Area Details / Miracle

Since Justin departed on his mission two-and-a-half months ago (time flies!), his girlfriend Bailey Burns comes to our home most Sunday evenings for dinner. We've really enjoyed her coming around - it's great to see her. I wasn't home yesterday (as I'm in Germany on business), but yesterday Bailey brought over a couple of letters that she had received from Justin. I share some content from those here. Oh... the Ozark Hillbillies??? Come on.......

Things are so amazing here in Clarksville! (and Lamar and Paris and Hartman and Scranton and Knoxville and Ozark. Those are all little towns we serve in.) Lloyd, the man getting baptized on the 11th, is from Ozark. By the way, get this – the mascot for Ozark High School is a hillbilly. They’re the Ozark Hillbillies. I kid you not. A couple of other interesting facts about my area – Harrison, AR, which is in our mission but luckily not my area, is the headquarters of the KKK. Also, the movie Cars takes place in a little town on Route 66 called Radiator Springs. It’s actually based off of a real town – Baxter Springs, OK. It’s in my mission. Tell my family about that one, they’ll like it. Especially Steven. Another cool thing which I already said on the phone is that at one time David A. Bednar was Stake President of the Fort Smith, Arkansas stake, where I’m serving. Also, Parley P. Pratt was killed in Alma, AR, and is now buried there. Alma is actually in our district. Siloam Springs, AR, which is in our mission, has more churches per capita than any other city in the country.

Parley P. Pratt's grave. He was martyred in Alma, AK which is another area in my district.

Below is from a second letter. Very cool story that shows the hand of God in all things!

I guess I can tell you about this one way sweet miracle, though. In the middle of last week, Kris’s mom randomly kicked him out. She’s totally crazy. So we were really worried because we had absolutely no idea where to find him. We were praying really hard that we’d be able to find him, but we had no idea where to start. We basically just put it in the Lord’s hands. So here’s the miracle – the day before, we were actually on exchanges and I was kind of in charge of the area. We had a couple of appointments fall through, and I was at a total loss as to what to do. I was looking through our list of potential investigators, and one name kept really sticking out to me. I decided to listen to the spirit and go there, even though the woman was crazy and it had been like a month since we’d been there. First of all, she was way different. Her husband was there this time as well. We had a great lesson and they seem really interested (their names are Tom and Cynthia Vannoy). Afterwards, we set up an appointment to go back the next day at 3. Later that night we found out about Kris. We were pretty upset. So the next day, still praying hard about Kris we go to our appointment with the Vannoys. We had another great lesson. At about 3:45, near the end of the lesson, for some reason the husband randomly decided to get up and open the blinds. Looking back on it, I know it was the Spirit that prompted him to do it, because not 2 minutes later, guess who we saw walk by outside?! Kris and his friend Yaree, who we’re now teaching, walked right by and went up to the apartment above the Vannoys. So of course as soon as we were done we ran up and knocked on their door. He seemed surprised but happy to see us. The amazing thing was that that isn’t where he’s even living, they just happened to be seeing a friend that lived there. And we were there at the perfect time to find him and get back in contact with him! The Lord works in mysterious ways, but he certainly works! It was the most amazing thing.

Also, new family he mentions is John and Mary West.

I don't have dates for these letters, but I'll try and get those and edit this post with them later.

London AND Paris

When Justin moved in to his first area, his mailing address was London (Arkansas). Now in today's e-mail update from him, he tells us his area also includes Paris (Arkansas). Though he no longer lives in London, he apparently butchered a cow this week near Paris. Nice!

Hi Mom - We had such a great week! That's alright that your letters were a little late. I still got them just before we left to go email, so it worked out alright. It sounds like you all had tons of fun with the Beauforts. I'm way jealous. It's only snowed here once all winter (plus last Monday, but I'm counting that because it only snowed for like 10 minutes, and not very hard. It was trying to snow, but it couldn't do it), and even then it only stuck for a few hours. We just had another cold front move in though. I am kind of glad that it wasn't quite as cold Saturday morning when we butchered that cow... Don't worry you'll get pictures of that soon. :) We went out with a couple other members Saturday morning and got to have our first beef butchering experience. It was WAY fun. I forgot to take a picture of it before we shot it, but other than that I got a few good shots documenting the whole process. It was pretty cool for us city boys... I'm sure you'll enjoy those pics a lot. Yes we get fed quite often, and very very well. There are families that feed us every single week, or at least every other week. That's crazy that the missionaries cover 8 wards there. Here my ward covers from Piney, Arkansas, to Ozark, Arkansas, and down to Paris, Arkansas. Go ahead and look up the distances between those towns. It's crazy. Luckily half of Johnson County is covered by Ozark National Forest, which only has a couple of teeny little towns in it (like Oark. Oark High School's average graduating class is like 7. And Oark High covers a big area...) otherwise we would have to travel even further. It's insane. At least hopefully your missionaries there better be getting alot of member referrals... With that many active members in their area, they better be teaching like 10 lessons a day. If they aren't, shame on you all... :) Officially, they do actually celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day. I was semi kidding about that. But there are alot of people that celebrate Robert E. Lee's birthday instead. Our week was great though! We set a baptismal date with Jerry Breedlove (February 28) and Kris will have a date within the next couple of days. There is also another sweet family, Thom and Cynthia Vannoy, that we will probably set dates with this week as well. They have daughters that are 11 and 4 and a son that's 7, and we may set a date with their 11 year old as well, if she becomes a little more interested. Things are going so sweet! I love Clarksville! We are seeing little miracles every single day. It's awesome. Thank you so much for your prayers. We really feel them. I love you!

