Christmas tree.

It was so great to talk to you yesterday!  Thanks for the duck lips, Adele!

Adele's duck lips from Arkansas.

When we were on exchanges and I was with Hermana Brown, we met this lady named Monica.  She was pretty nice, but didn't seem like she was dying interested or anything.  So we went back to visit her this week, AND IT WAS SO AWESOME!  At the beginning, she told us that she had grown up Catholic, but when she grew up, she decided that she didn't like that and that she didn't believe that it was the right church.  We taught her the first lesson and it was pretty chill.  She is just so awesome.  When we were explaining dispensations and then the great apostasy and then she asked if we are in a dispensation or an apostasy right now.  Like that kind of awesome.  :)  At the end, we invited her to be baptized and she said yes!!  Usually, I'm pretty scared to invite people to be baptized because I know they'll say something along the lines of, "Oh I was already baptized when I was little."  Like in another church.  But Monica didn't say that, she just said, "Yeah, if I know it's right!"  So, yeah, we are so excited about her!  As we were wrapping up, she started tearing up and said that she had been praying to know what she should do next to increase her faith and that she was so happy that we came over.  I am so excited for her and to go visit her again this week!

<a couple paragraphs from Hermana Thornton's email that Arianna told us about on Christmas>

This week was sooo good, we started it off visiting an inactive and she didn't have a Christmas tree, so we brought her over ours.  Let me remind you this tree is huge and we didn't have rope so we put it on top of our car with Christmas lights.  CHRISTMAS LIGHTS!!!  If you can think of something more festive than that lemme know.  So, we drove like 10 mph with our emergency lights on and it made it so it was a success.

  

Merry Christmas.

Christmas was the best.  On Christmas Eve, we baked sooo many cookies... so domestic and had dinner with the Benitezs and ate mole!!!... my favorite.  Then we went caroling with the district and stopped at the presidents house too... iconic.  It was so fun.

Christmas was so good and weird too.  Claudia came to church with her kids, they're so cute, we went to the Bowens and ate and talked to the family.  WHAT, it was awesome but at the same time it was like dang I'm not gonna see them for a year! 

Christmas jammies from Hermana Thornton's mom.  :)  

 

We had dinner with our a couple with help out with things.  They have a lot of health problems so we help out with cleaning and stuff.  It was fun.  They're Jewish, so we did Christmas and Hanukkah... lit the candles and everything! 

                       

                     

Presents for our investigators.

Zone Leaders 

Christmas is coming!

We started out the week with exchanges with the Spanish STLs.  Hermana Macfarlane came here (from Batesville) and Hermana Bro wn went to Russelville.  While she was here, we went to go visit Viviana.  She has read in the Book of Mormon!... which is amazing!  She read 1 Nephi 1, 2 times!  A miracle.  We were so happy about that!  The next thing is that she just needs to come to church, but her esposo told us that he isn't interested, which is super sad.  But the Book of Mormon brings about miracles, so we're hoping that as soon as they get to church and he feels the spirit, then his heart will be softened. 

We also had Zone Conference this week, which was really awesome.  I love Christmas, I love being a missionary, and I love being here.  I am so grateful for the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made for each and every one of us.  I'm grateful that I get to share that message this time of year.  Before Zone Conference, we all fasted together.  We fasted so that we could be able to know who the elect are and that we could be able to find them.  None of our investigators have really been progressing the whole time I've been here, which is really sad.  But I'm hoping that we'll be able to find someone really ready to hear the gospel soon!

We also went to go look up an address for an investigator so that we could decide whether or not to drop them this week.  She is either never home or never answers the door.  Anyway, she was outside of her house raking leaves with her neighbor!  So, we went and helped them.  Then we went inside and showed her the #iluminaelmundo video. And then we taught them a little bit about the restoration and Italia, the neighbor was really cool!  She had perfect answers to the questions what are prophets and what is the Holy Ghost. So that was so cool! We've been able to go back and teach her one other time since then and it went pretty well.  I hope she reads and prays to know if the Book of Mormon is true!

