Dear family

Hey how is everything going there? How has your week been going? When does everyone get out of school? Is it this week or next? So you are doing a lot of work on the hall? That will be neat to see. Everything has been going good here. It’s been a good week this week. Zone meeting was really good. I was kind of glad when that was over. It went good though. The zone as a whole is kind of struggling right now. We are getting down to the last of the year, and we have a long way to go to reach our goals. So this week Elder Cowan and I are probably going to be doing a lot of exchanges. So it will be another quick week. I think I’ll be down in Benton Arkansas sometime, but I’m not sure. We haven’t really decided anything yet. We have a big Christmas zone conference on Tuesday. That is going to be great. There are two of them this week in the mission. One here in Little Rock and the other in Memphis. So half the mission will be there on Tuesday. So I’ll get to see Elder Levitt. I haven’t seen him yet. He is in North Little Rock. It isn’t in our zone, so I haven’t been able to see him yet. It should be a fun day tomorrow. There were 28 people at church yesterday. I am really loving being here in the group. I think there are two of these little groups in the US right now. What they did is they took a little chunk right in the middle of little rock, and put a set of missionaries there. It’s like we are starting completely from scratch. Everyone in the group is a convert to the church except the missionaries. There is a group leader from the Little Rock ward and his wife that come and help, but they are converts to the church too. There is a really neat feel to this area because everyone is learning together. You can tell that the new members here love each other and rely on each other. Like yesterday, two of the new converts were blessing the sacrament. Well they forgot they were supposed to wait till the sacrament song to start breaking the bread. They started right in the middle of the opening prayer. By the time the prayer was done, they were half way done. I spoke in sacrament meeting yesterday, and sometimes people will Amen or Halleluiah praise the lord. When you say good morning brothers and sisters, they say it right back. It’s a great place. We are working real hard to find new men who are potential for the melkezidec priesthood. They have a goal to become a branch sometime this next year, but to do that they need 6 to 8 Melkezidec priesthood holders. I think there are potential for three right now that come to church every Sunday. It’s a great place to be serving though. I’m really grateful I have the opportunity to serve here. At the first of this next year, we are going to be starting to have priesthood and Relief society every Sunday. So far we have been having it every 2 or 3 weeks at our house. That’s where bible study is too. It gives us a little more incentive to keep our house clean. Thanks for everything you do for me. Thanks for the package you sent and for the letters and the cd. I hope you have a great week.

Love Elder Marshall

Steven's new address is

Elder Steven Marshall
2504 Maple st.
Little Rock, AR 72204

If you are sending a package Steven has asked that it be sent to the mission home at

905 Kierre Dr.
North Little Rock, AR 72116

He does not want the packages just left on his door step in the City. He is close enough to the mission home that he will get them from the mission office.



Dear Family



Hey how is everything going there? So everyone is getting sick? That’s no fun. Everything has been going great here. I’m back in little rock again. I’m in down town little rock. It’s a pretty neat area. It’s the Maple street group. It isn’t even a branch yet. They just started it about 9 or 10 months ago. They were meeting in our house for a long time. Our house is a dedicated church building. We can have lessons there and everything. We have a bible study class there every Wednesday night for anyone to come to. Now we are renting the seventh day Adventist church just down the road from us. Its a lot smaller congregation than even Pocahontas was. Yesterday there were 26 people at church. Including 6 missionaries and 6 other members from the little rock ward. I had heard about the group when it got started, and have always thought it would be cool to go there, and now I’m here. My companion is Elder Nield. I’m pretty excited to be serving with him. He came out with Elder Arnold. I saw him his first day in the mission field and have been serving around him since. Our area is really small. It’s about 8 square miles. We can walk from one end to the other in about 45 minutes and there are 4 missionaries and the assistants that all work in this area. We had a baptism on Saturday. For a lady named Sandra. Her mom and son are hopefully going to be getting baptized on the 18th of December. It is going to be a lot of fun serving here. We will be getting a lot done. This week has been pretty hectic for me. Transfers were on Wednesday, but I didn’t get to work in the area till Friday night. Wednesday at the transfer meeting, president drewes called me aside and told me that he needed help in one of the Spanish areas here in little rock for a couple days because one of the missionaries was having some health problems. So as soon as I got to little rock, we went and dropped my stuff off at our house, then we had a dinner and after that, I had to meet President and the Spanish elders at the church. I was with them till late Thursday night. It was a good exchange. It wasn’t the area I was serving in when I was here, but the one right next to it. Then Friday morning, the other zone leader and I had a meeting with all the other zone leaders in the mission and president drewes. We didn’t get back from that until in the evening. So Saturday was my first real day in the area. It was great. Especially having a baptism. This week is going to be a great week. We have a zone meeting tomorrow that Elder Cowen and I are in charge of, but after that its going to be good. I hope you liked the pictures. Lol the elder that always has his belly hanging out is Elder Arnold. He was my companion for 6 months. It is a lot of fun. If you saw the video of someone jumping off the roof of a house, that is who I’m with now. Well I hope you have a great week. Thanks for everything.



