Hope is Dope (July 8th)

What's good Davidson clan, 

This week was pretty good really can't complain. Stomach pulled it out for me after about 10 days of funny business we're back to normal operation. Thanks for the little package parents as well that was a very nice surprise. 

Bomb story of the week. Don't know if I ever mentioned but this but President randomly sent one spanish missionary to Hope arkansas (google it) to try and get things going because there were a few media referrals for spanish people down there. Anyways this spanish missionary is baptizing up a little storm down there by himself (hes got an english companion) theyve had a couple spanish and a couple english baptisms. I guess hope is about 10 000 people and half hispanic, litttle factory town or something. But they needed a spanish baptismal interview done this past week and I am the closest Spanish missionary that can do an interview so we split with the assistants and One of them and I drove down to hope. He's red dotted meaning he cant drive a car so I drove the assistants brand new V6 Tacoma from little rock down to Hope and back(again google it). I was skeptical at first didn't really want to drive a truck but man that thing was actually pretty fun to drive. It only had 1000 miles on it. Trucks are cool. I learned that this week. 

Other than that things are going about the same. transfers are coming up on the 17th. I'll probably stay one more transfer here finish training elder Meyers and then move somewhere else. I have been here for a while now. I would definitely like to go back to memphis again but we'll see about that who knows what could happen. 

Hope you all have a great week. 

Elder Davidson 

July 1st

Hey everybody,

 

good week down here other than a number of days of consecutive diahrhea cant complain. Haha I made that sound a lot worse than it is, doing great.

 

Santiago is doing allright, we're still working through stuff but he came to church this week again so that helps a lot.

 

CRAZY combined 5th sunday lesson covered - Homosexuality, Plural marriage. the fall (top to bottom), government policy and who knows what else. It was out of control.

 

People have been bugging me to talk about my new missionary here it goes. He's 19 (just turned it) his name is elder meyers. His favoirte colour is neon hes into singing and acting. He's already got a spot at the U to start medical school when he gets home with solid scholarship. He ran cross country I think. I dont know what else you want to know. He's kind of quiet. Really good hearted.  Hard worker.

 

We are currently teaching some of the smartest people I have taught on my mission and they are a 15 year old girl and her 11 year old brother. We left them a chapter to read and we came back and the 11 year old is like well sorry if I wasnt supposed to read more than the chapter you gave us but I read another chapter and then half of the next chapter as well. And he made up his own highlighting scheme and highlighted the scriptures. They were both prepared to share the verses they liked and why they liked them. I think there mom was a surgeon in guatemala. They are counsins of some members. They understand everything perfectly. its out of hand.

 

Dont know if I mentioned this yet but this upcoming transfer we are going from 6 zones all the way t o 10 so things are just going to be straight wacky here pretty soon. Already pretty sure what out zone is going to look like ish but still lots to be figured out.

 

We'll see what happens. Stay real family.

 

June 17th

Hey! Hope you all had a great week. Happy Fathers day. I think its a rip we don't get to talk on the phone but I guess that's alright.

 

Biggest news for the day. Havent been out for a whole year yet that will be on the 20th. But exactly one year from today I go home on the 17th of June. FREAK! That's still pretty weird for me to think about. Apparently this is when the time is going to just take off and then it's over. Still lots to be accomplished though. The first year you kind of figure out what you're doing the last year especially the last six months are when you've got to get it done!

 

Training is hard! It's tiring. The tough thing is finding a good balance of taking the lead and showing how things are supposed to be done and at the same time letting your little birdie fly. Haha its mentally exhausting. It's good though. Being naturally a little control hungry I am more than happy to show a new missionary how to do missionary work the way I think it can best be done. I'll be frank as well. No matter how much you think you may know, you always know less that you think you know. But you also always know enough.

 

I seriously just feel really tired. Between the heat and the training and the missionary working I'm not sure which is the biggest factor but we're going on bikes for the next week so this may be a good humbling experience haven't been on bikes since April. 

 

In other mission news president is going for it all at once and is going to open 4 new zones this coming transfer so we can be ready to receive all the new missionaries. We don't really have enough for that many zones yet but they'll just start a little small and then he'll let the mission grow into them. But that means it will have doubled since I came out from 5 when I got here to 10 coming up. That means a freaking ton more zone leaders and district leaders and readjusting boundaries and so on and so forth. Once again the value of being Spanish and being removed from all the leadership drama is quite nice. I went on exchange with one of my zone leaders this past week and we talked about it all. He's a good hard working competent missionary. The general sentiment expressed was who is going to fill all the new positions. We've got too many lazy and confused missionaries that already are in leadership and now we've got to draw from the remains to expand the leadership pool. He used some harsher words and though it wasn't the nicest thing ever I'll admit it would be difficult to disagree. I don't know why but our mission culture is just kind of lazy and not that obedient. It's improved a lot but it's still got a ways to go. Anyways just grateful to be Spanish.