We also had the branch Christmas party this week, which was really fun. We did a 12 days of Christmas that ended up being the best thing that I've ever done. No one really knew what was going on the whole time so that made it really funny.

I don't really know what else to talk about. We were on bikes this week and it was really cold. We got a car yesterday so that was really happy. I hope you have a merry Christmas and I can't wait to talk to you Sunday!

Love,

Hermana Keller

Not everyone who looks Hispanic, IS Hispanic.

So we were in a parade yesterday.  I think I mentioned that last week, but it was the best.  I love parades.  So we walked around and handed out #lighttheworld cards with candy canes stapled to them.  And yeah.  It was really fun.

 Christmas parade

The whole time we were keeping an eye out for hispanics, because that's just how we roll in the spanish zone.  We weren't seeing ANY, so that was pretty sad.  But then as we were turning around the corner we saw a big hispanic family.  We thought, FINALLY. A HUGE FAMILY!  We ran over and gave them all spanish #lighttheworld cards and said hola and stuff.  But they didn't say hola back.  They just said thank you.  In english.  But we were like, maybe they are americanized hispanics or something, so we moved on.  But then we ended up passing them again and another missionary was like "Hola, como esta??"  And then mom of the "big hispanic family" was like, "not spanish."  BUT WE HAD GIVEN THEM ALL SPANISH PASS ALONG CARDS!  So we might've ruined the chances of them investigating the church or something.... but oh well.

Hermana Thornton also hit her 6 months this week! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO So we celebrated by going to take some pictures in front of a big pink wall. My mom is so old!

Oh, how could I forget?!?  We got a Christmas tree this week!... and fought over who is the Christmas Queen.   We thought we were going to go get a medium sized tree.  Like not too small, but obviously not a full sized tree.  But then we drove past a tree farm this week and Hermana Thornton got really excited because her family does real trees, so we went to go check it out. ......and then we got a little carried away.......... But I love it so, #sorrynotsorry

Decorating the tree.

We had four baptismal dates this week but then they all dropped yesterday because no one came to church, which is really depressing.  I guess that also means that there's tons to do this week still!  I love being a missionary.  I love Christmas!  #realChristmasQueen  I love #lighingtheworld and sharing the light of Christ.  Go do something for someone else today. Love you tons!

Love, Arianna

P.S.  I got your package on Friday.  That made me really happy too.  It's like Christmas every time I get a package!  

Memphis temple.

<Hermana Thornton sent me her letter for the week.  It's fun to hear another perspective of the same events!>

HOLA!  HAPPY DAY OF MARIA... OR SOMETHING!  So hey, I hit my SIX MONTH mark last Thursday.  WHAT I KNO  It's crazy and it kinda stresses me out bc I'm still like i don't know how to speak Spanish or how to missionary buts aight.  I also hit my six month mark of being off of caffeine!  I CAN DO HARD THINGS, I'm not sure if I was supposed to burn something, but hey, let me know if that's a thing. but seriously they've been the best.  I've never this happy before.  I love being a missionary, and the gospel, and Arkansas.  Not gonna lie tho, it's been hard too.  Some days I just want a car to hit me so I can take a nap! lol  But life is good.

This week was good, a little hard but still good.  We bought a fricken Christmas tree!  It's huge and I love it so much!  As we were checking out of a store and the cashier was asking us where we were from and then was like, well, what are you doing here??  And for a second I was like, wait, what am I doing here?  And it hit me that I wasn't going to be with my family this Christmas but then all

of sudden a overwhelming amount of peace came and I knew I'm supposed to be here, serving a mission and then I responded with "spreading the word" or something southern like that.

