Just a little update on what we have been doing....not a whole lot. Sometimes I feel like we are still in a bit of a fog. I didn't realize there was so much to do after a funeral. Bank accounts, pay checks, insurance issues, head stones, cleaning out bedroom..... Maybe it just seems like a lot because I don't want to do it. Gregory and I are getting ready to leave on Saturday for Nauvoo. It should be a fun trip. It has been nice to focus on something fun. The kids will stay home. We have someone staying with them. The girls are fine with it but Corey thinks he is to old for someone to have to come "babysit" him.

Dear family
  Its been a busy week here in pocahontas.  We started teaching Carla last Saturday.  Her baptism is going to be on the 25th.  She is pretty excited to be baptized and is already trying to find other people for us to teach.  Joie's baptism is on this saturday.  She is prety excited to.  She is trying to read the Book of Mormon before she gets baptized.  She is only 13 years old.  We have been trying to get her to let her brother Kevin baptize her, but she thinks he would drown her.  Kevin got baptized 3 weeks before i got here.  He has been bringing his girlfriend to church the last few weeks and he wants us to start teaching her to.  hopefully we will be able to sometime this week.  We haven't been able to talk to her yet. We are going to start going all the way out to ash flatt starting on Tuesday. Elder hansen says its about a 120 mile round trip so its going to burn through our miles. Their branch has a couple people who have been coming to church for the last 3 or 4 weeks.  Elder Hansen and I are hoping to set a date with them either this week or next.  I guess we will see what happens.  We are pretty excited about how things are going here.  I got a call from one of the spanish elders on tuesday.  He wanted me to talk with him in spanish.  I didn't do very well, but at the end he said that President Drewes is looking for more missionaries to go spanish speaking.  Ive been pretty woried the rest of the week because transfers are this week, but if i was going to be transfered i think i would have gotten called by now.  I'm hoping i can stay here at least one or two more transfers.  So Grandpa is in Washington?  That sounds like a lot of fun.  I miss going flying with him.  We are all done moving and cleaning.  We had our first big storm here two nights ago.  There was a lot of lightning.  There was never a pause in the thunder.  Just a conastant rumble.  You could have walked around outside with out a light pretty easy because of all of the lightning.  The wind was blowing pretty hard to.  There were a few trees blown over and lots of libs on the ground.  Joie's power was out for about 12 hours.  It was really humid all day yesturday.  O Elder hansen said that Nauvoo is only about a 4 or 5 hour drive from here.  i dont know how he knows though.  O I found out that music isn't as strict as it says in the book that came with the letter.  President Drewes said that we can listen to any music that doesn't drive away the spirit.  one of the CD's that is approved is Spirit  by Alex Boye.  I was wondering if you could maybe get me a copy of it.  I'm pretty sure you can buy it on deseret book. o and i was wondering if you had found out anything about a gps.   Well thats about it from here.  I hope everything is going good in logandale.  I miss you all. 
love Elder Marshall
O one of our investigators is having trouble accepting Joseph Smith.  She believes everything we have taught her about the restoration, and the gospel, and she accepts him as long as we call him brother joseph or just joseph.  But she doesn't like his last name. Elder Hansen and i aren't sure how to convince her that he had a last name.  If anyone has any ideas let me know.  

Steven's Letter July 6

Dear family
This week was a pretty busy week.  We had to move into the Elder and sister Winegar's appartment.  We are appartment B now instead of A. There isn't any one in the old appartment yet so we can still check both mailboxes, but could you let everyone know that the address is changed?  They aren't going to replace the winegars.  We are the only missionaries in our area.  The nearest elders are about an hour drive away in Jonesborro.  Thats where Elder Fjerstad is.  We had all the missionaries over last week to help the winegars move out.  We had to clean their appartment after they left, Then move all their furniture out and ours in.  Then we had to clean our appartment really well so other people can move in.  Then load all the Winegars stuff on to a trailer to go back to Little Rock. It took all day tuesday, and part of Wednesday.  We are down to just one baptism schedualed on the 18th.  The two that were suppost to be this saturday are running from the law right now.  So they arent going to be baptized this week.  We had three investigators at church on sunday.  One of them wants to be baptized so we are going to be setting up a date with her some time pretty soon. She was talking to missionaries before she moved here from Texarkansas, but she lost track of the missionaries for a while.  It hasn't rained here since i got here.  Elder Hansen said that it was raining a lot before i got here,  but the grass is starting to turn brown now because it hasn't rained in three weeks.  So i haven't seen any lightning or tornadoes yet, but hopefully pretty soon.  He says the clouds turn green when there is a chance of a tornadoe.  Ill try to get some pictures.   :)   Thank you for the light, the knife, and the Priesthood line of authority.  I just got the box today.  There was a lot of stuff in the box. Did you take the pictures off the card and put it on the computer? transfers are next week. They happen every six weeks.  Elder Hansen thinks i am going to be switched to spanish speaking pretty soon, but he doesn't think it will be this transfer.  I guess ill find out by Sunday if i am going to be transfered.  Hopefully i wont though. I like it here.  The people have been really nice.  The food is really good to. I haven't tried any wierd food, but Elder Hansen has.  He has eaten possom,  pig intestines, and some kind of squirl soup that had fur in it.  I've just tried deep fried brocoli.  O i ment to ask you what all of the envolopes were for that were in the box with the blanket and pillow.  I still have them, but i'm not sure what they are for.
So did you go to Lagoon?  Grandpa said something about that in his letter.   Well i better go.  I hope everything is going good in Logandale. Have fun on the Lawn mower.
Love Elder Marshall

o and the humidity was pretty bad when i first got here.  I thought i was going to sufficate when i walked out of the airport.  I don't think its to bad now.  Its not as hot as it gets at home.  but i still swet a lot.  There are rivers that go all over the place here you cant get into town without going over at least one bridge or more.  the windows are always fogged  up on the car and in the house.  In the mornings sometimes it looks like there is a mist just hanging around.  The morning is deffinatly the best part of the day.

