Week 42 - Fort Smith, Arkansas

 4.17.24 9:30pm

Just fried up a ham sandwich and filled my beer stein with orange juice. It's email time, baby. 

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Hey all!

Lots of miracles this week. We've had a few new friends join us in church and they're totally awesome. Our other friends are doing great too and one of them has her baptism this weekend! More about her:

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This friend epitomizes "the elect of God." She is incredibly humble and has had the absolute craziest, most difficult life of just about anyone I've ever met, and yet she laughs in the Devil's face with ruthless optimism. I'll spare you the details, but the fact that she's still as indomitably cheerful as she is is a miracle all by itself. 

This friend keeps commitments perfectly. When we met her, we only talked for a few minutes before leaving her with a Book of Mormon, seeing as how there was a five-squad-car drug bust (plus a SWAT team later, apparently) happening about twenty feet from us across the motel. Despite having impaired vision, impaired hearing, and utterly impoverished living conditions, she has watched listened to the entire Book of Mormon twice by now and has come to church every single week since we've met her in early March, and consistently amazes us with her Christlike charity to others despite her life being so incredibly hard. 

One example of that last point: during her baptismal interview with at Sonic (unorthodox choice of location, I know) a random guy walked up to us smack in the middle of her interview and announced that the Spirit had put it upon him to sing us a Christian country song, so after he asked nicely, we told him we were happy to hear it (and it actually wasn't bad.) Once he finished, he thanked us and began to walk away, but he wasn't leaving without a Gospel message on this friend's watch. She called him back over, told us to give him a Book of Mormon, and invited him to church and to her baptism. He happily said yes to all three and joined her in church the next morning. 

Thanks to this friend, our new buddy from Sonic, who turns out to be a total Bible wizard, dove head-first into the Book of Mormon and loves it so much he asked us to start meeting with both him and his wife this Friday. 

We learn something absolutely wild about her life every single time we meet, but one thing is consistent: God has been preparing this lady for a long, long time.

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Well, that took most of the time I have tonight, but here's a few other fun things we did this week just for variety:

- gave a Book of Mormon to a lady who told us she felt the Spirit when she said a prayer that she'd get a super rare Pokémon card and then immediately pulled it from the next pack she opened. I don't know how much it was worth, but she showed me her collection and I recognized another card in her binder that sells for $700 

- got Bible-bashed by this crazy guy who I was thought was going to rob us but instead of the butterfly knife I was 100% convinced he had in his pocket, he just pulled out some car keys. Our conversation with him was so goofy though that it would be hilarious if I hadn't thought I was gonna get stabbed. 

- went on a frog hunt crusade with Elder Ashcraft (see Google Photos )

- a dude from the church across the street bought me ice cream at Chick-Fil-A when I didn't bring enough cash. Thanks, church neighbor dude.

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Thought:

I couldn't decide which of these three messages I wanted to write about, so I decided to just throw them all in and let the Spirit guide you to whichever you needed to hear most. Happy hunting!

1) Believing Christ: A Practical Approach to the Atonement by Stephen E. Robinson

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/stephen-e-robinson/believing-christ-practical-approach-atonement/

We may believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world, but do we believe Him when He says He can save us?

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2) Let Every Man Learn His Duty by Joseph B. Wirthlin

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1980/10/let-every-man-learn-his-duty?lang=eng

To paraphrase: "If you can't work your bank account, baptize the banker. If you can't find good groceries, baptize the grocer."

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3) “Be Still, and Know That I Am God” by David A. Bednar

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2024/04/21bednar?lang=eng

"Every Sunday, if we will, we can be still and know that God is our Heavenly Father, we are His children, and Jesus Christ is our Savior."

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The Church is true! This stuff is the real deal. It may sound far-fetched, but take it from me: I would not last a month out here without the constant guiding, healing, directing, and strengthening power of my Savior, Jesus Christ. One way or another, every single good thing in my life leads right back to Him. 

~

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

Songs of the week:

"Holiday" by Vampire Weekend

"Bedouin Dress" by Fleet Foxes

The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ: https://go.churchofjesuschrist.org/bookofmormonapp

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Love,

Elder Rigby

Week 41: 🌚🤝🌝 - Fort Smith, Arkansas

 Hey all!

I think my creative peak is sometime around 10:15pm, but man, I gotta go to bed on time. 

This week's been kind of all over the place, but life's good. Here's a few highlights:

Conference in Mountainburg: 

General Conference was powerful. Some themes I picked up on were the power of prayer, integrity and trust, and finding inner confidence through our covenants with Christ. For the Saturday night session, we got a ride thirty miles north to Mountainburg, AR, where one of the sister missionaries in my area just happens to have close relatives. Her inactive cousin just happened to move here right before she got transferred to serve right in his local branch, so after that little miracle he decided it was time to give church another shot. We tagged along with the Sisters to get to know him better and it turns out we have a ton in common, so it was awesome getting to nerd out about video games with a guy my age and call it missionary work. 

Apocalypse: 

"A [total solar eclipse?] At this time of year? In this part of the country? Localized entirely in your [teaching area?]" 

"...Yes."

"...May I see it?"

- The Simpsons

Youth Night part II: 

We had three friends pull up to youth night tonight, so we played frisbee for an hour and a half with the young men and ended up putting Chris and Josh on date! They've been praying about it and both of them had dreams about baptism last week so they decided they wanted to be baptized on May 11th! These dudes are awesome.

