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.

State of the Mission (April 29th)

Okay let me lay it all down real quick for y'all.

 

My companion Ramirez went to Jackson Tenesse. Basically as far away as possible. My new companion is Elder Hernandez. He is from Las Vegas. He looks pretty much white. However his mom is half white half hispanic and his dad (not really a part of the picture) was half Guatamalan half El Salavadorian.  

 

I'm going to split it up like this first I am going to tell you who he is on the outside and then I'll explain who he is on the inside.

 

On the outside, my understanding is that he did not grow up in the nice part of vegas. He's an only child and I think it was kind of him and his mom for a long time. I believe he know has a stepdad though. He can't really read all that well. He has a lot of cousins that seem to all have played football and then ended up in jail.

 

On the inside however, he is widely accepted as one of the most spiritually in tune missionaries in the mission. You just cant tell him he's inspired or else he gets a big head and then becomes less inspired (advice from previous companion) He LOVES everybody. Like really he just loves everybody. He is always texting all the areas in the mission where hes served and asking about how everyone is doing and then he tells the current missionaries to go tell certain people he loves them. He can communicate in spanish but he doesnt speak very correctly. And then every once in a while the gift of toungues takes over and he'll just start speaking perfect spanish. He is 3 for 4 this week getting us in doors. That's pretty high. He's probably one of the more optimistic people I've met despite not having seen a large amount of success on his mission.To sum it up he's just a miracle in that he emerged from where he was and that he now is who he is. My patience will probably be a little tried at times but I think I am going to learn some important lessons.

 

I'm the district leader now I guess you got the same letter  I got or something. It's not that big of a deal. There are 4 missionaries in the district including me and my companion so one other companionship if you're good at math. Its the two sets of spanish that go to the branch. 

 

So I dont know if I ever went back and told you this. Didn't really know at the time but Elder Canales is like the best missionary ever. I didnt even really understand what was goin on before my very eyes but he was unreal. He was totally President Petersen's favorite missionary I am not even kidding. He baptized 1 with faumui the transfer after I left spanish south and then 7 the next transfer. He baptized a couple his last weekend in the mission that 3 hours before their baptism were 100% set on not getting baptized. Anyways I could go on all day with Canales stories but at transfers Pres Told me in his closing interview Canales told President I was his favorite companion because I was funny so maybe that's why I am a district leader haha

 

Anyways I'll try to send a picture of Elder Hernandez and myself.

 

Love you all, have a good week.

 

NEW CHALLENGE ***ALERT ALERT*** I bought an 8 X 10 frame at wal mart  for my apartment and so whoever sends the best 8 X 10 picture wins. Maybe I'll send you all the picture thats currently in there too. Its awesome

 

Happy Birthday Mom!

Hi everybody,

 

This past week was really good. We were on bikes so my counteracting plan to being on bikes for the evenings is inviting all members I can think of to come and teach with us. We had members take us out three nights this week. That's not bad for a branch with average attendance of 40 something. I can't express to you guys how much better lessons go with a member. I don't know if its just because theyre that much more spiritual than us or they are just more relatable or God just blesses us for making the extra effort but it has got to be something.

 

I can't even think of anything to talk about right now. I am just sitting here. I am really addicted to mint chocolate chip Klondike bars. They're like the best frozen treat known to man. You should all go get some next time you're in the grocery store. It's like 2.69 for 6 of them at wal mart. Am I making this enticing enough. I will be following up next week on who did this and I will be giving shout outs for those that come through.

 

Also I have finally gave up fighting it and just started using the word yall its way too convenient. I made it over 9 months (one pregnancy and a bit) without

giving in but I have now cracked. I know I am being judged right now but any of you come live down here for that long and never say it and I will take you out for dinner.

 

Transfers are coming up in a week and a half. Decent chance my companion moves but nothing is ever sure in mission transfers.

 

We have some really awesome investigators right now. There are three pretty cool families we are teaching that I would say are kind of our top investigators.

 

Congrats to Waranne on the child. I like the names.

 

Happy birthday Dad Mom and Anniversary too.

 

I will think of things to write about this week because this email is lame.

 

Spiritual message for today. uhh...

Sister Petersen shared a cool story in specialized training last month. It was about this little group of neighborhood kids who all like to do diving as a hobby and they were all very proper and well off or something. And they go to a diving competition and there is this other kid who was poor and didn't have a pool at his house to practice at and he would try to do flips and stuff but he never pointed his toes or had good form. And all the other little kids to nice dives and swan dives with pointed toes and made fun of the poor kid. At the end of the competition they announce the poor kid wins and the narrator girl goes up to the judges and asks how that's possible because hed had lower scores the whole time. And the judges say to her "you may have had the better dive, but he had the harder difficulty" and he wins because of the difficulty multiplier or bonus or something. Anyways the moral of the story is you may look like your better but others may have harder difficulties. You can't judge anybody because we don't understand their circumstances. You don't know where they come from what their brain chemistry is like how they were treated through out their life. And I am not just talking about handicapped people or random people that are kind of different it applies to every person you come in contact with. Something that has helped me a ton over the last couple months is the parable of the two debtors which I belive is in Matthew somewhere. Gottta go and don't have time to find it but I would invite you all to go read it. And then everytime you're mad at somebody or they are annoying just remember how patient GOd has been with you your whole life.