 

Anyways thank for the letter I got that everybody had signed it made my day. I hope you are all still doing well.

 

Talk to you all next week.

 

Elder Davidson

 

 

June 10th

Hey,

 

I'll run you through a quick update of how things shook out after transfer week.

 

My knew companion is Elder Meyers from Kaysville Utah. President said he thought he was interviewing me when he interviewed him for the first time. There is someting similar about us still having put my finger on it. I think its physical appearance something in the face. Maybe eyes nose or something. Who knows.

 

He's 18 almost 19. He took college classes while he was in high school and then did some weird program where he had to go to the U everyday at 3:00  in the morning for a long time and then they judge the people in the program people something or other. All things said and done he's got a spot in medical school secured with a very sizeable scholarship. Pretty impressive for an 18 year old.

 

I'm still the district leader. President always makes trainers the district leaders. It's stressful. Our mission is bloodthirsty for accountablility. I'll let you make of that what you will. Its not really that bad.

 

The assisstants, as predicted, moved areas and are now our apartmentcomplexmates. It's nice. They're getting a new jeep this week. I know its awesome.

 

We're working hard and being obedient but we still haven't baptized since the end of March. Its frustrating. We'll get it figured out here pretty soon. The one thing that's hard is maintaining focus on the fact that we are here for people and not numbers sometimes. With all the pressure to be successful you've got to be really careful what your focus is. Because it's really about the atonementand repentence and helping others come to understand who Christ is. Now obviously baptism the focal point of all of that but they need to be people and not numbers. It's a line we walk most days.

 

Spiritual thought this week comes from Alma 34. I really learned this week about what it means that the Atonement is Infinite. 11 talks about how one person cant atone for the sins of one other person. 12 says therefor the atonement has to be infinite. 15 explains that because of the atonement Mercy thus was able to overpower justice. I listened to a Cleon Skousen talk about the atonement recently and he explained that the atonement was not "this much suffereing for this much sin" but because of the atonement christ suffered so infinitely that the mercy created can overpower the justice demanded. Then christ can say D&C 45: 4-5 (read it). Now there is also the enabling power of the atonement which goes along with the cleansing power of the atonement. Christ also suffered the pains and afflictions and temptations we will face (Alma 7:11-12) I've been pondering how it all fits together.... still working on it. However I bear witness that it is real. The events are real. The power is real. He is real. and we must come to know him better every single day.

 

I love you all and pray for you frequently.

 

Elder Davidson

 

 

 

 

June 3rd

Hellos everybody,

 

wooooh it feels like its been forever doesn't it?!

 

Anyways I'll try to run you through a quick update of things down here. Fastest transfer ever with Elder Hernandez. Things are looking medium well for the work we have some good things happening. I got a confirmative call Thursday night that I am still training so transfers are this Wednesday and I will be picking up Elder Myers. Don't know a thing about him other than his name. I think we are picking up another 14 sisters this transfer?! They're coming so fast that half of them are training after their first 6 weeks. 6 more weeks and the first of the Spanish sisters will arrive. With more coming in October I believe. Whole bunch of other weird stuff going on with transfers I'll spare you the details. Looks like the assistants to president are going to be moving areas maybe. Pretty decent chance they could land in the Little Rock English area or in other words across the parking lot from us and one of the missionaries that has been there will become the new assistant. Not gonna lie that would be nice to have them right there. They have unlimited miles on their car and its just never bad to have friends that have a say in things. Not going to make a big deal out of it. Doesn't matter that much but it might be nice.

 

Elder Hernandez is sad to be leaving this area. I think he asked president if he could spend his last 7 months here because he loves it here so much. He got a little sad when he found out I was training last Thursday but he's doing good now.

 

Other Spanish in our district had an awesome baptism this week. There was a semi-active member who had a lady move in with him and then they got in contact with the missionaries up there and they taught em and then this past thurday they got married and baptized. So now they are doing things right. So they baptized the lady and her teenage daughter. I did their baptismal interviews which was a pretty cool experience.

 

I don't know what else really to say.

Spiritual thought for the week: read your scriptures. I work really hard not to judge people but you can tell which active members read their scriptures and which don't. Those who study are just filled with the spirit. There is really just a visible difference. You don't need a lot of time we're all busy but make it a spiritual experience. Just read 'em. Its awesome I promise.  You'll be happier.

