prayers. May the Lord bless you! I love you!

Love,

Elder Parker

April 20, 2009

Dear Family,

Wow, what a week! It's the end of transfer # 6. The start of transfer # 7. Lucky number 7 baby! 3 people out of our district are getting transferred: Elder Irwin, Elder Fowler and Elder Haver. You can see it in the picture included in this e-mail.

We got a baptism coming up for this Sunday for Kevin Cowles. It will be my first one out in the mission field! And I was there when the spirit told him what to do! That is always awesome! I am so excited for him. We will see him tonight!

So this week was pretty good and pretty sad so let me explain! On Tuesday night, we got a call from Mary Lowtharp (A less-active we were working with). She told us that her husband Steven (A non-member) wasn't ready for us yet. So I was sad by that but not too bad because we only met with him twice for a whole 2 transfers (12 weeks).

We got a call from President Drewes (the mission president) and gave us a referral of a 11 year old boy that needs to be baptized. He lives in Ash Flat, AR. It is about an hour away from Pocahontas so we are using a lot of miles but it's ok, we are just doing what President asked us. We set a date with the kid. His name is Nathan Hillard. The date is May 3, (Chad's B-day!, of course, I couldn't for that!) but we might need to move it back because we only have taught him once and we only go once a week, but we will see!

We are teaching Raymond (Husband of Flora Mansker. She is a less-active member. And Raymond is black, she is white.) at a more regular basis. He is really nice to us and understands what he is being taught. He just needs to continue to pray about it so he can get an answer.

We stopped at Will and Christies (Part-member family) and we decided to wait for Christie to be done with School because she knows that she needs to pray about it but she just doesn't have time because of school. She could easily pray but she is just using school as an excuse. We will give her time.

Sunday was the potluck. It was Mexican food. It was really good. But my companion got called the Devil! We saw a member last week and we stopped by his house. He wanted to read out of book of revelation and so he told Elder Hansen to get his bible for him. On top of his bible was a wooden box, so he picked up the box and set it somewhere else, and gave him his bible. Bro McLaughin, (the member) told us that that box was his wifes. Now, his wife passed away about 10 months ago. Now, Elder Hansen, thinking that it would be ok, to look into the box, proceeded to do so. There was nothing wrong with what he did because Bro McLaughlin told us about it so we thought we did nothing wrong. Anyway, yesterday, on Sunday, he told us that Elder Hansen was the devil and that he went through all of his wifes stuff and was just disrespectful. I know that Elder Hansen didn't do anything like that. Then he told us that we had no spirit with us. That bugged me. Now, keep in mind, he is really old and senile. Then he started to tell us bad things about the members in the branch. When it got to that point, I told him we needed to leave. He did not have a good spirit about him.

Anyway, it was an overall good week. Hurray for my first baptism. I am excited! I hope and pray it goes through! I love y'all. I pray for you constantly. Thank you for your love, support and prayers. They are much needed and appreciated!

Love,

Elder Parker

Pictures Included: Picture of our district, Picture of an A-track. I have never seen one of these. It was awesome, And some goats. Enjoy!

April 13, 2009

Dear Family,

Hello, hello! This week was a really good week, overall that is. So let me update!

We had a couple of appointments this week with Joseph Luther and Christina. They were going really good until later in the week. We had an appointment with them and they didn't show up to it. So the next day, we decided to drop in on him to see if we could set up another appointment with him. He the preceded to tell us that "I have been reading the bible and I prayed about it and I think I am going to stick with my church." I think that he got antied and got stuff told about us that isn't true. His wife wasn't really gun-ho about it as he was but whatever, you win some, you lose some.

We went on exchanges with the district leader. I went with Elder Bond (The district leader) and Elder Hansen went with Elder Irwin. I stayed in Pocahontas while Elder Hansen went to Jonesboro. It was a lot of fun. We went and saw a lot of people and set up a lot of appointments which is good. Elder Bond's first name is Parker and he is from Orem. I thought that was very interesting. Really good missionary though, he is a Spanish missionary.

Terrell and Rita moved once again. They moved to Little Rock and so we never had the chance to meet with them again.

We got ourselves a new investigator. His name is Kevin Cowles. He is 16 years old and the Winegars, (senior couple) was teaching him and the rest of his family and siblings. He was really knowledgeable but he didn't have a testimony of Joseph Smith. So we all took turns and prayed about it. He got his answer. It was a neat experience. So he committed to be baptized on the 26 of April. I am so excited for him. He came to church yesterday and told people when he was getting baptized. He is excited as am I. It will be my first one! Yay! Let's hope it goes through. I really do appreciate the prayers. They really do help!

We are teaching two old ladies, Lola and Pam. We talked about the Book of Mormon and how to pray about it to find out if it is true. They were really nice and they enjoy our company as well. She says that we are her children and that she is our mother. I laughed. She is a good lady.

This week was also Easter weekend. We had a lot of people come and I also talked on Sunday. I spoke about Faith in Jesus Christ. I thought that it went pretty good. Sister Winegar also put on an Easter egg hunt at her house. She hid eggs everywhere and me, Elder Hansen, and Elder Winegar looked for them. They were chocolate eggs and they had a scripture on each of them so we had to look up the scripture before we could eat it. It was fun!

So this is the last week of Transfer #6 for me. I sure hope I don't get transferred because I really like it here and there is a lot of potential here as well. I am excited for the work here. I love you all and I am grateful for your love, support and prayers. Thanks again! I will continue to pray for y'all! The Gospel is true!

Love,

Elder Parker

Pictures included: Exchanges with the District Leader Elder Bond, Easter lunch at the Ginns, Easter egg coloring at the Winegars!

April 6, 2009

Dear Family,


Hello, hello. I am doing good. We had a good week. Full of Friendship, happiness, and fun! This week we met a lot of new people, got our selves some new investigators, etc.

We met a guy named Joseph Luther. His wife's name is Christina. He actually works for Bro. Cates, a member in our branch and the branch mission leader. So it's pretty sweet! He ordered a Lamb of God video about a year ago and he hadn't heard the message that we share. So we shared it with him and he became interested! We are also teaching his wife. She wasn't interested at first. We asked her if she had heard of the Book of Mormon. She said yes. We asked her what she had heard about it. She said, "Nothing good." So we cleared up a lot of misconceptions including the one whether we believe in Jesus Christ or not. Then she became interested, which is good. :)

We wanted to set a lot of baptismal commits this week but a lot of dogged appointments happened. So we didn't get to meet with a lot of people that we wanted to this week but that is ok.

This week for Conference, we came up with a flyer to give to the members. They, in turn, gave the flyer to a non-member friend. We actually had success with it. Bro. Barnes, a member, brought two of his friends and they have questions as well, which is good. So it was a success. Unfortunately, we didn't have any of our current investigators come, but things happen. Things will improve, I know they will.

Conference was really good. My favorite talk would have to be by Jeffery R. Holland. He talked about the Savior and how he was alone in part of the Atonement. But he is always with us. It made me feel comforted. :)

So overall, it was a good week. This is up coming week in Easter. It is a time to turn our thoughts on Jesus Christ and what he had to go through. Remember him throughout this week and always. I want to testify that I know Jesus Christ lives! I am grateful to he his servant and messenger. I love all of you and thanks for the prayers and support. I pray for you as well. Hope all is well!

Love,

Elder Parker

Pictures Included: Dinner at the McClanahans. Brother McClanahan made Mexican Casserole. It was really good!, Kids in the Branch had an easter egg hunt and we helped out!