Letter from October 21

Hey Family

                    This week has been fairly good. First to answer some of your questions. I received the Hold to the Rod award by memorizing 42 scriptures. It is really cool and now I can recite scriptures so that makes it super cool.

Earning the Hold to the Rod Award

Marion is a smaller town. It is kinda split in two by the freeway so we go under the freeway all the time. It is as close to west Memphis as Orem is to Provo. West Memphis is right on the other side of the bridge over the Mississippi River. We go to the West Memphis Branch. There are about 60 people in sacrament each week. There are lots of awesome members and they seem to all really like the missionaries. We live in a nice 2 bed 2 bath apartment on the golf course. The only down side is you have to go on the highway to leave and we are on bike week this next week, so I will try not to get hit by anything.

      OK now on to my week. On Monday we emailed and played some Risk. The version we were playing is called 2210 Risk and you can nuke others so that was awesome. Then we went to the Crickmores for dinner and tried to see some people. Tuesday we helped this girl named Alex move almost all day. It was super fun but some tiring work. On Wednesday we had specialized training. We went with the WM (West Memphis) Elders to Bartlett for that. It was lots of fun and they talked about how we need to use the Book of Mormon more in everything we do. We have also started a thing where we carry a Book of Mormon in our hand at all times. It has really helped us give out more Books of Mormon. After specialized training we went to the church and had a missionary correlation meeting. We should be getting more members to go out with us. Then on Thursday we went finding all day. We went to this sketchy part of town and walked around talking to people outside. We met this guy named Chris and set up a return appointment for the next day. We found some others and have appointments to go see them this next week. Friday we went over to the WM Elders' apartment for lunch and games. Afterward, Elder Anderson (the District Leader) decided that he wanted to do exchanges. So Elder Anderson and I went to Marion while Elder Oveson and Elder North stayed in WM. We had a couple of appointments but they all fell though except for Chris. We went and we taught him and his wife and her brother. Then we said a prayer at the end with his whole family. There are 9 people in the family. The dad, Chris, mom, Lovie, mom's brother, Demond, son, Chauncey, 4 Daughters, Janerica, Jerinautica, Jerranisha, and Shequisha, and grandson, Mario. It was super awesome and we are going back this week to teach them more and see if they will come to church. On Sunday, I gave a talk on the sacrament and how important it is to be reverent before and during the sacrament. It was a good talk and I liked what I read out of Gospel Principles that it is a time to repent and you need to go into Sacrament meeting with a reverent heart wanting to repent. We then taught Gospel Principles and that was on the spirit world. It was a good lesson.

           Whew....that's all for my week. It has been fun, busy and tiring. I hope you all have a great week and a fun time at school and work.

Elder Talbert

West Memphis is in Arkansas?

Hey family,

                  This week has been exciting. So like I said in the last email I got a call on Monday saying I was going to be transferred. Well that morning we went to the temple to say goodbye to Elder Staib. After we emailed, I packed and we played some games. On Tuesday I packed some more and went to go say goodbye to people. We went to the Seamen's and they gave me a cool blanket. Wednesday we went to a lady named Quantrice's.Sshe is one of the sisters' investigators. We did a baptism interview for her. After, we went to transfers. We hung out at the church till 3 when the people from Little Rock came and we could start transfer meeting. Transfers are supposed to start at 2 but the traffic was bad. Then transfers happened and I got transferred to Marion, AR. My companion is Elder Oveson. He is from Murray, UT and has been out about 9 months. Marion is a small town right above West Memphis. There are Elders in West Memphis so they came over and helped us set up and gave us some people we could go see. On Friday and Saturday we went around and visited a bunch of people. We went to see all the people Elder Anderson gave us as well as some members in Marion. The West Memphis Elders are Elder Anderson and Elder North. We see them about everyday usually at dinner appointments. On Sunday, we had fast and testimony meeting. It was good. There is a branch here and the members seem really cool. Then that evening we went and saw one of the other elders' recent converts named the Teeters. They are really cool family.

       

              That's about it for my week. It was exciting and fun. It sounds like y'all have had a great fall break. Have a great week this week.

