Carol says it's my turn to write the blog post this week.

We were pretty slammed at work this week since we played hooky last week. But by Thursday or Friday things were pretty much caught up and back to normal. Now, of course, it's transfers next week so we'll be really busy again for the week.

It's an interesting time in the office right now. All of  us got here about the same time. We've really enjoyed working together and we're all used to the little idiosyncrasies of working together. It's really nice and we feel really close. But the nurse, Sister Wright, and the secretary, Sister Dodds, are leaving in October and we're starting to work on getting the new people set up to be here. It will be interesting getting used to the new ladies who are coming. I'm sure it will be fine. If you don't learn anything else as a missionary it should be that everything will be fine. Because, in the end, it always is. Heavenly Father is truly watching over the work.

Sister Johnson continues to feed the birds and enjoy watching them come and go from her feeder. The other day she had a blue jay show up. It's the first one we've seen.

It was interesting because all of the other birds flew away when he showed up. The locals say they don't like blue jays because they are mean and don't play well with the other birds.

The cicadas have finally disappeared. I'm so glad. Their incessant noise at night sort of creeped my out. 

Tonight I saw a lone firefly. They've generally been gone for a while now.

Today we went to a movie. The theater in Bentonville is really nice; reclining seats, etc. And they have restaurant on the premises so they serve food. It's a bit pricey but the food is actually good.

After the movie we went to the World Champion Squirrel Cook Off.

It's held every year here in Benton County. We got there a bit late so there wasn't a ton going on but we did get to talk to this guy as he was picking cooked squirrel meet off of the bones.

I asked him where they get the squirrels. He said anywhere in the woods or on bird feeders! (-:

He said they shoot them with 22's or 410 shotguns. But if you use a shotgun then you have to pick pellets out of your meat. They pressure cooked the squirrels with some onions and peppers and then reduced the stock to a sauce and turned them in to Squirrel Carnitas. 

I'm really mad because I didn't ask him how the meat tasted. Maybe he would have given me a taste. Darn!

We are doing great. We continue to love NW Arkansas. When we went to the grocery store tonight Sister Johnson took this picture of the sunset.

Life is good. We are happy.

Mission President quote of the week: "Many of the missionaries are here for all of the right reasons. But, for some it's just Youth Conference."

This is our missionary thought for the week from the Mission Facebook page.

Enjoy: