I can tell that the weeks are flying by faster than ever before.  It's mind boggling.  I guess we'll be on our way home in a flash.  But not quite yet.  We mostly do the same things a lot, so no big news there. We're busy doing our own work and helping the new secretary learn the ropes.

This week an emergency alert went off on our phones.  It wasn't a tornado though, it was an industrial fire right down the street.

 

Tomorrow I'm getting the keys to an apartment for our new nurse that will arrive on the 18th of December.  I've been working on it since October and one thing after another has happened.  The people didn't move out on time.  Then they had completely destroyed the apartment.  The nurse was delayed anyway, so it worked out ok.  But she'll be getting practically a brand new apartment because it was so trashed they had to replace everything.

Since I'm finally getting the apartment, I signed up for the utilities and then Chris and I went to the furniture store to buy some furniture.  A lot of the stuff I buy on Amazon and it's been sitting in my office since October.  I can't wait to get rid of it.   At the furniture store, we had the same lady help us that has helped us before.  Her name is Andi.  We love her.  While I was getting some stuff signed, she was talking to Chris and she said she just loves it when we come in because we have such a good spirit about us.  Awwww   We gave everybody there light the world passalong cards and we gave away our light the world buttons.

Missionaries love Christmas!  They have a lot to do with light the world projects.  They have been working so hard on displays and on buttons and on passalong cards.  We try to give lots of them away wherever we go.   It's fun!

We just got assigned another lunch to be in charge of, so we have a lunch a week for three weeks in a row.  We decided to just buy everything to save ourselves some stress.  Chris and I are pretty much in charge of them because everyone else is overwhelmed right now.

A few weeks ago, we gave this lady a ride home from church.  I can't remember her name now.  She was so nice and so smart, but has had a lot of really rough things happen to her.  Good lesson on not judging.  Anyway, when we dropped her off she said, "Welcome to my redneck homestead!"

This is one of the cute ladies at church.  She comes dressed in her beautiful native clothing every Sunday.  Her name is Delse A. Pony.

Our church sponsors a big community concert, nativity display, and live nativity every December. We went to one of the concerts last night.  Another one is tonight but we aren't going.  Then on December 13 they have another devotional and concert.  It's actually pretty amazing!

I wanted to go to the big cat rescue for my birthday, so we went today.  It's called Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge. It was so interesting. We learned a lot and saw some beautiful animals who have been rescued.  Who knew there are so many people keeping these animals in their back yards or in their houses until they realize that's just not gonna work.  Who knew there is a black market for big cats, especially white tigers.  Who knew that white tigers pretty much come from inbreeding and they have tons of health problems because of it.  Who knew people have wild animal baby petting zoos and they just kill off the animals when they get too old for the zoo.  Who knew so many people have kept lions or tigers for pets until their child gets attacked and then they decide they better get rid of it.

There's two white tigers in the picture below.  Be sure you notice them both.

                                     
                                       This is a big cat toy. The holes are bite marks.

We had a great time and then we went for burgers in Eureka Springs.  It was a fun day.   We even did our housework this morning before we left.  These are seriously the best cheese garlic fries I've ever had! I didn't dare eat them all but I wanted to.

Here's a fun missionary story:

Hey everyone. Cool story.

Elder Palmer and I did a finding both on the Pittsburg State campus yesterday and we met a college student from Rogers. He was definitely a humble seeker of truth and we had a great conversation about the gospel.

Over the summer, this college guy worked at a movie theater in Rogers/Bentonville. As we were talking he told us he watched "The Other Side of Heaven 2." He told us he remembered a big group of "Mormons" (his words not mine) coming in to the theater to watch the movie recognizing them by their name tags. He was working when half the mission attended the theater. He said the reason he watched the movie was because all the missionaries were so nice and when he went in to clean the theater he hardly had to clean anything, which surprised him. So he got a few of his friends to watch the movie! Isn't that sweet? Elder Palmer was actually in that theater.

We know it often takes a few positive contacts with the church until people have a desire to learn more and it was cool to learn that a big group of missionaries watching a movie could be that for one guy.