Arkansas Logic

Arkansas Logic...

So the title has to do with the pic. FYI. The people inside weren't interested in listening to us unfortunately, but it was still fun to take the pic. I wonder how they got off so badly on the numbering that they had to put a 1/2 in there, or maybe it was just a joke. Either way it was immensely amusing for me.

Things are starting to smooth out now. We are finding people to teach, and some of them invite us back, which is always a bonus if you want to share something with them. We are finally getting people to church as well. Up till now we have had 0 luck in this, but we are starting to change that with a great deal of help from God.

Declaration: I hate smoking. It is a horrible addictive habit that nobody I've talked to wants to keep around. It makes teeth and fingers turn yellow and does nothing to aid in making someone smell nice. However, there is just one place I love the smell (kind of), and that is in church. To smell smoke on someone's clothes means that someone is striving to come closer to our Father in Heaven, and I love this.   

Today is transfer day, meaning I've been in the field for my first 6 weeks. It's kinda weird to think that it's already gone. To quote Dr. Who: "People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but *actually* from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint - it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly... time-y wimey... stuff." It's surprisingly accurate when you are talking about a mission, as the past 6 weeks have been the only time I've had days feel like weeks, weeks feel like days, naps that felt far too short, dinner appointments that felt far too long, and some of the strongest deja vu ever. So yeah, one down, 17 to go!

RJ was.... interesting. I'm really not all that sure he's ready to hear our message, because when we went over there he just basically talked over us all the time. So yeah. Dunno if I will be going over there again.

Things with JB are looking up. He still hasn't come to church because his son "Troy" is visiting him and wanted to go fishing instead of going to church. I can't say I blame J*** for his decision. On the plus side his nephew next door "Samwise" (I wanted to name Troy "Frodo" to make it work better but that would be plagiarism) randomly showed up and is curious about what we teach. Hopefully things will progress with him too.

This is one of the things I really like about this street: No matter how long we go around it talking to people, once we think we have found everyone more people seem to pop up out of the ground like daises! Just with the O***, family I just found out that there is a sister I never even knew existed. Where do they keep coming from! lol

Yesterday we were out finding people to teach and, true to tradition, we were out in the middle of nowhere. We had talked to a few people outside and knocked on a couple of doors with absolutely no success at all, and so turned back around to go and drive elsewhere. About half-way to the car I felt like we needed to go and knock on a brown house about 300 yards down the street we had just left. It took the rest of the walk to the car for me to say that we needed to go back and knock on this house before we moved on. So we turned around, parked on the side of the road, and knocked on the house. We could see people home inside, but they didn't answer the door. It was rather discouraging. While we were knocking on the door we saw people outside next door, so as soon as it was obvious nobody was coming to answer the door we walked up the driveway, up the road a little ways, and down the other driveway. Just as we were about to call out to the people, they got in the car and started backing up. We stepped out of the way to let them pass, and then knocked on the door for good measure, but no answer. #Discouragement. For lack of anything better to do we continued up the street, not knocking on doors but just looking for people to talk to. Up ahead of us we saw a car pull behind a house and several other people back there. We knocked all the doors around that house, hoping that they would  go inside where they could answer the door and save us from a very awkward street approach, but to no avail. After several door literally being shut in our faces, we turned and walked down the gravel driveway leading to the back. After going back there and introducing ourselves, we said a prayer with them. This turned to a really good talk about different religions and what we believed in, leading to a return appointment! This never would have happened had I not listened to the prompting to go back and knock on the brown door. We go back Thursday.

Love you all, and have a good one!

Elder Jayden Barker