More pics

All of us at the bishops house! The guy in the middle is F.  G., who literally goes out with us all day every day.

next one: So the sisters stayed in Memphis with a member who works for Nike, and they apparently can get a bunch of random products to give away. So, Elder Diaz and i got shoes for Christmas! Also some awesome "bike week" socks. Thanks Sisters!

Ho, ho, Holy Cow, It's 2015!

So who decided that missions should go this fast? I mean, it's almost 2015! And that means I only have like a year left, and that means I'm halfway done with my mission, and that means... meh.

Anyway, it's been a great week! There wasn't a whole lot we were able to do. Tuesday we had district meeting in Paragould, which was ok except we were late because neither of us knew how long it took to get there. Wednesday was all right. We had the chance to see a few people, but they didn't let us in because of family/craziness like that. Elder Diaz called his parents, because in Hispanic countries the 24th is celebrated more than the 25th. Then we had dinner at the bishops house. He made Abelskeevers. For those of you who do not know what ableskeevers are, they are stuffed pancakes, basically. You need an abelskeever pan to make them though. Man, I love saying abelskeevers. :P

Anyway, so we did that, and then we helped the sisters deliver treats to members and investigators and go caroling, which was really fun! The one guy from last week tried getting in the church while we were finishing the plates, but he couldn't, so that was good. 

And then it was CHRISTMAS! We went and had breakfast at the Rougeau's house, then I called home at the montoya's. Man, gotta love doing that. Then we went to dinner at the Stevens house, she's this little old lady who isn't a member, but her son is. She has the missionaries over for dinner for all the major holidays, I guess. It was a BIG dinner, too. We were stuffed. And then after that we went to the ward mission leader's house to have dinner AGAIN. The sisters called home then, too, because Sister Hill's parents are in Mongolia, so she had to catch them in the morning over there. 

Friday it was back to work! We contacted some people we had found earlier, but they were leaving on vacations so we couldn't teach them. Saturday was better. We contacted a family whose son is a member. They are taking care of their grandchildren. They are SO nice. We caught them getting ready to leave, but they stopped to let us in and get to know us a little better. Their son had just left for Idaho (he came for Christmas) so it was a perfect time. They seem really open. We also had a good lesson with David, the paraplegic Elder Breckenridge referred us to. He is remembering a lot from when the missionaries were teaching him the last time, which is good. Sunday we had a mission farewell. Sister D. Montoya is off to the Salt Lake City Central Mission next week! She will be great, she is not afraid to stand up for things. Then we had dinner with the LaVetters, who my mom and her family know well, I guess. He grew up in Thatcher. Mom, he speaks very highly of you and your siblings, he says you were all very smart. 

That's about all for today! We have absolutely NOTHING planned for P-day, so it'll be pretty uneventful. But eh. It's all good. BYEE!

--

Llamado a Servir,

Andrew Reay

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve with the Green Family!

Ugly Sweaters - not sure who wins this one?

Christmas, Amazing Biker Guys, and Sweater Ties.....

Merry Christmas, everybody! Yeah, a few days early, but hey, better early than late. I hope you have a wonderful Thursday! 

So I found out the holidays make it a little difficult to do a whole lot of actual teaching, what with everybody's family over and all that. Still, it's been a good week. Highlights: 

Monday: Went to TJMaxx and got a Christmas tie. It's one of those sock ties. It's awesome. 

Wednesday: had out last lesson with Don before his baptismal interview, which went perfectly. That man is so awesome, he just GETS it. Every time. 

Thursday: Elder Diaz stayed up until 5am to finish his model of the Memphis Temple, because we were going to Memphis that day. Still, he finished it. Here's how it looks: 

Elder Diaz's AMAZING model of the temple

Yeah, President loved it. Zone conference was also really fun! We practiced sharing our message in a minute or less, had a talent show (wish I had video, Elder Reed was a standup comedian before his mission and he KILLED it) and watched The Saratov Approach. Then we got back home and played basketball with some members and their friends at the Church. Having gone the whole day on one hour of sleep, Elder Diaz was exhausted. 

