I have to start by apologizing ahead of time to everyone who reads this. Carol says I have to take a turn writing on the blog. So this is what you get. I'm sure I won't be near as entertaining as she is.

Zone Conferences

On Monday when we got to the office there was an email from President Strong (It's kind of a pain but we can only get our office email at the office.) and it said that after several months we are finally going to have "normal" zone conferences. The email also announced that the Housing Coordinator would have 10 minutes to speak at each of the zone conferences. So she had/has to talk  on Thursday and Friday and then next Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Yes, there are five zones in the mission. So she scrambled and, of course, delivered wonderful messages to the South Zone (Springdale, AR)  on Thursday and the West Zone (Joplin, MO) on Friday. She reminded the missionaries of how sacred their spaces need to be. This is where they plan for the people they're teaching. They need to be able to know, by inspiration, what they should teach each of these people and where they go to find new people to teach. So their apartments need to be clean and holy like a temple so that this can happen. She will repeat this message at the other three zones next week.

These are the missionaries in the North Zone having lunch. Lunches are provided by Stake Relief Society sisters. They are so kind.

This is pretty much the long and the short of our mission.

Technology

President Strong is having all the missionaries sign a new, more detail, technology pledge at all the zone conferences. He says that since he got here (July) he has had to send eight missionaries home. Six of these have been because their abuse of their smartphones was so severe that they could no longer serve. So he's trying to help them re-commit to the using their smartphones appropriately. We love them and it's really had to have them leave us early.

Weather

We really like Northwest Arkansas. Somedays we think we may never come home. The weather here is nice. There are definitely four seasons and we like that. But there is not really any snow to speak of and there are intermittent warm days when you can get outside. So that's nice.

The roads often pass areas where the striated rocks are exposed. Normally you really don't notice any water seeping from them. But last week when we drove to church the temperatures were in the teens and there were icicles all over the place hanging from these rocks.

It's really quite pretty.

Today temperatures were in the 50's and we were able to go outside for a lovely walk around the neighborhood.