Week 10: Leg Week - Bentonville, Arkansas

Hey all!

Another week goes by! Today's pday was really busy so I couldn't respond to hardly anyone but I'll try and get back to you soon if I missed ya.

Man, I wish I was better at putting my feelings into words. I don't want to just go around every week like "Hey guys life's great everything's good!" because it's not always like that. So in a few words, I'm sustainably uncomfortable. I'm humbled and challenged every day but "nevertheless, I know in whom I have trusted" (2 Nephi 4:9.)

The news:

- CAR SHARE. Fortunately, our mission just received 25 new missionaries and only lost 7 this transfer. Unfortunately, we received 0 new cars. So, this transfer we'll be sharing the car 50-50 with the other Elders in the apartment and biking the rest of the time. Time to get huge quads I guess 

- Our new roommate, Elder McKee, is one-of-a-kind. He's a tall farmboy from outside the small town Marshfield, Wisconsin Who loves Rubik's cubes. In his last area in Missouri he found a dead otter, skinned it outside the mission apartment, and sent its pelt home in the mail. A true frontiersman. I like him a lot. 

- It's officially been a full year since I started college. Weird. 

WEEK IN REVIEW:

THURSDAY 

- Our friend Jacob's read like 16 chapters of the Book of Mormon before his first lesson two days after we met him. 

- Dinner with the Edgintons: Their house is like Grandma Rigby's: same homey vibe, same smell, same good family clutter. We ate amazing ham and cheese sliders with broccoli slaw, strawberries, Doritos, and brownies and ice cream.

FRIDAY

- CAR SWAP

- Heard Duel of the Fates on the church radio

- Jeremy and Abbie: newlyweds in the park who met each other on their missions in Greece. He's an Arkansas native and she's from Britain. My man married a Hermione. Also, Jeremy's mom Amy gave us five bucks for ice cream. 

- Biking ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

SATURDAY 

- Comp study at Osage Park. Nice shade and good folk music with some people playing pickleball nearby to add to the aesthetic. I was in a rough state today so this place helped me take a breather. 

- 400 otter pops in the Church freezer

- a dude at Panda Express had a tattoo of the kanji for "sin" so I said "cool tattoo" and he's like "thanks it means 'blessings.'" Hmmmmmmmm. 

- Hadar: really cool Muslim guy we met tracting who gave us free homemade hummus. Like a lot of hummus. Legend.

SUNDAY 

- Today was so much better than yesterday. Absolutely beautiful weather and lots of really nice people. We found a really promising lady named Shelby who invited us over for family dinner on Friday

- thinkin bout Pokémon Rumble on the Wii

- we met a guy who the missionaries helped buy a train ticket in France 20 years ago and he wasn't interested today but he never forgot their kindness. Neat.  

MONDAY 

- washed the dishes again

- Paul: Pastor/Greek scholar/hardcore gamer. Plays the same fighter as me in Smash Ultimate. Helping his buddy out with his marriage as a spiritual mentor. Cool guy. 

- Erxhan: Kind Albanian guy. Hard worker who loves his family and is big on faith and honesty. Downloaded the Book of Mormon app to check it out in Albanian cause he's cool like that.

TUESDAY 

- more nice neighborhoods and more beautiful weather

- Sherri: friendly old lady with ever-so-slightly pink hair. Loves her old cowboy church in Florida. Came to Sacrament (the first hour of church) on her own a couple of weeks back and she said she'll try Sunday School (the second hour) this week. Actually keeps commitments lol. 

- saw the battle bus

WEDNESDAY

- I wanna live in a lighthouse. Idk, just sounds cool. 

- Got mad after a guy slammed the door in our face and felt bad so God gave me more chances to respond with charity. Bentonville's usually got really nice folks but tonight we had five people chew us out in one neighborhood before we met a cool dude Trenton who we set up a lesson with. 

- Played the baby grand piano in the chapel. Pianos are awesome.