Saturday: DON GOT BAPTIZED!!! It went very well. He brought his nephew, Isaac, who is a pretty cool guy. A lot of members came too, and Elder Diaz made this fruit punch stuff they have for Christmas in Guatemala that has about every kind of tropical fruit you can think of in it. It was pretty good though. Here's a picture! 

Don's Baptism!!!

There was an interesting situation after the service. We were there with Don, talking about various stuff, and an ex-member came in to see what was going on. He got a little angry when he found out that Don just got baptized, and started to try convincing him we were not what we seemed to be, and this and that. Basically telling him a bunch of lies about our beliefs. Before w3e could say anything, Don told him, "Look, brother. I'm new to this. I know what you're doing. STOP. Go home, ok?" (man, he's just awesome.) Anyway, he stormed off, drove to the grocery store across the street, and waited. We thought he was going to try and follow Don home, in the which case Don threatened to give him "a Jesus meetin'." Not sure exactly what that means, but didn't want to ask. Anyway, he actually followed US home. He started yelling some not nice stuff at us, and so we told him to wait a minute and we'd answer his questions. We went inside, prayed for help, and when we came out, he was gone. So that was my interesting event for the week. 

Anyway, before I finish let me just say that Jesus is the Christ. He is the Savior and Redeemer of the world. I know that as we keep him in our mind and our heart all of this coming year, our lives will be blessed. To those of you reading who are not members of  my church, it is the same message to you. One of the things I have found on my mission is that many people do not think we are Christians. Let me just put it out there that we are. Christ is the center of our church, and all that we believe would not be possible without Him. 

Y'all have a merry Christmas, y'hear?

work, work, work and then killing a missionary.....

Hello! 

So this week wasn't very eventful to be honest. At least in the sense that we did missionary work. Tuesday we saw one investigator, David, who is a double amputee on his legs that Elder Breckenridge taught when he was first here. He is really cool. He has a pretty hard life, with no legs and all, but he is really smart and attentive. After that we were on our way to a funeral when one of our recent converts called needing help for an emergency moveout. apparently he had some problems with the neighbors, and wanted to get out as soon as possible. That took the rest of our afternoon. Wednesday was zone meeting, and the first one I have actually needed to drive to. In conway our zone met at our building, but in my new zone the center is about 1.5 hours away. It was good though, I got to see some people I have never met before. That night, we went out with the young men. Our partner was Corey, who is about 6 foot a lot, and he barely fit in our car. We saw one family, Gregorio & Carina, and watched a church video, Together Forever, with them. (If you haven't watched it before, I'd recommend it. A bit 80s, but good message.) Thursday we saw david again, then went and had lunch at the Rich's house before going to rake leaves for a family who just had a baby. I have never actually raked leaves before (never been a need) so that was aactually pretty fun! It took a while, though. We didn't have time to finish, because we had an appointment at 6:30 with Don. He is all set to be baptized this coming Saturday at 5 pm (if any of y'all want to come :P) and he's very ready for it! He is inviting the members of his biker church to attend, even though he's gotten a rather cold reception. 

Friday we helped out Bro. Rougeau at the college again, and we finished gutting out an old lab to make an office. I found out that I am not very good at tearing things out. It's just not my thing, I guess. 

Saturday was another P-day for us! For departing missionaries, they get their last satruday to say goodbye, ship stuff home, pack, etc. So basically we relaxed all day while elder Breckenridge did stuff. 

Sunday, me and elder Diaz were in a special musical number in church. We did a four part men's quartet of "I Wonder as I Wander" (one of my new favorites, btw) and it went really well, considering we had about 2 hours of practice.

And also today, we said goodbye to elder Breckenridge, who hitched a ride to little rock with a former missionary from here, Elder Robles, this morning. That makes 3 companions I have "killed" out of 5. It's fun. :P

Aaaannnd that's my week! Hopefully this week we get our Ipads at zone conference, that'll be AWESOME! 

Another day, Another College Town...

Well, the results are IN! I am now serving in Jonesboro, up in northern Arkansas. It's the home town of Arkansas State University, so now I have to get a Red Wolves shirt to go with my UCA Bears one. 