Christmas as a missionary rocks!!!!  Everyone loves Christmas.  That's my go to line, "Like Christmas??" and they're always like, Of course!"   Light the world is awesome, check it out if you haven't and actually do it!!! Christmas just makes everyone more open and nice, inactives, ppl in stores, investigators it's awesome. also we were in a parade and passed out tons of pass along cards, it was soooo fun. the best part was when me and Hna Keller were fricken racist, we were looking for Hispanics the whole time and when we finally found a family that looked slightly Hispanic and were like hola como esta gave them all Spanish cards turns out they weren't lolololol , probably just ruined their chance of joining the church. blah esta bien

I can't remember a whole lot from this week, on Sunday 4 of our dates dropped so that was rough,.  It's because they didn't come to church after going and waking them up in the morning.  But I know there's people out there that are ready for the gospel, we just need to find them!!  But we're doing great.  Hermana Keller's the best, glad I get to spend Christmas with her.  We've gotten really close, like to the point we're just straight up mean to each other.  So now we have a kindness jar.  Pray for us this week too.  We're on bikes and I might have to cut my fingers off from frostbite.  The church is true.  Life is good.  Love you.  Have a good week.

-hermana thornton

Look!  I'm Hermana Keller!  LOL!

If I lay here, would you just lay here?

Panda Garden

An hermana told us there was a Panda Express here a while ago, so went to go check it out.  Turned out to be a Panda Garden, which is really different, big disappointment.  

FYI:  Panda Garden is not the same as Panda Express.

Remember G that we had to refer to the elders not very long after we found him because he just lives with two other guys so we can't go into his house?  Well, we still get to teach him at English class of Tuesdays, so we get to keep up with how he's doing and help in another way.  Anyway, he works outside of Little Rock so he hasn't been able to come to church the past couple of weeks.  But, he came yesterday and that made us all really happy!  And then during sacrament meeting, HE GOT UP AND BORE HIS TESTIMONY!  I wanted to cry, it made me so happy!  Unfortunately, he goes back to Mexico in a couple of weeks, so we're not sure if he'll be baptized here or there.  But we're pretty sure that he'll be baptized, so I'm so excited for him!

We had an emergency drill this week for just in case a tornado happens.  Hermana Thornton and I were at Marta and Miguel's house, two investigators who need a lot of help.  She needs a new knee and he got into a big car accident in September and just had knee surgery.  We were helping them clean their house and we got the text that the drill was happening right then.  We have to leave from whatever we're doing right them and get to a specified place.  So, being bike week, we RODE OUR BIKES FOR LIKE 25 MINUTES TO THE BARRIENTOS'S HOUSE.  (They're our emergency contact.)  The wind was blowing so hard that it felt like we were riding through pudding!  When we finally got there, they weren't home, so we just sat in their driveway taking pictures and watching church videos that we've downloaded onto our ipads.  We ended up sitting there for like, an hour and a half and it was so cold!  Then Hermana Barrientos pulled up and invited us inside. Wouldn't you know it, as soon as we got inside, we got another text saying that the drill was over and we could go back to doing what we were doing before.  Ahhh!  That was kind of sad when that happened. We were really cold, but oh well. 

Also we taught two new investigators this week, Rosie and her son Jose. I really like them a lot and they both seem pretty interested in learning. I think the biggest problem is that she works on Sundays, like all day.  So I'm sad about that.  We're hoping to have a FHE tonight with them a member family. 

Our district is doing a #lighttheworld challenge where we give out at least 10 pass along cards and show the video to at least 5 people every day.  I love this!  There are so many miracles that are coming from it.  I love being a missionary during the holidays!  We were able to get into the home of a less active that usually doesn't ever let us in just because we asked if we could share a Christmas video.  Yesterday, another one of our investigators said she was busy with family over and couldn't talk to us.  But then we asked if we could share a Christmas video with them and she said yes!  So we went in and talked to them and came out with a return appointment for her and an appointment for Saturday with her family members!  I love it!

We found out the other day that Hermana Bowen told Elder Clark (district leader), who told us, that Maumelle (where she lives) does a Christmas parade and she got a trailer and is going to do a #lighttheworld float and she wants us to be in it. So that's what we're doing on Saturday.  We're going to be passing out pass along cards with candy canes on them.

I love you so much and I love being a missionary.  I hope you have a great week!

Love, Arianna

Random pictures.

Pinnacle Mountain...

Pinnacle Mountain

random sunset

another random sunset

what bike week looks like

more bike week

Fun?

Make it fun!

Do I look like i'm having fun?

You can call me Becky-Homecky!  I learned how to make mashed potatoes.