Hey mom!

So I am now in Springdale Arkansas! The transfer went pretty smoothly. It's really different being here in this area. There are a lot more hills here than there were in Parsons. Thes area is a bike area so we don't ever have a car. Luckily the area isn't really massive. We only cover about 1/3 of the city of Springdale. The church building here is absolutely huge. There are 5 units that meet in the building. We meet in the stake center.

We live with another set of Elders. Their names are Elder Tong and Elder Tabao. They are Marshallese speaking missionaries. Elder Tong is our district leader. They're really cool. We have been challenging each other with riddles. It's pretty funny. Elder Barton, my new companion, is from Bountiful Utah. He has been out for about nine months now. He's a pretty awesome missionary. We get along really well and we have a lot in common.

The Springdale 1st ward, which I'm serving in, is the smallest ward in the area of Springdale. This area hasn't seen a baptism for quite a while. The members here are really awesome! There are some pretty interesting characters in the ward. Our Elders Quorum president, Bro. Gardner, is pretty stinking funny. Our ward mission leader, Bro. Dias (pronounced Gias, don't ask me why), is really excited about missionary work and is trying really hard to get the work moving along quickly. Elder Barton and I have a goal to have at least one baptism by the end of the transfer. We don't have a ton of investigators, but the ones that we do have are pretty solid. We shouldn't have any problems reaching that goal, but who knows what can happen within the next few months. We only have 5 investigators in our teaching pool right now. Elder Barton and I have set a goal to have 20 investigators in the pool by the end of the transfer as well. We have a few really solid potentials that will soon become investigators.

The place that we live in is really nice. It's a duplex that is owned by a member. There is plenty of space for all of us in there. It's a lot bigger than the apartment in Parsons was. I'm pretty much all the way moved in now. There is still some stuff left in my suitcases, but its not stuff that I use on a daily basis.

I have a feeling that I'm going to lose some weight in this area. We bike at least 20 miles a day. On one day, I'm pretty sure we did close to 30 or 35. We were really tired. It was a really hot day too.

Fishing last week was pretty awesome! I didn't catch anything myself, but I did come pretty close a few times. We were fishing for cropey. That is one weird lookin fish. Elder Budden caught one though. I took a few pictures of us while we were at the lake.

It sounds like dad had a pretty good adventure while he was hunting. Too bad he didn't get anything though. Yeah so when we played ultimate frisbee the other week, I was pretty much like the deciding factor for which team won. After each game, I would switch sides to the losing team. Which ever team I was on, won. When we played poison, I was pretty much the eliminator. I got like everybody out, but then got out right toward the very end. Today, we are going to play some football with a bunch
of the missionaries from our zone. It should be pretty awesome!

My address is 2560 Mia place #A Springdale Arkansas 72764.

Well I hope all is well for you guys! Everything is going good here! I love and pray for you always!

Love Elder Joyner

Investigators:

Brian + LeeAnn- They are an awesome couple. They are not married yet, but they have 3 kids. We are going to try and get them married here soon. He lived in Utah for a while and met with the missionaries there. He came really close to baptism and then had to move. He needs to give up chew and then once they're are married he can be baptized. She, as far as I know, doesn't really have anything that is holding her back. So we just need to get them married.

Mary - She is an older lady that is trying to marry a less active member of the ward. She is waiting on her divorce to be finalized. She has a smoking problem and she can't take the stop smoking workshop because her teeth are too sensitive for some of the steps. She will get close to quiting and then she will pick it back up again. She says she has a testimony, but we're not too sure about that yet. Hopefully we'll find a way to help her quit smoking.

That's all the investigators that we were able to see.

Hey mom!

Thank you for the CDs, the socks, and the tie! The tie is sweet! My district leader Elder Pack is jealous of it.

So how did the turkey hunt go? Did dad get anything? How is his knee doing?

So guess what! I'm getting transferred. I'm going to Springdale Arkansas! Elder Budden served there for his second area so he has been giving me the down low on the area. It sounds like it should be a pretty good area. My new companion is going to be Elder Barton. One of the assistants said that he was a really good missionary and that he admired him so hopefully he should be pretty awesome.

Our Zone outing last week was pretty awesome! We played ultimate frisbee for about an hour or so and then we played basketball for a couple hours. We were playing a game called poison for almost an hour. It's a really fun game! We had a really good turn out.

How is the garden doing? has anything come up yet?

This week has been a pretty good week. We only had a total of 13 lessons this week, but that's higher than the past few weeks. I don't remember if I told you or not, but we have been going through our investigators and deciding who is serious and who is just curious. We dropped a whole bunch of our investigators. On Tuesday I went on an exchange with Elder Browning our zone leader in Joplin and then Wednesday I went on an exchange with Elder Pack here in Parsons. It was kind of weird, cause Elder Budden planned out Wednesday for Elder Pack and I so there were a couple of potentials that he had planned for that I didn't know. It made the day a little crazy, but it was still a good one.

I didn't bring my camera with me today cause I'm going to have Bro. Sykes (Elders quorum president) upload the pictures for me at dinner tonight.

Today we are going Spoonbill fishing with Bro. Virtue. It should be awesome! They're big fish!

Well I hope that everything is going good for you guys! I love you and pray for you always!