Love Elder Marshall

Hey how has everything been going this week? I didn’t know you had church at 1:30 wow that pretty late. I bet no one has the excuse that it’s to early to make it to church though. Your temple trip sounds like it was pretty amazing. I always love going to the temple now. It makes the rest of our week go great. So how is every one liking school? I bet everyone is ready for the Christmas break. It will be here pretty quick. Everything has been going great here. April got baptized on Friday and confirmed on Sunday. It was a great service. She was real excited for it. Her mom and sister came to the baptism too. They thought it was great. We are going to be starting to teach them now too. We had already given them a copy of the book of Mormon and they liked it a lot. It’s been a really busy week for me. Elder Ulrich and I left Memphis on Tuesday night and didn’t come back until Thursday morning. It was great being out of the city for a while. I miss being out in the country. It’s been a year now since I left Pocahontas and went to Collierville. I haven’t really gotten to serve in the country since. Senatobia is bigger than Pocahontas was, but it was still real nice. We went to their district meeting and then we spent all of Wednesday with them. Thursday was a pretty crazy day for us. We left Senatobia by 7, and had to go to South Haven. The set of missionaries there didn’t answer their phone the night before during call-ins, so we had to go make sure they were still ok. We got there and we found out one of the missionaries there wanted to go home. So we talked to him for a little bit (He is doing a lot better now. They had a baptism Saturday.) Then we drove back to Memphis. When we got there, Elder Andreasen told me one of the members needed our help to finish one of the cakes she was making that she had to deliver in a couple hours and couldn’t find any one to help her. She lives down in Mississippi. So we had to take Elder Ulrich and his companion all the way up to Walnut Grove, Then drive back to Memphis and finally get down to the members house to help her. All that before 10:00. The cake she was making was huge. It was over 4 feet tall and took Elder Andreasen and me both to carry it. And it took us two trips. Sister Browder told us it probably weighed about 200 pounds. It was huge. And it was all for a 1 year old’s birthday. That took most of our day. We didn’t finally get back to our area till about 5. Sunday was really great for us. We had 7 investigators at church, and a whole bunch of kids. There were a couple less active families that came that we have been working with too. We just started teaching a new family. That was 5 of the investigators. We are real excited for them. We are going to be inviting them to be baptized on Tuesday. It’s been a great week for us. I’m going on exchanges with Elder Hansen this week. He is one of the Assistants to the President. He is going to be with us for a couple days. That will be fun. Well I hope everything is going great there. Thanks for everything. I hope ya’ll have a great week.

Love Elder Marshall

Steven's letter Nov 8

Dear Family

Hey how is everyone week going? It sounds like everyone has been real busy. I didn’t know Aaron Dally was getting married. Wow that’s great. I bet about the whole valley was at that one. Everything has been going pretty good here. We just got back from going to the Temple. That was the second time since I was in the mission I have been able to go to the Temple. I don’t know if we will be able to next month. Hopefully we will. We have been staying real busy. We have a baptism coming up this weekend. For a Lady named April Jones. She is real excited to be getting baptized. She talked to us Sunday at church and told us that her Mom’s preacher has been doing a lot to make sure she doesn’t get baptized. He has called her up in front of the Bible study class she went to at the church and told her she was making a horrible decision. And then Saturday night after we met with her he came to her house and had a good talking to her. Both times she told him she had already gotten her answer from God and that she was going to get baptized. She is staying strong to that no matter what anyone tells her. Elder Andreasen and I are pretty excited for her to be getting baptized. We have a busy week this week. Elder Ulrich and I, the other Zone leader are going on exchanges down in Mississippi with a couple sets of missionaries. We are leaving Tuesday and going to be getting back on Wednesday night. Then Friday we have April’s baptism. I’m betting it will be a pretty quick week. I got to go on an exchange with a set of Spanish missionaries this last week. That was a lot of fun. I really like going on exchanges with them. It gives me a chance to practice my Spanish. So I have a question. What is the best way to get rid of roaches? We have Roaches everywhere in our apartment. We keep our apartment really clean, but every time we come in our apartment after it gets dark, when we turn on the lights, there are cockroaches all over in our kitchen and living room. We aren’t sure how to get rid of them. We think the whole apartment complex is probably infested with them. If you have any ideas let us know. Well I hope you have a great week. Thanks for everything. I love you.

