I LOVE THE KIDS BECAUSE THEIR SPANISH IS ON MY LEVEL!

 Cezar

I learned a new phrase this week!  "Don't let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya!" ha ha. I laughed so hard. I've learned so much, the south is like a whole new world.

Jamie, Daniella, & Elizabeth. I missed their baptism by 2 days! Elizabeth is 2 and absolutely adorable. Jamie is from Mexico and he had a dream of getting baptized in a river but he didn't know what church did baptisms like that. After moving to Arkansas, the missionaries knocked on his door and when he found out how we baptize he knew this was it and he needed to be a part of our church! He had his girlfriend Daniella come into lessons with the missionaries and after 6 months they decided to be baptized! They got married on a Friday and baptized that Saturday in the river! Ahh so cool. They are so great we love them so much! And in a year Sister Lewis and I get to go through the temple with them! 

We had Noche De Deportes (sports night) again Saturday night. I just felt so at home. Everyone is family here already. They are so good to us and cook us amazing food and help us BIG TIME with the language. Yea I just love them. 

The Spanish elders had a baptism this Sunday! This cute little Spanish ward is growing and it’s so great!

Okay so something so crazy! Yesterday we were in a lesson with Jesus, he's our age, great guy, doesn't speak a lick of English though. It's like penguins on Madagascar...smile and wave..except we just smile and giggle because we don't know a word he is saying..we just keep on teaching ha ha. But anyway during this lesson his phone goes off with a storm warning. We didn't really know what it meant so we just kept teaching. 10 minutes later we leave his house and check our phone and we had SO MANY missed calls from missionaries and members telling us to get inside right now. And the sirens they sound in town were going off too warning us of weather. So we are freaking out and hurry over to Katie’s where we watched the hail, ate cereal and talked about the temple. We are in a pretty safe area as far as tornadoes go but the rain is super crazy! And Katie makes sure we know when there are storms coming and takes good care of us.

We had specialized training on Tuesday. We were with the Zones in Arkansas and it’s fun to see everyone. Specialized is a meeting where President and other missionaries teach us, pretty long but I love seeing President. He was a convert. It took him 6 years to finally join the church. What had happened was there was a brand new missionary, first day on the job and they went over to the Wakolo’s house to teach. All this new missionary said was "Brother Wakolo, if you were to open up a store what would you name it?" And he said "Well probably the Wakolo Store." Then the new missionary said "So if Jesus Christ established a church on the earth what do you think he would call it?" And then Wakolo asked if he could be baptized in our church. CRAZY! After 6 years of teaching THAT is what made him decide he finally wanted to be baptized. Cool story. President is amazing.

Okay so another cool story. Last week we were spiritual harvesting and we came across a Jehovah's Witness. She was older and had just lost her husband 3 months ago. She didn't want to learn more about us but I asked her if we could come back and talk about the Bible. She agreed of course. I just wanted us to get to know her especially since she just lost her husband and didn't have any other family here in Arkansas. All week, every time I thought about going back to her house I just felt sick. I thought I was just nervous and being dumb because Jehovah's Witnesses are intense. So we planned a lesson for her and were determined to make it good. But something still just felt sooo wrong. So we approach her house and realize like 7 cars out front...yep she had totally invited tons of her Jehovah's Witness friends to our "bible study" -_-. We pulled over and tried to decide what to do. We decided 2 brand new missionaries didn't need to go in there with all those people who absolutely do not like us. The second we decided to leave a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. We were in the area for other appointments and drove by her house again and sure enough her church friends were all getting in their cars. It was a good lesson for me because I now can better recognize the spirit, which I need to be way better at out here. 

We do this hilarious thing that whenever someone drops their Book of Mormon or Bible (which is all the time because we are always carrying them around) everyone yells "10 POUNDS" meaning your future spouse gains 10 pounds ha ha ha it’s too funny. 

I have a hard time with spiritual harvesting now because I know there’s a good chance that they are going to be mean. I started thinking "I hate getting rejected, people telling me that I'm crazy, or treating me badly, hating me for no reason."And then I had a second thought, Christ didn't like feeling those things either when he was atoning for me. I can do this because He did. I have lots of weaknesses out here but because of him I can overcome all of them! Definitely easier said than done, but I'm working it.

The whole "What Would Jesus Do" takes on a whole new meaning out here. I'm definitely learning things here that I really couldn't anywhere else and it is sooo cool! It's not easy. I feel like there’s so much to improve on; it’s really overwhelming but the work is moving forward here in Russellville. 

Love you!

 At Katie's during the crazy weather and tornado warnings!

 Family Home Evening with Katie.  I insisted we get milkshakes!

 Fiso and Nico brought us milkshakes!

 So much food!  Fat Daddy's is too good!

 My best friend Olivia's, cousin's girlfriend!

 We go to the rest home and this cute little old lady got 2 bucks out of us for these bracelets. Ha Ha! We love the rest home. We go every Sunday night!