Love Elder Joyner

Investigators:

Rosco + Mary - We talked with them about the trinity. He's way too stuck on his belief about the trinity. We're going to be dropping them for a while. They're going to be spending a whole lot of time out at the lake here pretty soon.

Jerry - We talked with him about the Book of Mormon. He has been reading, but not a whole lot. Hopefully they will be able to get him reading more and coming to church.

Anna - We talked with her for a little while about the brother of Jarred. We are going to be reading from the book of Ether with her to help her start gaining a testimony of the Book of Mormon. She is not happy that I am leaving.

Bonnie - This week Bonnie invited her preacher over during our visit. So we had a session of confounding his false doctrine. We totally destroyed him. We gave him lots to think about.

Elmer - We talked with Elmer about Prophets and the Book of Mormon. He told us that he has been praying and the he knows that Joseph Smith was a prophet. He said that he wants to come to church as often as he can.

Travis - Travis is a new investigator we picked up on saturday. We answered a lot of the questions that he had. He's a really sincere guy and you can tell that he really has been prepared by the Lord. I carry my floppy copies of the Book of Mormon in a duct tape case to take care of them. He noticed that and was suprised by how well we take care of them. At the end of the lesson he asked us if we had anything that he could read, he was expecting a pamphlet, we gave him a Book of Mormon. He was extremely shocked that we gave it to him and he was really greatful. He'll be baptized soon. He's very prepared.

Thats all for this week.

Hey mom!

General Conference was awesome! I got so much out of it. General Conference is way sweet while you're a missionary. I took a whole bunch of notes. We didn't have any investigators come to the General Conference sessions, but one did come to the Priesthood session. This week hasn't been too bad for us. We didn't have a whole ton of visits, but the ones we had were pretty good. This transfer has gone by way fast. We're already more than half way through it. I don't think that I'm going to be staying here for another transfer, but I could be wrong.

For my personal studies this week and last week, I've been trying to find more scriptures that I can use for the lessons. It's amazing how many scriptures there are about any topic that you are searching for. There are a lot of scriptures that I have read before without really thinking about the meaning of it and there are a ton of good scriptures that can be used in the lessons. I do a whole lot more talking during the lessons than I used to. I've gained a lot more confidence in the things that I say. I've gained a lot more confidence in my ability to OTM people as well. That was one of the things that we learned in our Zone Conference (how to effectively OTM). It's helped me out a lot.

I'm uploading more pictures for you right now. The internet isn't very fast here so it takes a long time. I've realized that I should probably take more pictures of the things that I'm doing. I always have my camera with me, but I forget to use it. I've been teaching myself the piano and it's coming along pretty well. I can play about 6 songs from memory. I'm working on the whole sight reading thing.

We are going on a District Outing today. We are going bowling up in Pittsburg! It's going to be sweet.

So I found out from Lisa that when she served here, she served in Pittsburg. Back when she was here, Parsons was a part of Pittsburg. There is a family here named the
Shouse's and they both remember her. I thought that was pretty cool.

I almost have a tape about half way full for you guys.

Elder Budden and I are trying to get ourselves in some good shape so we are going to start running about 4 days a week. We've been waking up around 6 every morning to get in some extra time for exercise.

So, somehow, a pair of my socks disappeared so if you could send me out another pair or two that would be much appreciated. Also, if you guys could send me out some MOTAB
CD's or just some other church CD's that would be nice too.

Unfortunately the work here has really slowed down. We've been trying to get some new investigators, but for whatever reason we haven't really been able to get any. Hopefully we will be able to get the work to pick back up here again.

I hope that everything is going awesome for you guys. I remember you in my prayers always! I love you all

Love Elder Joyner

Investigators that we saw:

Fran - We taught Fran about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was a really good lesson. It's hard to tell if she is really paying attention sometimes. She says that she is, but sometimes it doesn't seem like she is. She still says that her head is not right for her to come to church. She says she wants to be there, but she wants to have her head clear first so that she can focus on church and nothing else. She is having trouble forgiving someone for something that happened in the past.

Mayhues - We taught Sis. Mayhue about the Restoration again, about Prophets and about the Book of Mormon. It was a really good lesson because we focused a lot on the things that she didn't understand. She still didn't fully understand everything, but she said that she understands more now than she did before. She says that she is open to change and that she will give the church a shot.

Jerry - We talked with Jerry mostly just about what is going on in his life. We talked to him about trials and about prayer. We talked to him about General Conference. He's really open and honest with us. We just need to find a way to get him to church.

Anna - We taught Anna about the Book of Mormon. We taught her about the book of Ether. We are going to be going over the book of Ether with her and see if we can get her liking the Book of Mormon more and seeing the importance of it so she'll start studying it more.

Bonnie - We taught Bonnie about the Plan of Salvation. She said that it was a different spin on it and that she hadn't thought of it like this before. She had a very different view of what the Plan of Salvation was, but she said that she will pray about it to know if our way is the correct way.

Rosco - We taught Rosco about the Book of Mormon. Where it came from, why it's important, and the storyline of it. He said it was a really good lesson and that he appreciated us teaching him about it. He still hasn't realized that if the Book of Mormon is true then the church is true. We're working on that.

That's it for this last week!