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.