 

Love you all, take care and say a prayer for Elder Myers. The first week is tough.

 

Star Studded Week on the Arkansas red carpet

Hey everybody,

 

So this last week had some ups and some downs kind of like every week I guess.

 

We'll go through the positives first. Gladys Knight was sick! She came on Tuesday with her choir and it was a full on worshipping party. It was actually way fun. It was kind of long and hot and really crammed. But it was a pretty cool event. There were two shows 5:30 and 8:30. We went to *:30 with some returning members from Guatemala. There were these three older black ladies in front of us and they were really sooo funny. They were singing along to all the Baptist hymns. The choir started singing one of them and the lady in the middle was like OHH that's my ringtone! This was the basic breakdown of the whole thing. Choir directed by Gladys sang for like an hour. (every once in a while she would turn around and just start singing along at the pulpit with embellishment and all) then some funny white guy taught the restoration pretty much for the next 15 min. Then Gladys and her Husband each bore testimony for like 20 min. A couple more songs and it was over. During the testimonies the ladies in front of us kept yelling stuff out it was SOOO FUNNY. Gladys would be like "sometimes life is hard" and the ladies would be like OHH YES IT ISSS OHH SO HARD. and then Gladys would be like "and the devil is working hard all the time and sometimes is easy to mess up" and the ladies would be like " It really is just sooo easy" Anyways I could go on forever about the hilarious things they said but I think you get the point. It was awesome and the Guatemalans fell asleep during the testimonies hahah they don't speak any English. It was weird to have such a bumpin party in the chapel though.

Hands in the air clapping and dancing whatnot.

 

Anyways that was awesome then we had like a last minute out of nowhere Zone Conference and we were visited by Elder Soares one of the newly appointed 7 presidents of the 70. He was not super nice but I think we all just needed to repent and be more obedient and better planners etc etc. Pretty much all the missionaries who I have talked to felt sucky after he came until they repented. I am not even kidding I talked to a bunch of other people. I felt sucky all weekend until I decided to be a little more humble and repent.

 

The bad news of the week is that our top investigators have some serious issues with the Word of Wisdom. I know what you are all thinking right now and you're all wrong. They don't drink or do drugs or anything like that its just coffee. But the problem is that they think the whole W of W think is a bunch of made up garbage and they didn't come to church this sunday when they said they would about an hour and a half before church when we visited them at their house. They wont commit to live it. So we are working through that at the moment.

 

Other than that things are alright.

Miss you all. Its only getting hotter and more humid here every day. Eeeek

 

Elder Davidson

And so on and so forth (May 6)

Hey all,

 

I feel like sometimes my emails home are kind of sucky and lack feeling and are just more like minutes. I'll try to share some interesting things today.

 

First pre-planned point: as a missionary you do so many random and ridiculous things and then every Pday I forget about them all so I will now list some of the crazy stuff that happens.

 

1.  Went with a lady in the branch to her son's elementary school to translate for a parent conference in the principals office. Her kid has been hitting all the other kids so they had to have a meeting and I was right in the middle of it translating back and forth. It was out of control hilarious. It was Principal guidance counselor vice principal and teacher (all older black ladies that kept calling everybody sugar) on one side of the table with Mom and third grader on lap on the other side with me in the middle translating and Elder Hernandez standing behind me. They were using lots of educator language luckily I can interpret that too thanks to mother and I was having to circumlocution it all into Spanish. Elder Hernandez I guess had been in the third graders situation a few times prior in his life (according to him) so he was whispering the answers to Oscar (the 3rd grader) everytime the educators would question him on how he was going to change his behavior.

 

2. Went with a member to get his car "de-impounded" They took it because he had no license no registration and no insurance. I guess theyd tried to get it earlier in the day with his cousin who has a license (because they cant give the car to someone without a license") and they wouldn't give it to them because they needed the person who the cars name was in (who was there but because of language barrier and miscommunication was unable to declare themselves) so basically they bring us there because we are white I guess that builds their rapport or something. Basically I translated the exchange which turned into a heated argument which turned into the member saying "digale que es una racista" (TELL HIM HES A RACIST) which causes me to be like well umm he says he feels like there may be some racism involved sir. Which offended the car guy super bad. Eventually we got it all worked out and I just went around and told everyone I could tell they were very nice people to make them all feel better.