O and elder Hansen says he knows some bowmans in Idaho Falls.  He doesn't know the Collins though.

These letters might be a little out of order sorry.


Dear Family
So I'm on an airplane right now. We should be getting to Huston in about an hour now. It was kind of weird going to the airport this morning. There was a big group of people that even started clapping for us as we walked by. Everyone has been really friendly to us especially in Salt Lake. We are just taking off from Huston. I wanted to tell you some stories about Elder Fjerstad. He likes to sleep a lot. A couple of weeks ago, I was in an interview with the branch president. When I came out. he was standing in the middle of the hall with his head back and his mouth wide open. Lol. He had fallen asleep standing there. He was getting a lot of funny looks from a lot of people. The branch president had to shake him awake.
Elder Fjerstad also talks in his sleep. We have full conversations with him. He can answer all kinds of questions when he is sleeping. We can ask him how to solve all kinds of math questions and scripture questions. He always gets the right answer.
About a week ago we were reading out of Preach my gospel to each other. He was reading out loud, and he fell asleep half way through his sentence. I smacked my hand down on the table and he woke up pretty fast. Lol. He even fell asleep this morning while he was standing in the shower. Lol. But we only got about 2 hours of sleep last night so I can't really blame him. A coupe days ago, he had been nodding off in class, we were walking between classes and he walked right into 2 poles and a group of sister missionaries. He didn't remember it after though. I think I already told you about what happened yesterday at breakfast.
One time we were getting ready for Gym. I was down the hall from our room, and Elder Steed and Elder Baron started to lave for gym. They just started running out the door and Elder Fjerstad followed. I didn't know they had left. I guess when they got half way to the field Elder Steed asked Elder Fjerstad "where is your companion." Then Elder Baron asked "Elder where is your shirt?" Lol. He had forgotten to put a shirt on and had ran all through the MTC in his garments. Lol. He was pretty embarrassed about it.
Everything is pretty flat. Well I better go.

Love
Elder Marshall

Steven's Letter June 22

Dear Family
 So I'm in the Pocahontas Area of Arkansas.  Its a pretty big area.  We cover Pocahontas and  Walnut Ridge,  but i think we are going to start going up to Ash flats and Mountain View.  They are both in our area, but we don't usually go there because they are so far away from Pocahontas. I think  Ash flats is about 50 miles away, and Mountain View is about 100 miles.  If we start going there i think we will stay with a member in those towns for part of the week and just spend a couple days a week in each area.  I think our area is the biggest in the mission. We have to go to ash flat sometime this week any way because the branch president has a list of names who he wants us to talk to.   My companion is Elder Hansen. He is from Idaho Falls.  He has been here in Arkansas since just before Christmas.  We are the second set of missionaries in this area.  It has been closed for the last 10 years and was just opened again in January.  The branch is pretty small.  I think there were about 25 or 30 people here yesterday.  I think there were only like 4 young women, and 3 young men. They are really nice people though.  Everyone has been really friendly.  The food is really good here to.  They deep fry everything.  I even tried deep fried broccoli and Cauliflower on Friday.  We were at a part member family's house.  three of the kids are baptized, but the parents aren't.  We are going to commit another of the kids to be baptized tonight when we go over.  Her name is Joy. I haven't met here yet because she has been at her Grandma's house for the last two weeks.  Her brother Kevin was just baptized a few weeks ago.  He received the priesthood yesterday.  They have 21 dogs and a lot of cats.  I haven't been to a house yet that hasn't had some kind of animals.  There are some senior missionaries that live in the apartment next to us.  They stay here in Pocahontas permanently.  That's where I'm at right now.  We get to eat over at their apartment a lot.  I haven't had to worry about any meals but breakfast so far. They are from Utah.  Elder Fjerstad is still in my district. He is down in Jonesboro.  So I get to see him every Tuesday at district meeting.   We have been teaching a lot.  We had lessons the first day i got here.    I know Sister Mondaca.  She was one of the sisters in my district.  Her and Sister Sloan, and Sister Flukiger.  They should all be there at Temple square.  How was she?  did she give you a tour?
 O on Friday we were knocking on some doors.  We were talking to a mom out on here front porch while her kids were playing on a slip and slide on the front lawn.  We were asking here when we could come back to teach her family. all of a sudden the 8 year old started spraying me with the hose.  Lol I got soaked.  The mom was pretty mad at the kid. I bet he got in pretty big trouble after we left.  We are going to try to come back on Wednesday or Thursday.  Sounds like the hike was a lot of fun.  You even had Ice on the side of the tent?  Was it the same hike that I went on?  Well i better go.  I hope you are having fun in Salt Lake say hi to the sister missionaries for me.

Love Elder Marshall