Songs that got stuck in my head:

- "Helplessness Blues" by Fleet Foxes. Shoutout to Aunt Susie who went to their concert this week: I love Fleet Foxes! They're awesome. 

- "Julia" by Mt. Joy : Shoutout to Mom and Dad who went to their concert last week: I love Mt. Joy too! They're also awesome. 

Hymn of the week:

- "Be Thou My Vision" by the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square. A good ol' American classic. This song could totally be in the soundtrack of a pioneer movie. 

Scripture: 

7 And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. 

8 For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.

9 And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 

10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.

 Paul's cool. I wanna be like him. I get mad at myself for my weaknesses and forget day after day that God made me this way not even though He loves me but *because* He loves me. My weakness is a tender mercy. It keeps me humble enough to rely on my Savior instead of being so prideful as to think I can do the Lord's work without the Lord. 

God is good. Trials are good. Prayer is good. THE LORD LOVES EFFORT. He is waiting to bless us for our diligence.

P.S. Gmail keeps crashing so I can't insert any pictures this time but here's the link to my Google Photos. Highlights include:

- the battle bus

- Crystal Bridges day 2

- the aforementioned hummus 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/2sk1refRidSszyYk7

Love you all!

Elder Rigby

Weeks Seven and Eight: Polka Dot Lanterns - Bentonville, Arkansas

Hey all! Sorry I missed last week, I had a busy day and got so wrapped up in responding to personal emails that I totally pushed off my weekly one. I'll also be moving apartments for most of the day today so I decided to just combine the two. This one's extra long to make up for that so skim if you want haha.

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First off, Luis got baptized! The service was awesome. Over forty people showed up including his family and everything went very smoothly. One of our speakers, Brother Hogge, the one and only papaya man, pulled up and whipped out a talk entirely in Spanish out of nowhere. After he set the tone, a couple of other speakers also added testimonies in Spanish to their English talks so I guess we were just led to pick the people who could connect with the Guerrero family the best. Luis' family is all from Mexico so seeing the church members here able to share why their son and their brother Luis was here doing what he was doing in a language his family understood better was super cool.

But the work goes on! Now that Luis has officially joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints it's up to the congregation to take him in and help him keep moving forward. We'll check up on him still but we'll be focusing our efforts on finding new friends that the Lord has prepared to hear the Good News. Next up is a younger boy named Korey. His older sister got baptized a couple of months ago and he's excited to learn and full of questions. We've taught him all the basic lessons and he's been coming to church, so if everything goes well, he'll be baptized too this Saturday! Other than him, our friend Harrison came to church for the first time yesterday! We've had some great lessons with him the last few weeks and he seemed to enjoy church a lot. He fit in so well that a lot of people thought he was just visiting from another ward haha. 

Our area's been blessed with lots of success thanks to my diligent trainer and our fantastic missionary-minded ward. Feels like I'm kinda just along for the ride on this one haha. The Lord's the one putting people in our path and my trainer's the one helping me learn how to find them. I want to continue emulating Elder Ceb's good work ethic after we eventually go our separate ways. 

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じゃ、次はニュースだ！Onto the news! 今週、やったことは...

- Visited an art museum called Crystal Bridges and it was sick. It's this huge, sprawling complex in the middle of the woods that's super new, super nice, and super duper free. Plus, the art was actually cool. I'm an art appreciator in general but there's definitely good art and bad art. This, for the most part, was good art. I can't wait to go back sometime. Note for anyone who's been to the Phoenix Art Museum - they had an exhibit a lot like the room with all the mirrors and hanging lights in the dark only with polka-dot lanterns instead. It was fun.

- Got my Chick-Fil-A paid for by random church members twice in one week, bringing my "free meals at Chick-fil-A" count to three in one month of being in the field. Not bad. Not bad at all.

- Channeled my inner Wilderperson by eating a Cadbury flake bar. It was "majestical."

