November 23, 2009

Dear Family,

I hope all is well with you. As you know, I am in my new area. West Memphis, Arkansas. I think I will enjoy myself here. A little side note, today is my 16 month birthday. 16 months ago, I went into the MTC. Crazy how fast time goes by.

As I mentioned before, there are a lot of black people. We are teaching a ton of people. My companion, Elder Johnson, knows all of them and I am having a hard time with remembering them all and the names. There names out here are nuts! Laquadius, Lashawnda, Shyanne, etc. They spell there names really crazy and it is hard for me to remember. It will take me a while.

Lets see…There was a Thanksgiving dinner provided by the branch on Saturday. It was neat. I got to meet most of the members there. Most of the members are white. There is one active black family, the Irvins. Unfortunately, Sister Irvin worked her self to the bone on cooking for this Thanksgiving dinner that she ended up having a seizure at the end of the night. Me and Elder Johnson gave her a blessing and we hope and pray that she is improving. Last we heard she is doing better, which is great!

We have been teaching some people. It seems like all of the investigators are at the beginning stages of teaching. The problem we run into is getting people to church. Most of the people we are teaching don’t have cars. The members don’t really want to give them rides because if they end up getting baptized, then they have to give that person a ride every week. I feel so bad for the members because I don’t want them to stain themselves by doing a good deed for people. Sorry, I just get frustrated at people sometimes. But, there is nothing I really can do about that. So we try to get the people that we are teaching to invite there friends who have cars so they have a way of getting to church.

One guy we are teaching is a guy named Steve. He is a black guy that is really into his church. He loves to meet with us, but he is very intellectual in his Bible and faith. He tells us that he is never going to convert, but hey, it’s not my job to convert him, the spirit will do it. Haha. Only if he knew that.

We are teaching a Black lady named Erica Parker. She is also black. She seems pretty interested. And she has a car! The lesson went well and she seemed promising. We see her later this week.

Other than that, I just still need to get my bearings here. I still have a hard time with sense of direction because there are no mountains here. But I will eventually figure it out. Thank goodness for GPS.

I know this gospel is true. I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and that he can help us in our time of need. I know that the spirit has the converting power to convince these people here in West Memphis. I am grateful that I can be a tool in the Lord’s hands to bring these people unto Him. Thank you for all the love, support and prayers on my behalf. I love y’all and miss y’all. Hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Parker