Skinning Chocolate

Skinning the cow. From Left - right: Seth Schubarth, who drives us and feeds us all the time. He rocks. Then his brother Charles Ray Schubarth, then that arm and leg belong to Bro. Sanders, the second counselor in the bishopric. He's a stud too.

Cow guts

Charles Schubarth who drives us to Alma every week for district meeting. Bro. Sanders' hands.

Robert E. Lee Day

It was great to hear from Justin today. Normally we hear from him on Mondays, but they changed their Preparation Day this week due to Robert E. Lee's birthday yesterday. I love it!!! :-)

Hey everybody! That's so exciting about Dad's job! How is everybody else doing? Sorry this is a day later than usual, we decided to move our preparation day to Tuesday this week because we figured there would be more people at home on Monday because of Robert E. Lee's birthday. Down here that's what they celebrate while the rest of ya'll are celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. day... We had another great week, though! It finally snowed! On Thursday morning we had a blizzard, by Arkansas standards! By 10am there was like an inch of snow on the ground! And by noon there was none... It's actually kind of trying to snow right now, too. We've had a couple of flakes here and there. The work is still progressing very well here in Clarksville. Francis has finally settled (we hope) on February 7 for his baptism, so we'll be excitedly working towards that. He just has a lot of unrelated things going on in his life right now that he wants to try to get worked out before jumping into this. So we're letting him take his time with it, but we are also trying to encourage him to do it sooner rather than later, because we know that once he's baptized and receives the Gift of the Holy Ghost that it will really help him sort his life out. Well... Other than that I don't really have too much to report. Hopefully this next week is more exciting. Love you! Can't wait for your letters!

This man was crazy! As I'm sure you can imagine, he wasn't the nicest person we've ever talked to.. Gave the McCain-Palin ticket a real good name too. Plus look at the window on the far right. See how the curtain is open a little? On my camera I zoomed way in and we're pretty sure he was watching us through the window as we took the picture.

For reference, look at the minivan next to it. It's twice as tall!

Only in Arkansas

We saw this huge cross driving in to Clarksville. It is probably at least 50 feet tall.

Our car after the first ice storm. It's is kinda funny that we thought this was bad, cuz it's nothing compared to later storms. But that is much thicker than it looks.

Baptism / Move

We received the following short report from Elder Goodale today. How exciting that one of their investigators got baptized yesterday!!! Note the reference to Alex. Alex is his cousin (2nd cousin? first cousin once removed? - I don't know those titles; Justin's mom's cousin's son), Elder Alex Dillion, whom is serving a mission in Washington, DC. He and his companion got mugged a couple weeks ago; got beat up pretty bad, but recovering nicely.

Please note that while he has not transferred, Elder Goodale has moved and his address has changed.

Hey everybody! I'm glad everything's going so well at home. I love getting all of your letters. Hopefully everything keeps going well and all of Dad's meetings go well this week. But hopefully your week isn't as exciting as Alex's was a couple weeks ago... That's so crazy that that happened. I hope he's doing alright.

So first things first - I'm moving today. We are moving in with another member that lives about 10 miles closer to town. They are awesome, it's actually the Bishop's parents. And they are ordinance workers in the Oklahoma City temple, so they are gone one week every month working there. So our first week in the new house we'll have the whole house all to ourselves...By the way, these people are traveling over 4 hours to go to the temple. And most people in the ward make that trip every month so they can go to the temple. So you Boise-ans who only have to drive 10-15 minutes have absolutely no excuse not to take advantage of that blessing at least every month, if not every week. But I digress. Here is my new address:

2524 Highway 21
Clarksville, AR 72830

Make sure everybody knows that. Thanks. So... Lloyd got baptized yesterday! And I got to confirm him! It was an amazing experience. It's so awesome to see people accept the gospel and make those changes in their life, and to see the happiness it brings into their life. I'm so lucky that I was able to experience that with 2 really good friends before I came out here and then to have the chance so early on my mission to teach Lloyd from the very beginning and watch him change. I love it. And Francis is being baptized on February 7! I kind of wanted to push it back to the 17th, but that's a long wait... And we don't do too many Tuesday baptisms... It was so cool though. We went over on Thursday and he was SOOO happy. He was just a totally different person. We asked him why and he was like "oh, I've just been doing alot of thinking." So Elder Johnson said "you've been thinking you need to be baptized, haven't you?" And he said yes! Thank you so much for your prayers for him. I know it really helped. Other than that there isn't really too much to report. We're still working with the Williams family and they're really coming along. And Kris's final court date is today, so hopefully all of that will be cleared up soon. Then he can totally focus on doing all the things he needs to do to turn his life around, which he really really wants. Well other than that I don't have too much too report. I'll talk to you next week! I love you! By the way Elder Johnson wrote this while I stood up for a minute, and I'm going to leave it. :)

Hey this is Elder Johnson, Elder Goodale's (your son) companion. I dont know if you know but your son ROCKS the socks off of people.