Temple trip:

Definitely the place to be after half of the living Apostles of Jesus Christ focus their Conference messages on the blessings of worshipping in the House of the Lord. Takeaways from today's trip included:

1) (desire to change • faith in Christ's healing power) = Repentance

 2) Hebrews chapter 11 is cool. 

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Thought: "Opposition in All Things" by Elder Matthias Held

"If you could have one wish granted, what would it be?"

 Elder Keller asked us that as a joke a few days ago, but seeing as how my brain's starved for philosophy, I've been chewing on it for a little. Barring blessings that naturally come from the Gospel (salvation, family, happiness, world peace, seeing Christ in-person, etc.) I think I would ask for perfect discipline.

 If I just asked to instantly be super rich or to be a crazy good musician, it would be fun for like five minutes and then immediately lose all flavor. What makes growing talents and accomplishing goals satisfying is the struggle required to realize them. 

 Elder Held talked all about opposition in his General Conference message a few days ago, and I especially loved his emphasis on our ability to see opposition and choose how to react to it.

 There is opposition in all things, but that same opposition is what gives life depth. Therefore, the fact that doing hard things is hard must inherently be a good thing. If that's true, then what we need in order to maximize our success in life, both spiritual and temporal, is to get really good at doing hard things. 

So, next up for me on the road to being a Christian disciple-scholar-brother-musician-athlete missionary machine is prayerfully striving for self-mastery, or the ability to do hard stuff.

Doctrine and Covenants 121:7-8

"My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes."

~

Song of the week: "Take Me [Live]" by Casiopea

Cool devotional: "Avoid It" by Lynn G. Robbins

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/lynn-g-robbins/avoid/

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

~

Love,

Elder Rigby 

Mountainburg, AR

death star

watch party

Week 40: The Manor - Fort Smith, Arkansas

 Hey all!

Status report - we're hanging in there. Life ain't always pretty but miracles are everywhere. Once again, the Gospel of Jesus Christ works.

~

Stuff from this week:

- After a Spirit-filled Book of Mormon read of Mosiah 2, our friend Juan decided he wanted to be baptized on May the 4th!

- Chris and Josh, two teenagers we just started teaching, are totally awesome. They're super cheerful and friendly and loved church, and we even got to play dodgeball with them at a youth activity at the church last night. I should probably mention they're also both powerlifters. Chris is fifteen and benches 350. 

- The same guy works at the self-checkout at Walmart almost every time we go shopping on P-day, so he's our buddy now. Keith's a nice dude. Be like Keith. 

- Our friend Michelle was going to come to family history class again but she got attacked by a cat so our ward members who picked her up just drove her to the hospital for rabies shots instead. Good call. 

- Chase's baptism and confirmation were a success! Thirteen other med students (nine of them already in our ward) came to his baptism, so we had a whole hospital there. 

- STAR WARS PINBALL at the bowling alley last P-day. I LOVE pinball. I think I might have spent more time playing it than I did bowling. 

- a few areas in our zone are going to be in the totality zone of next Monday's solar eclipse, so President and Sister Collins made the entire mission solar-eclipse-themed pass-along cards. They're pretty legendary. 

- My sister Hazel turned seventeen! You're awesome, Hazel.

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Thought: “The Book of Mormon is like a vast mansion with gardens, towers, courtyards, and wings. All the rooms in this mansion need to be explored, whether by valued traditional scholars or by those at the cutting edge." - Neal A. Maxwell

I absolutely love the imagery of Elder Maxwell's metaphor. The word of God, especially the Book of Mormon, contains such a breadth and depth of spiritual insight into our relationship with our Father in Heaven, His Son Jesus Christ, the children of God around us, and ourselves that, when we truly "lay hold upon the word," the sense of wonder that comes from roaming its endless halls will never go away. This book is Hogwarts, dude. It's so twisting and complicated and bold and real that it all just works. It just works perfectly. 

Alma 12:9-10 :

"...It is given unto many to know the mysteries of God; nevertheless they are laid under a strict command that they shall not impart only according to the portion of his word which he doth grant unto the children of men, according to the heed and diligence which they give unto him.

"And therefore, he that will harden his heart, the same receiveth the lesser portion of the word; and he that will not harden his heart, to him is given the greater portion of the word, until it is given unto him to know the mysteries of God until he know them in full."

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The great mysteries the mansion will be revealed to those who explore it diligently. If you're already a member of the Church of Jesus Christ, my invitation is to spend time in the Book of Mormon's halls every single day. If you're not and you've read this far, give it a try. It'll brighten your day if you let it. 

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GENERAL CONFERENCE. Listen to a living prophet speak this weekend. It's an awesome opportunity to "come and see," so invite your friends to this!: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/feature/general-conference?lang=eng

"The Children of Christ" by Neal A. Maxwell

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/neal-a-maxwell/children-christ/#byu-header

"'Lay Hold upon the Word': The Power of Wholehearted Living" by McKay Christensen. What exactly "the word" is beyond just the scriptures is kind of a complex idea, but this devotional explains it and its practical application really well.

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/mckay-christensen/lay-hold-upon-word/

~

Song of the week: "Blitzkrieg Bop" by the Ramones 

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

~

Love,

Elder Rigby