Walking, Biking, Walking, Biking etc.

Dear Friends and Family,

Summer is definitely over here--I know that because we have been outside all week this week and it has gotten noticeably colder...like 30-40 degrees colder.

We averaged probably about 10 miles a day on the bikes and walking this last week--which might not sound like a lot, but when it is 33 degrees outside, that will take your breath away! That being said, we have had more fun this week than I have had in a very long time as a missionary. Elder Jeppson is great and has easily been one of my favorite companions so far.

Tuesday when we were walking in the freezing rain, we decided to come up with a rap about our lives as missionaries. It's in Spanglish but I thought I'd share just the beginning with you...

Me levanto en la manana y mis pies pegan la caille,

Caminamos todo el dia al lado de la "bi-way".

Buscamos gente hoy para bautizar,

Aun que hoy no tenemos el "car".

Hace mucho frio afuera pero eso no me importa,

Un dia yo voy a manejar un Porche-a.

Maybe when it's finished I'll send you the mix tape.

Other than that, I had a huge spiritual breakthrough this week and it started with a little bit of a mental breakdown. I walked into the kitchen one morning to find it absolutely destroyed and filthy (like 5 days worth of filthiness). Little bit of backstory: because we had been getting home so late and so tired, we had pretty much just gotten home and gone to bed and didn't clean anything. 

So as I stood there in the kitchen, my tiredness and stiff backedness (my back has been a little tempermental lately) got the best of me and I just went into full blown "Mr. Clean" mode and cleaned the entire kitchen. It took about 45 minutes and as I stood there doing dishes and wiping countertops, I was thinking about obedience. You see, it's a rule in the mission here, that we clean our apartment everyday and so I guess you could say that we were "sinning" by not doing it. So then I started thinking about sin and what it really is. God wants us to be clean, worry-free, simple, and happy. Does anyone really feel happy with a dirty kitchen? Does anyone ever really feel happy when they are sinning?

At that point, I decided that I wouldn't just stop at the kitchen and so I started to clean up those little things in my life that crowded it up, made it dirty; things like songs that I like but pushed the spirit out, as just an example.

Brothers and Sisters, the Gospel is so simple and it really is for our happiness. I know that as we clean up those things in our lives that we really don't need, we will feel the Spirit more and we will be more HAPPY! I love you all and I know that this is the Church of Jesus Christ. Thank you so much for all of your support!

Elder Arkoudas

Pic1: #biking#30°

Biking...Hiking...Siking...Liking..etc.

Wow, what a week!!!

So Elder Buttars got transfered and Elder Jeppson came here with me. He is a GIANT and is so much fun to be with. We get along a little too well and immediately became good friends.

The only problem is...they took away our car and we had to use bikes all week. Tuesday night--as soon as we both got settled--we realized that we needed bikes for Wednesday but we didn't have them. So the only thing we could really do was walk the 7 miles to the other Elders apartments to steal their bikes. We started out at 6:00pm and got there at around 8:30. I'd say that that is pretty good time. We then started back with the bikes and about 2 miles in, Elder Jeppson's bike got a flat tire. We had nothing to pump it up with so we took turns riding the rim for 5 MILES. Yea, we got home a little late that night--but at least we found a couple people on the way!

Wednesday we started out with a different bike on our treck to West Chicago (11 miles away) armed with a couple of water bottles and ziplock baggies of cold cereal. We got about 5 miles into it and got yet another flat tire (*see pictures below). We fixed that one, but by the time we did that, it was too late to go to West Chicago. So we biked another 5 miles back.

Thursday and Friday--more bikes; but we found a lot of cool people and I love riding bikes. We probably clocked in about 40 miles on bikes and probably 10 walking this week. Great fun!

Cool spiritual story: We have a goal to invite someone to be baptized everyday. Friday it was 8:45 and we were over 20 minutes away from our apartment and we still hadn't asked anyone to be baptized. We saw this gas station on the way home and pulled into the parking lot. Literally the only person outside was this guy named Ben taking out the trash. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he said that he would be baptized! It was super cool!

Thanks for all your support. I love you all and I love this work!

Elder Arkoudas

Pic. 1: Long story--but I pet a squirrel this week

PIc. 2: Elder Buttars

Pic. 3: Our ward Choir sang this week and it was so good!

Pic. 4: We had to run inside so we jokingly asked some kids to guard our bikes for us. They didn't take it as a joke and got their nerf guns. Thanks kids...

Aurora SP NW Chicago West Mission

Dear Friends and Family,

I'm sorry I didn't get the opportunity to write a weekly email last week--but I'm actually suprised that I made it this long without missing a week;)

If you could all keep the Pagan family in your prayers: I don't know if you remember Eddie Pagan from Rockford--he got baptized about 3 months ago--and he passed away last week from a heart attack. He was a super good friend and I loved that whole family so much but my testimony of the Plan of Salvation has been greatly strengthened from this. Thank you so much for all of your support.