 

That's all the time Ive got

 

Love peace and blessings yall

 

Elder Davidson

How general is your conference?

What's up friends and family,

 

I hope that your week was wonderful and awesome.

General Conference was amazing. ughhh!

I watched the first 4 sessions in spanish so I didn't get quite as much out of it as I do when its in english even though I more or less understand. It's just not the same when it's not their voices and your native language.

 

We told angel about general conference this week we didnt really know what he would say. We'd talked about a living prophet but just briefly. When we told him what it was and that it was this weekend his  face just lit up and he was like wow I hope I can get saturday off work. THat's going to be really special.

Angel came to 4 sessions of conference at the church. He was originally planning on staying for priesthood but he was so wiped out after 2 sessions we just sent him home. I guess thats what happens when you've only had the gift of the holy ghost for a week and you get spiritually nuked. Just drains you.

 

Other than all the other people that said they would be there didnt come. But you focus on the positive not on the negative. (at least that's what our mission president always says when we dont hit our monthly goal haha)

 

My favorite thing from conference was when Tad R Callister talked about people calling to ask which was the best ward and only once in 16 years did someone call and ask what ward needed a strong family.

 

One of the scriptures I memorized is D&C 81:5 Wherefore be faithful; stand in the office which I have appointed unto you; succor the weak, lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees.

 

I think when you look around its really easy to identify people who walk around with the what can I give attitude.  I'm kind of out of time maybe I'll talk a little more about what I've been thinking about lately next week.

 

To conclude general conference was awesome. President eyerings testimony blew my mind. And Jeffrey R Hollands invitation to lean on his testimony also left me shell shocked. It was unreal. I bear my witness that they are called of god and instructed by him. Exodus 33:11. I know that God is the same yesterday today and forever.

 

I love you all tons, and hope your weeks are awesome.

Nine Months

Hi friends and family, I'll try and give a all around gerneral update because several people told me they didnt really think they new what was going on in my life.

 

My companion is still Elder Ramirez we stayed together after transfers. He was born in toreon coahuila but pretty much spent his whole life in Dallas. He's a goof, he has the worst eating habits but its kind of funny. We get along fine and we've more or less figured out how to teach with each other. I am still in sout little rock.Everything in my area is pretty much off of a road called baseline which I guess one of the senior couples told us is like one of the first roads like period. when they went and explored this part of the states or something I don't know. There are lots of hispanics in our area and we are decently close to the church which is always a blessing. Angel the investigator with walmart and the umbrella is getting baptized this thursday. He is a very spiritual man and he knows a lot aobut the bible. That'll be my first baptism in this area and it will be Elder Ramirez's first baptism so we are excited about that.

 

The spanish branch is not quite as strong over here but it's still good. There are some wonderful people over here very faithful members of the church. Transfers will be in the end of april like the 20 somethingth of april. Elder Ramirez will most likely move and I will probably stay here. We have some other cool investigators but nobody is really that close to being baptized. I now get tons of emails from friends and I try to send repsonses to most of them. It's very time consuming but also very enjoyable.

 

I've been a little sick for a couple weeks. It's getting annoying I think I will call the mission doctor today and see what he says. I'm not really sick but its not going away.

 

We had a super awesome testimony meeting this yesterday because the youth from the stake had just gone on a trip to nauvoo and so the branch president invited them if they wanted to to come up and share their feelings from the trip. They ALL got up. some of them dont even speak spanish but the branch president translated for two of his kids and one girl just bore hers in english. Angel our investigator was crying during the english testimony. That man doesnt speak a drop of english. One kids from the branch got up and talked about a walk that they went on where they were given the name of one of the pioneers that had crossed through that area or something. and and the end of the walk the stake president (by the way the little rock stake president is awesome he's suuuuuuper intense) says to the kids The important question you need to ask yourselves youth is would you be willing to do the same thing the pioneers did. I know you would all be willing to do it. And this young man who is a little bit bigger a little bit awkward wears glasses not super eloquent says. I was really thinking about that important question and I didnt really think I would do the same. And on the bus ride home I thought about it for a while and I prayed about it and I realized that I would do the same thing. It was super sincere and honest I just started crying like a baby.

 

Anyways I hope that is sufficient for an update. I hope you all feel connected. I hit my nine month this past week. Dont really know where the time is going.

 

Much love, Elder Davidson