 

3 Spent one day with Little Rock English missionaries while I was wating for Hernandez to come over from Memphis. They had a media referral for a girl at the university of Arkansas at little rock who had requested a bible online. But theyd been one time to contact the referral and been rejected by the front desk because I guess you have to get signed in go into the dorms to be permitted in. Not a problem instead we just snuck into the all girls dorm really quickly without the front desk seeing us so we could bring this girl a bible. We get to the third floor and the first girl we see is like "oh hello what are you handsome men doing here?"  We didn't say anything and just kept walking hahaha The referral wasn't home .....

 

4. Ate at a members home this past week and tried so hard to eat the huge amount of food they gave us when I wasn't hungry to begin with. I was so full I was gagging on the food and it was delicious. I thought I was going to be able to hold it all but then I started getting light headed and as my companion started to share the spiritual thought I just booked it out the front door of their trailer and tossed my dinner off the front porch of their trailer. Thankfuly I'd had some milk that was expired with my cereal that morning so I just blamed it on that and nobody was offended.

 

Hopefully that gives you a small taste of how awesome my life is. I honestly love it. Especially the crazy stuff. It's way more fun when things are out of control.

 

Probably funniest moment of the whole week was the day that I threw up dinnerThat day was out of control. Get up in the morning eat cereal and realize while I am eating my milk was a couple days expired finish the cereal anyways.  I had my first district meeting that morning then we went out and got Pizza afterwards (paid for by the member whose car we got out the night before who wanted to take us for dinner after but couldn't because we had an appointment so he gave us some cash and told us hed get really offended if we refused to take it) We went home and right as we went to go out teaching Elder Hernandez realizes he lost the phone. We assumed we left it up at the other missionaries' apartment its the last day of the month and even though we have been smart with our miles we don't have enough to go up and get the phone. We're supposed to meet Little Rock English at walmart so they can come to our dinner appointment because its with single ladies and we cant go in with just two. We teach a little bit in the afternoon go to walmart and go in because elder Hernandez needs to use the bathroom and buy some sheet protectors. We come out of walmart somehow we luckily found the other missionaries parked in the huge walmart  parking lot even though we didn't have our phonewe all get in our car and drive a few miles to the dinner appointment. I stuff myself and throw up dinner outside. I feel pretty crappy afterwards and don't really want to drive. Elder Hernandez doesn't have a license and one of the little rock elders cant drive either. So we are down to one driver and two cars hahaha. So they drop us off at home and then go leave our car at walmart and take their car out to work the rest of the night while I slept off the stomach sickness. And then they get home too late for us to pick up our car (they live in the same apt complex as us) So our car has to spend the night at walmart end of the night elder hernandez finds our phone in the couch where it fell out of his pocket. 10:28 ish we both kneel down to pray before we go to sleep for the night and I say " today was a pretty weird day. I wonder what the Lord wanted us to learn today" and elder Hernandez being completely serious goes "well, probably that like we shouldn't drink expired milk" I just straight lost it for a couple solid minutes. It was sooo funny

 

Anyways, I didn't really like memorizing scriptures at first all that much I just like knowing what they said and where they were but in the past two weeks its become my obsession. And you get better at it the more you do it. So I have just been memorizing lots of scriptures and its really fun. Then I just say them all in my head all day and brain doesn't have time to get distracted and think about useless junk or home or college or Frisbee or whatever else.

 

So CHALLENGE of the week is for whoever wants to accept is to start memorizing scriptures. Maybe do one verse a week or ever two weeks or whatever you have time for. They can be long or short and then test each other on them and stuff. It's super fun.  You can accept if you want just let me know what you decided to memorize if you decide to do it and I'll memorize it too or something. I promise you'll be surprised how frequently you'll later be doing something and that verse will come back into your mind and teach you a principle or help you make a decision.

 

On a spiritual note this week and I don't really know why but my testimony was tried harder that it has ever been. We met a really sincere lady that had studied with the missionaries and read most of the book of Mormon and never really felt like she got ant was kind  answer about it. I felt sad it was kind of hard. But after a little prayer and scripture memorizing and probably more importantly obedience to the commandments in the moments of most difficult temptation I feel that I now know more than I ever have that it's true. It is all true. Jesus is the Christ, Joseph is his prophet, the Book of Mormon contains God's very words. It's not something that just makes sense or sounds nice. It is something I know. I've never seen Jesus I've never had a vision, and I cant even think of a time I have had a crazy spiritual prompting but I have felt the still small voice that speaks to me not with words but with feelings. So I bear you my witness that I know and that it's true.

 

I love you all and hope your weeks are wonderful.

 

Elder Davidson

 

PS Listened to an eight lecture series by Truman G Madsen on the prophet Joseph Smith. If you ever get a chance to listen to it do it. It was awesome. I think its published by deseret or something.