I am serving with Elder Diaz, who is a tiny little Guatemalan guy from Villa Nueva. (dad, did you ever serve there? ) and also Elder Breckenridge, an English Missionary who is going home next Tuesday for school. He started his mission here, and as a joke he requested to end it here too. haha. So he's stuck with us now, for this week!

Speaking of this week, here's how it went: Monday we went around, said goodbye to people, packed. Tuesday was the same. Wednesday we went to transfers, said bye to some more people, and drove up to jonesboro with Sister Rich, one of the members. We got to the English apartment that we were taking over, and it was FILTHY. so we spent a few hours cleaning up, then went out to go see some people. Our coolest investigator by far is Don. He's a chaplain for a biker church, the Christian Biker's Association. He started investigating the church out of curiosity, and now he is set to be baptized on the 20th! He just absorbed everything we taught him this week, and even though he was told that if he joined the Church he would lose his position in the CBA, he is still set on it. Actually, we never set a date for his baptism, he just was walking around at church telling everyone he'd get baptized in 2 weeks. WOO

Let's see, what else? Well, on fridays we help out Bro. Rougeau, a chemistry teacher at ASU, fix up his classrooms. This week we took out old cabinets and a fumehood to make a new office. Do you know how hard it is to take apart rusted metal from the 60s without power tools while at the same time not breaking the GLASS gas pipe in the back? eh. But we got it mostly done. 

Well, that's avbout all I can remember about this week! OH also you need to see this. So ELder Diaz is making a present for President Wakolo. It's a model of the Memphis temple. Now, when I say model, I really mean architect grade replica from styrofoam presentation board. Here. I'll send more pics in a sec.

Elder Durham - who goes home next week.

Elder Wells, my district leader in Conway, who is also a really good missionary

Sister Armstrong- not approving of the selfie - she's super funny though.

Sisters Cooke and Bryce, from left to right. These two are a RIOT. Among my best friends on the mission.

Sister DeShauer- the hyper one from Mesa.  She's a good teacher though.

Ain't he adorable?  He is 5'1" tall.  (Elder Reay's words)

Model of the Memphis Temple constructed by Elder Diaz

So quite possibly the worst news we could get...

So, bad news: I'm getting transferred.

Worse news: So is Elder Dyorich.

Even worse news: No one's coming to replace us. 

Yep, they are closing Conway Spanish once again! We got the call this morning, so now in addition to packing ourselves, we have to pack the apartment. I'm... a little ticked. I've been here for 6 of the 7 transfers it was reopened, and we were actually having hopes of restarting the branch and having Hispanics at church in reasonable numbers. But I guess not. It's hard, I've gotten to know so many amazing people here, but now not only will I not be in contact, but no one else will be either. Oh well. We knew one area was bound to close due to lack of numbers, but we didn't think it'd be us. So yeah, I will post my change of address next week once I know where I am! 

Anyway, aside from that the week was pretty good. Due to riots all over the mission we had a 7pm curfew Monday and Tuesday, THAT was fun. We had district meetingtuesday, and afterwards I went on exchanges with Elder Mitchell in the English area. We went to Morrilton and gave up the car to the Russelville sisters. Our ride took a while to get there, so we didn't actually get to our bikes until about 4. We went around, saw a few people, but seeing as they live pretty far out and there was a 7pmcurfew, we couldn't do much. We got back in, had some root beer and watched church movies. It was an interesting exchange. Thursday was super fun! We went to the Charlton's house for Thanksgiving. We entertained the kids while the parents got the food ready. "entertained the kids" means that we first went out to the trampoline to bounce around per the daughter's request, then back inside to watch the two boys play Minecraft and Lego superheroes per their request, then to play some board games with everybody, THEN to the eating. And then more board games, karaoke, and pictures. It was a good day. Friday and satruday consisted of runnign all over town to see people, with about 40-50% success because it was fall break. Sundaywas pretty good, we had one of our less actives, Ricardo, show up. 

Well, that's about all that happened this week! Hope you guys had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and didn't get sick or anything. 

Oh, and P.S. here's an awesome Christmas video called "He is the Gift." Watch it!

http://www.mormon.org/christmas