Lloyd Weitkamp's baptism 1/11/09

First Report from 2009

It was great to hear from Justin today. Below is his e-mail. He also sent a separate e-mail mentioning the names of several additional investigators that he wants me to pray for. It's great that he's getting so many teaching opportunities!

Hey everybody! How's it going? I can't believe Brittany just got married. Way crazy. Congratulate her for me. That's so exciting that you've been getting so much snow and that you had such a beautiful white Christmas! It's actually been warm here lately. Saturday it got up to like 75 degrees! Yesterday was cooler, though. Sounds like you all had a great Christmas! It's awesome the way all the kids got involved this year. And Christopher that's really funny about you and dad's car. Ask Bailey about the time I almost rear ended that Porsche... That was scary. But not completely my fault... I'm also still not sure what to think about Brianna's little friend yet... I'm glad things are going so well, though. Hopefully everything works out with *** (name blocked out for my non-disclosure requirement purposes) this month too. Hopefully it's some comfort that you have a missionary praying for you. :)

Things are going great here too. It's so great that you have been praying for our investigators. We can really feel it. This was by far our most successful week. The only downside is no news yet on Francis. But that will come soon hopefully. But Lloyd is getting baptized on Sunday! It's so exciting! He's SO awesome! He's the one who was raised in the reorganized church, but hasn't been since the mid 80s and for the last 4 or 5 years has been trying to get back into church and hopping around different Christian churches. The Lord has really prepared him, and it's been really easy teaching him everything. He just loves all of it and loves learning more. Yesterday we even forgot to leave him with a passage out of the scriptures to study for next time like we usually do, and he actually called us and was like "hey you didn't give me any homework this time! Give me an assignment!" It was awesome. He's way sweet. Kris is also really progressing. He totally loves us and we practically live at his house (well him and the Williams family). And not just hanging out there, we are always teaching. But it's nice because he's really big into sports, especially basketball (he's a huge lakers fan) and football. So he always gives me updates on what's going on. Yeah I know it's totally apostate... (by the way I can't believe Utah blew out Alabama! That's so awesome! It almost makes up for Boise State's loss and two of my least favorite teams playing in the national championship. Anyway, back to missionary work...) He is still really into everything though. Yesterday after we finished teaching him he even called his mom in and sat her down and was like "here explain this to my mom." Then he helped us teach it to his mom! He's already doing missionary work! (he's not the only one of our investigators doing that, either) We just have one small issue to work through, but it shouldn't be a big deal and by the time I write you next week, he will have a baptismal date. He's awesome. Just talking to him every time makes me love the gospel so much and I just love being a missionary that much more. The other awesome family we are teaching are Jason and Glenda Williams. They have an 11 year old daughter and a 6 year old son. They are such a close family, which is really cool. They are also very accepting and loving the gospel. Every day their testimonies of the restored gospel grow, and it's really exciting to see. It's awesome to see how the Lord has prepared people for the gospel and how when we are obedient and doing everything we are supposed to do He really does lead us to those that He has been preparing. And I know that this applies to everyone, not just the full time missionaries. This is truly a "marvelous work" that we are all a part of, and it is of the utmost importance. There is nothing that brings greater happiness than seeing the Spirit touch someone's heart and seeing them come unto Christ, and knowing that you played a part in that, however small it was. Everyone keep doing what your supposed to be doing (and keep studying Preach My Gospel! That's awesome that y'all still do that, and that Grandma's doing it now too. If every member studied Preach My Gospel regularly, it would make a HUGE difference in missionary work. Keep up the good work!) and pray for opportunities to share the gospel. The Lord has prepared people for you if you look for them and do everything He's asked you to do. I know that this church is true. I know Christ really is our Savior and only through Him can we return to live with our Father in Heaven, and the most important thing you can do is to help as many people as you can come to that knowledge. Thanks for all of your prayers and support! I love you so much!

Christmas Eve and the Bishop's parents' house (where we ended up moving). Prepping to do gingerbread houses. Well, more like graham cracker houses...

My gingerbread mansion

Elder Johnson's gingerbread house

Someone's gingerbread house...

Someone else's...

The Bishop's daughters Heather (13) and Jessica (16)

Elder Johnson with his house,

Elder Johnson, me and Bishop Scott

The Bishop's daughter Kimberly

The Bishop's son Dallan

Elder Johnson and I Christmas morning