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.