- Found out that Elder Ceb and I are moving! We'll be sharing an apartment with Elders Esera and Atuaia starting next week. Some stuff we found when clearing out this time around: three-year-old jambalaya mix, a drone, eight Nerf guns, a Bentonville-themed Monopoly bootleg, and a massive blowgun with a suspicious lack of blowdarts. I still gotta get that picture with Elder Jim Carey before I leave though...

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面白い方々:

- Lois: a nice elderly organist for the Lutheran church we met just outside our apartment. She was walking her son's one-eyed Pyrenees(?) named Loki that had been shaved to look like a lil' fluffy white lion. An interesting combo for sure. 

- Kratos: the second self-professed Norse Pagan we've met in the last few weeks. I didn't get his name but he looked like a viking so I named him after one from a game I like. 

- Brother Suggetts: a local member originally from Canada and one of my generous Chick-fil-A sponsors. He joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints a year or two out of high school and then served a mission just a year later. Respect. One of his kids also shared a name with my little sister Marin so that was fun. 

- Gemini Man: an enigma. One dude answered the door at two different houses in the same neighborhood. Either this guy is living a double life one street away or the Matrix is reusing assets. 

—

Philosophy Corner:

Some days are good, some days are bad, but all of them end eventually. 

I woke up on Tuesday and I just wasn't feeling it. I was tired and homesick and not wanting to go knock doors and, to make everything even more fun, our golden find of the week, Nick, did a complete 180 on us out of nowhere. Long story short,  this guy went from calling us Sunday night asking to meet with us, come to church, and get baptized to getting super aggressive on Tuesday and calling us liars because we told him our church wasn't just about money. Not fun. Stuff like this has made me feel frustrated and inadequate, especially when friends I've been so hopeful about fall through. But yknow what? The day's over now. I'll learn. We did our best I'm satisfied with that. No matter how completely amazing or how absolutely miserable my day is, it eventually ends, and I'm satisfied when I give my all in the service of God. That's something that keeps me going out here. 

 All y'all discouraged missionaries having a bad day or a bad week or a bad transfer, try to look at it in retrospect. Spend the days in a way that you'll be happy about when they're over. The Lord will help you get through each moment and before you know it that's one more day done. 

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Thought: 

John 13: 34-35.

On Thursday, we met a younger guy at the town square named Daniel. He was open to hearing our message so we gave him a quick rundown of the unique things about our faith and the Book of Mormon. He was attentive, polite, and well-spoken and it quickly became apparent that he was a Christian already well-versed in the Bible. We got into some cool theological discussions and after a while of talking with Daniel we found out he was actually a seminarian studying to become a Catholic priest. This guy knew who we were from the start and invited us to share with him anyway, then taught us how to become better disciples without ever trying to bash, condemn, or persuade us away from our own faith. I could say a lot more about him and all that we talked about but suffice to say he was a good example of a true disciple and he taught me more about following Jesus Christ. Bona fide cool dude. 

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Songs of the week:

"A Cloud of Witnesses" by the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square. It's a roughly twenty-minute full symphonic/choral telling of the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ and it's gotta be one of the coolest pieces of church music I've heard. If you've got a while to listen to it then check it out sometime.

"I'll Go Where You Want Me to Go." 

A hymn that expresses a mindset I want to put into my own mission: true joy isn't determined by where you serve. Needless to say, I listen to this a lot haha. 

"Death and All His Friends" by Coldplay. Just because I don't listen to normal music right now doesn't mean it doesn't get stuck in my head :P

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Love you all! Thanks for the support and the prayers! They seriously help keep me going. 

- Elder Rigby

P.S. my next P-Day is next Wednesday so it'll be a looooong week haha. Talk to you then!

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写真:

Luis at his baptism! Super nice guy and a nerd along my wavelength. 

The one and only polka dot lantern room. 

a close-up of one of my favorite paintings I saw at the museum.
Apparently it's supposed to be an airport. 

a bridge at Crystal Bridges. Not crystal unfortunately. 

 nice