Monday, May 11, 2015

13th Week Out - 7th week in Arkansas Transferred to Greenwood. (Visa coming... will travel to Brazil next transfer)

Dear Family and friends:

This week I was transferred to Greenwood Arkansas. I Saw all of my friends and investigators in Fayetteville for the last time and it was hard to say goodbye to a lot of them but I said my goodbyes then hopped on a couple hour buss ride for Greenwood.  When I first got there it was so hot!  I started sweating just from standing there. Greenwood has a population of about 8,000 people (aka the middle of no where) with smaller towns all around that have populations of  a couple hundred to a thousand people that I also cover.  There's one church building in Greenwood so all of the surrounding towns have to drive sometimes an hour to go to church. I t usually takes us 45 minutes to an hour also to travel out to these little towns just to visit a few people and the roads out here are often dirt roads which are often times washed out or muddy.

I met my new companion Elder Meyer and we have already become bros.  I love him and he is a great missionary! He has been out for 20 months and it turns out that we have the SAME birthday which is coming up real soon!

So No more mansion... well it was fun while it lasted.  I went to our new apartment a little skeptical at first coming from a mansion but it turns out we have a pretty nice apartment that me and my companion have to ourselves (I will attach pictures.)

We have had tornado and flood warnings all of this week!  Our zone leaders have told us to keep our cell phone on loud every night of this week just in case anything were to touch down... It was crazy!  During sacrament, everyone's phones started going off because of a tornado warning and then during the end of sacrament meeting tornado sirens started going off!  After the closing prayer the bishop got up and asked everyone to stay in the chapel for 15 minutes to be safe.  One lady even got up and screamed "Sweet mercy my dogs outside!" and ran out.  Then a couple other people booked it for their cars!  My companion and I went with the bishop to the windows to get a look outside and it was going CRAZY with rain flying in literally every direction... almost sideward!  There was super loud thunder and lightening with big flashes every other second!  Thank goodness that a tornado never touched down but it could have!  Man it was INTENSE!

Soooo the rest of that day we had flood warnings because like I said, a lot of the roads are dirt and they will get washed out and many did!  Get this..., we have had 11 inches of rain just this week!  There was a field I drive by every day that turned into a lake no joke!

I was able to Skype and talk to my family on Mothers Day.   It was a treat to be able to see them again.  It felt like I just saw them yesterday, which is weird because as of today I have been out for 3 months, 21 left to go!  That night we had to drive home and a major storm had hit.  We were worried we were going to get washed out on a road  because if there is 1 to 2 inches of water on the road you can literally be washed off the road.  My companion and I  were at a members home out in one of those "little towns" I talked about, so we had a 30 minute ride home which we had to drive at like 20 mph, so it took us a little bit over an hour to get home that night and the rain was coming down so fast and so hard that we could not see more than 10 feet in front of us!  But I have really enjoyed this crazy weather out here it's unlike anything I have ever experienced. I know that Heavenly Father is watching over me and protecting me!

I love you all and thanks for all your love and support!

Impressions of Greenwood Arkansas:

  • Living in a missionary apartment is not as nice as living in a mansion.
  • The church building out here does not have pews, just chairs.
  • It has rained every day since I have been here. (our phone blows up with flash flood warning for days!)
  •  It rains so hard here sometimes that even with windshield wipers on full blast, you wont be able to see out your front window.
My ADRESS for mail:
1120 Farley Circle. Apt. C
Greenwood, AR 72936

email: brennen.horton@myldsmail.net

Most roads are dirt and get washed out.  We have to drive like 20 mph or a warning system goes off in our car.  If we have too many warnings, it reports back to the mission office and we can get our car taken away.  

No comments:

Post a Comment