Love Elder Marshall

Steven's letter Nov 1

Dear Family

Hey how is your week going? Is it starting to get cold there already? Its been getting a lot colder here. Have you been doing anything exciting lately? Can you believe its November already? It feels like October just started and its already over. Everything has been going great here. Elder Andreasen and I have been working really hard together. Erica didn’t get baptized. She has gotten real hard to get a hold of. We will keep trying though. We have been working a lot with a lady named April. She has a strong testimony of the prophet Joseph Smith and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day saints. She told us the first time she walked into the building she knew she was supposed to be going to church there. She has felt the spirit a couple of times since telling her that she needs to get baptized. We are pretty excited for her. She just needs to keep coming to church. She is going to get baptized on the 12^th. There is another guy named Octavius that we just started talking to this last week. He is going to collage right now at University of Phoenix. He is real smart. He has prayed about Joseph Smith and knows he is a prophet too. He just needs to come to church. That seems to be the problem that a lot of people have. Coming to church. Lol a lot of people around here get a “Sunday sickness.” He is hopefully going to get baptized on the 19^th. We have really enjoyed talking to him. He and Elder Andreasen get a long really well. We are also trying to work more and more with the members here in the ward. We are trying to get them to be more involved in the missionary work going on here. So far there hasn’t been a whole lot of involvement from them. Elder Graham, Arnold, Andreasen and I are hoping to change that a little. Well I hope everyone is having fun there. Good luck in school. I love you all.

Love Elder Marshall

Steven's letter Oct 25

Dear Family

Hey how is everyone doing this week? Has it still been raining there a lot? It rained here last night. It was real nice. It’s supposed to be raining tomorrow too. It’s been a really good week here. My new Companion is Elder Andreasen. He is from Brigham City Utah. Everything has been going pretty good. We had a great weekend and we have a great week planned this week. We are both pretty excited for this transfer. We have been working a lot with Erica this week. We aren’t sure if she is going to be able to get baptized this weekend. We are hoping she will be able to, but she isn’t sure if its something she should do yet. And as much as we tell her that it is important, she is gonna have to find out for herself. She has been to a lot of different churches before looking for “The one true church,” but every time she thought she had found it, she got disappointed. So she is nervous about committing herself again. She came to church yesterday. She really liked that. It was the Primary program. She was really impressed with how much the kids knew and how they acted. She was going to leave after sacrament meeting, but a few of the members surrounded her and got her to come to Sunday school. She ended up staying all three hours. Her son didn’t want to stay at all either, but by the end he said he really liked it and he wants to come to the Wednesday night activity. We have been doing a lot of finding this week. We are trying to find new people to teach. We found a Cambodian family. I was on an exchange with the Spanish elders, and we stopped to talk to them. They got all excited and told us they were Mormon. They moved to Memphis 10 years ago from Florida where they were baptized. When the moved here, they didn’t know there was a church here, so they haven’t been back since. They said they had seen missionaries ride by a few times, but none had ever come and talked to them. We were pretty glad we did. They don’t speak much English, but it’s a great family. Well I hope you are having a great week this week. Have fun.

Love Elder Marshall

Steven's letter Oct 18

Dear Family



Hey how has your week been? How was the trip to Logan? I bet it was pretty nice weather up there. How has everyone been liking school? Is everyone getting ready for Halloween? The ward here is doing a big trunk or treat and a chili cook off. Are they doing that again there this year? We are going to be trying to get a lot of our investigators to come. Elder Graham is getting transferred. He got called this morning. He is leaving on Wednesday. It doesn稚 feel like it has been that long since we first got together. I知 not sure who my new companion will be. I guess I値l find out on Wednesday. I hope he is ready to work hard. We just got done with a lesson at the church this morning. We were talking to a lady named Daffney and her husband. She had come to church a couple times, but this was the first time we had actually been able to have a lesson with her. We had a less active member that agreed to come with us too. Brother McCormick. He really enjoyed it. He has been afraid to come back to church because it had been so long since he has been, but he said that was the ice breaker and that he would be there on Sunday. We are pretty excited. His daughter just got baptized a couple months ago so it will be good to have them all there as a family. Its been a good week here. We are still working a lot with Erica. She has had a lot of questions come up about getting baptized. She is going to miss Elder Graham a lot. She had a really great connection with him. They have had a lot of similar experiences. Well I hope you have a great week this week. Have fun.



Love Elder Marshall



quote of the week: "A testimony is not thrust upon you; a testimony grows. We become taller in testimony like we grow taller in physical stature; we hardly know it happens because it comes by growth." - Boyed K. Packer