Well, one transfer has come and gone and it seems like just yesterday that I stepped on that plane and left Utah and the MTC behind. For this new transfer, I'm staying in Schaumburg and with the English Elders in hopes that Elder Fong will be back soon, so I'll let you know when he gets back. It could be anywhere from 1 week to another 6 weeks but there's definitely a purpose in this and I'm sure Heavenly Father's hand is in it.
Onto this last week, it was Elder Frehner's last week so he's all packed up and ready to go home. Lots of members have reached out to us and invited us over for dinner or lunch in hopes to catch him one last time. One of these members name is Brother Kokalis which is Greek for bones, and that's about as Greek as he is but he still thinks he's a full blooded greek. A funny story about brother Kokalis is that the second he realized I was Greek, he immediately assumed that I was not only from Greece, but that I spoke Greek, I ate Greek food, and that i needed to find a nice Greek wife when I got home. He's about 75 and is one of the funniest guys I've met!
So in commemoration of finding someone else with a Greek name, brother Kokalis took us to the local Greek hangout--a place called Kuzina's where he wanted to treat us to some authentic Greek food. As soon as we sat down, he started telling us about every item on the menu and exactly what that item did to his digestive tract. Even after we got our food, he still would not stop taking about his colon! What the heck Brother Kokalis?! I was dying the whole time and Elder Boetcher and I had to keep kicking each other under the table to keep from laughing.
It was pretty cool though, the waitress came up and looked at my last name and commented that I had a nice Greek last name and so I asked her if she knew what it meant and it really does mean "little bear"! So for the rest of the week, ive been Elder Little Bear...not the worst I've been called. The Spanish sisters in the ward still call me Elder Flacito (that's spanish for really skinny).
Another funny story for this week, we did service for this woman named Eila; she's from Europe and lives alone but has a gigantic garden in her backyard. She's constantly weeding, pruning, hedging, raking, etc. and so we offered to help her out. She's pretty old and can't do a whole lot of heavy, hard stuff like pruning big branches so for two hours, I followed her around and pruned branches for her while Elder Frehner and Elder Boetcher raked leaves and sawed branches. According to Eila, "if this whole missionary thing doesn't work out, you should become a master pruner". Someone will have to check up on that occupation for me and see if they offer that at Utah State as a major.
I feel bad because I went into this whole service activity with a hard heart, not thinking that anything would really come of it, but at the end, Eila kind of broke down a bit and talked to us about her upcoming surgery and how worried she was for it and it opened a new door to possibly teaching her in the future. It was a testimony builder for me of the power of service and how important it is that we serve everyone around us.
It's really impressed me this week just how simple the gospel is. Everything we do, church, service, missions, everything is all about the plan of Salvation and returning to our Heavenly Father. The gospel just tells us how to do that and I can testify that if we have faith in Christ, repent, are baptized and recieve the Holy Ghost, and if we endure to the end, we will get to the Celestial Kingdom. It's just that simple.
As always, I love all of you and I pray for you constantly! I love hearing from you all and I'll try to respond as often as I can.
With love,
Elder Arkoudas
This is Kuzina's with Brother Kokalis. What a hoot!!!
Me in my Cubs hat, courtesy of Brian and Jamie Rees. Love you guys!
It's getting really cold here...
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