          Love Elder Talbert

I didn't know you spoke chinese

Hey Family,

                  This week has been great. First off to answer all of your questions. I did finish the Book of Mormon challenge and loved every moment of it. I did watch all of conference and we watched it at the ward building just in case investigators showed up. We use Mormon messages sometimes in lessons.

        

                   On Monday we played some volleyball and cleaned our house. Then Tuesday, we packed up all of our stuff and more. We waited for the sisters to be done emailing because their pday had been moved. One of them had a meeting on Monday. Well, we finally got the car and then moved in with a member just up the street because on Wednesday they are putting more sisters in Bartlett and they are going in our old apartment. After we moved, we unpacked. It was really boring but kept us busy. Then on Wednesday we had zone meeting in Frayser. It was lots of fun and President had decided to do away with the conference call so we had more time to role play and learn from the Zone leaders. We also were supposed to decide a monthly zone baptism goal and we spent about 30 minutes trying to decide. After zone meeting we went to see Eugene. This was our first time actually meeting him. Well, we sat down and started to discuss what he already knew and what he needed to learn to be baptized. He told us that he knew the Book of Mormon was true and he wanted to be baptized. Well, he has a hurt foot so as soon as that is healed he will be baptized. He also owned his own quad and said that he had been reading the Book of Mormon but he wasn't as far as he wanted to be. We asked him how far he was and he said he just finished Mosiah. You should have seen the look on our faces, we were both amazed! Well, we are going back tomorrow to start teaching him the lessons. That night we were hanging out with the young men at the church and the member we just moved in with was there with his son who came home that day from his mission. It was super weird to see him get released and realize that is only 1 year away. On Thursday, we had a lesson with the Hills and we just planned Beckie's baptism. On Saturday we watched all of conference and I really loved Elder Uchtdorf's talk on Saturday morning about bringing people back to church and finding the lost sheep. We didn't have any investigators come to the church and watch conference but we had a couple watch it at home. Sunday, we also just watched conference all day. It was lots of fun. I loved Elder Nelson's talk on how are bodies are temples and should be treated as temples. I really love conference and listening to all the prophet and apostles. It was also funny when Elder Soares talked. It was like Dejavu. We were in the same building we saw him in in person. 

 

                              Thats about it for my week, not too exciting. Oh yea, and today I learned that I am getting transferred. So next week I will be somewhere else. Also, we went to the temple this morning to see some missionaries going though today and I learned I will probably be opening an area so that will be fun. Well thanks for all you do and all the prayers.

                                                                Elder Talbert 

Nobody move, I dropped me brain

Hey Family,

                  This week was good but tiring. We were on bike week. This week we have really been focusing on building up a teaching pool for us and for the new sisters coming in. We did a lot of street contacting this week and gave out a bunch of Book of Mormon's. On Tuesday we had district meeting and the zone leaders said that they were going to come so Elder Breckenridge was freaking out. Well in the end, the APs came instead and Elder Breckenridge did a great job teaching about the Book Of Mormon and the APs had great advice. On Friday we got a call from President Blaine. (He is President Petersen's councilor.) He gave us a referral but all he had was a phone number. Well we called the number and after a little bit of phone tag we got in touch with this guy named Eugene. He said that he had been reading the Book of Mormon and wanted us to come over talk to him about what he had been reading. He also mentioned that he wanted us to teach him so he could get baptized. We are super excited and have a meeting with him on Wednesday. 

                   Also this week there has been a beaver eating the trees at the apartment complex we live in. The management has had to cut down a couple of them. Then today we had a tree that fell over because of the beaver. It has been funny to see what the beaver has done each day.

                    It has been a great week and I am doing great in the 30 day Book of Mormon reading. I just finished the war chapters and I love how Captain Moroni uses strategies and asks the Lord how he should attack. He never just attacked a city. He always tried to kill the least amount of people as possible and always relied on the Lord for help.

 

                      Well that's about it for me. Sorry this letter is so short but my week was really boring. Hope you all have a great week and have fun at school and work. Thanks for all you guys do for me.

                                                         Elder Talbert