Two weeks ago we got so bogged down with meetings and exchanges and a whole ton of other stuff that this week, Elder Buttars and I said that we had had enough and we decided that we were going to make this last week of the transfer the best week in the mission. We set some goals of how many people we wanted to talk to everyday, how many new investigators we wanted and so on, and then we challenged our whole Zone to do the same. It was so much fun! Everytime someone completed one of their goals, they would text us and we would send a text out to everyone else. Even though it got pretty cold and rained for a few days straight, it got everyone super excited and it was so much fun! Below I've included some of the best hashtags used this last week.

#faithweek

#sweaterweather

#fillthefontwithrain

#westwarriors

#twowomanarmy

#weranoutofhashtags

#toomuchfaith

Etc...

Last night was a super great night! We went to West Chicago to go finding and we got stuck behind this train. So we waited and waited and finally I just got sick of waiting and went and talked to the lady waiting in front of us. Yea...she thought I was super weird and wasn't interested at all, but the rest of the night was great. We parked at this apartment complex with the intent of stopping by this guy, but we just didn't feel good about parking there, so we drove about a 1/2 mile down the road and parked and totally found this guy Carlos who's super interested as we were driving there. 

We then found this other girl who was just sitting in her car and when we asked if she wanted to hear an important message about Jesus Christ, she just said "Sure, come back on Tuesday." The Lord is too good to us.

This is where we get to the sad part of the email. Elder Buttars is leaving for Bloomingdale and I'm getting a new companion tomorrow. It's been super fun and I love Elder Buttars to death. It's been a great transfer and I'm super excited for this next one.

I know that this church is true. I have learned so much about patience these last few weeks--when we ask for something from the Lord and work for it--even if it takes a year to get it, it comes. I testify that that is true.

I love you all and I'm so greatful for your continued support!

Elder Arkoudas

pic1: God Bless America and Mexico!!!

pic2: We found a tower and had to get a good pic for mommy.

pic3: Our Zone

pic4: That's us...

Just a week

Dear mom,

I probably wont be able to send out a weekly email this week, I know how many people are looking foreward to that and how much people like hearing from me, but we had a late start and I'm not really in the mood to type many emails.

I found out today that Eddie Pagan--the investigator that Elder Wright and I taught in Rockford and who was baptized a few months ago--had a massive heart attack and passed away. His funeral was on Saturday I think and I think it just took me by suprise. I loved Eddie so much and to be honest, he's the first person that I had a real relationship with to pass away.

I'll be ok; my testimony of the gospel has grown even just today and I know that it will grow this week as well.

Please tell everyone that everything is good and that I'll write next week. I just didn't have a whole ton of time this week.

Love you mom!

Elder Arkoudas

Temple Trip

Hello Friends and Family,

Sorry that I didn't give ya'll the heads up last week, but we went to the temple this week and so they changed the preparation day for this Tuesday instead of Monday. Yea, my mom already rebuked me for that one;)

Other than that, it has been a super cool week! I don't have a ton of time, but I do want to share a few cool experiences and thoughts from this last week.

First of all, our mission has been approved to use online proselyting and so on Thursday, we headed to the library so that we could make some facebook pages. That was probably the first time that I have used a computer like that in public since I've been a missionary and to be honest, it felt a little bit like I was jumping back into the world a little bit. I did not like it. To make things worse, for some reason this dark feeling came over me and the spirit left. I felt this empty pit in my stomach and felt super weak and scared. I have no idea why that happened, but the first thing I saw was a Book of Mormon that I had brought with me into the library. I snatched it up and as soon as I opened it (I hadn't even read anything yet) those feeling fled and the Spirit came back full force. It was such a huge testimony to me of the Book of Mormon and how no matter what we are doing, it can bring the Spirit into our lives. Even though Elder Buttars gave me a weird look when it happened, we promised eachother that we would always have a Book of Mormon with us when we were on the internet and I'm stickin to that!

We also had a goal a couple weeks ago of talking to 15 white people every day (we were scared to talk to them and had to get over our fear because our area is literally puros gueros) and we decided that if we did it, we would have a camp-out on our porch. We even made a little campfire (see pictures below). It was great fun and I told myself that at least it was "almost camping".

Finally, we were able to go to the temple this morning and it was fantastic. It has been a year almost to the day since I've been and I felt so much peace and comfort that I can't even describe. GO TO THE TEMPLE!!!

Love you all so much, thanks for still stickin with me for over a year and if you want to be facebook friends and follow my online prostelyting adventures, my username is still Samuel John Arkoudas. Thanks Love you!

Elder Arkoudas

Pic.1: went to a Jewish deli inbetween conference sessions. It was actually pretty good; just a weird picture.

pic.2: Campout

pic.3-5: Temple trip with the zone