My companion gave me a frenectomy.

Dear friends and family,

As you may recall from my days in the MTC, I had my frenulum (the tissue beneath your tongue) snipped, however that tissue had since regrown. My ward mission leader, Bro. Kitley, is a pediatric dentist and so, just for "fun", he said that he would lazer it off for free and that this time it wouldn't regrow. So this morning, we headed off to his practice; his assistant hadn't yet arrived, and Elder Champneys wants to be a dentist anyway, so Brother Kitley let him be his assistant. It was great "fun" and he really zapped that sucker. I just wanted to get that out there first so that everyone knew what a frenectomy was.

This last Saturday I was able to go to the baptismal service of someone that I used to teach in Rockford, Emma Gutierrez, and because her family is living in Joliet, the service was held at the church building there. As I sat in the service with members and missionaries of two of my former areas, I had one of the strongest and most impressive feelings of love and peace overcome me. I have never felt that way before for people who were not immediatley related to me, and so I just sat there, perfectly content in the moment; it was a highlight of my mission.

After the baptism, I went up to Emma and gave her a big hug (show me where it says we can't do that) and told her basically what I just told you, and then I went around and told all of her family that as well. Looking back now, I must have seemed higher than a kite at that baptismal service. Emma and her family are planning on visiting Utah soon and they said that they are going to bring their RVs to my house, park them in the backyard and we'll have a big hispanic barbeque...hope that's ok mom and dad.

I guess the only thing there is more to say is that you just plain can't fake these feelings. Never would I have imagined a sense of joy and peace like the one I felt at that baptismal service, and that lets me know that I was right where God wanted me to be. Not just in some chapel in the middle of Illinois. Not just on a mission for two years away from home and family, but that I am spiritually where I am supposed to be. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for a reason and I know that this is the truth. You just plain can't fake those feelings.

This last week was the first time in my mission that someone tried to bash us (I was actually kind of excited) but when we finally came to the point that we realized that there was no way that this person was going to believe anything that we said, I just had to bare testimony! I love the scriptures in Acts 4:19 and 1 John 5:9 which say, "Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye." and "If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater..."

Just as I told this lady, I'll tell you, and hope that each of you know that I have received that witness from God and I know that these things are true. You just plain can't fake those feelings.

Love you all and I hope that you have a great week.

Elder Arkoudas

1 Bro. Espinosa

2 Disk golfing

3 Josue Gutierrez

4 Da boyz

5 Emma Gutierrez

6 Da boyz moovin'

7 It's because dogs can't read, they need pictures

8 Bro. Schwartz is always reading his scriptures.

9 Frenectomy

Spicin' it up

Dear Friends and Family,

As promised, I have some more and better material for this weeks email. I hope that you get as much enjoyment out of this as I did.

Tuesday morning we were just going through the motions, minding our own business when out of nowhere, a squirrel came right up to our screen door. Elder Champneys was in the bathroom, so I opened the door, and this squirrel just stuck his head and half his body in. I was so taken off guard that I just kind of sat there for a minute; then the realization hit and I ran into the kitchen and got some pumpkin seeds (thanks for the bait mom). My movement startled the squirrel, (for all intents and purposes, we will call him "Ricky") but after a few seconds, he was back sniffing into our apartment. We carefully layed the bait and I sat by the sliding door while Elder Champneys, now returned from the bathroom, was taking pictures. As soon as his whole body was in the apartment and he had lingered even further into our diabolical trap, I slammed the door and--pardon my French--all hell broke loose. He freaked out and lunged from the bike, to the chair (he pooped on Elder Champneys' chair) and back and forth making the most blood-curdling noise, like a small child screaming, mixed with a small dog choking. We finally got him out of the apartment and just sat laughing for a few minutes. 

In this story, we are not without analogy. Satan uses new, inticing and exciting things to lure us into his trap where he can easily slam the door on us, trapping us in our own curiosity and by our own will and choice. In the Book of Mormon it talks about those who followed after the great and spacious building and how they were "feeling their way towards the great and spacious building" whereas those who were clinging to the rod were pressing foreward in a constant direction towards the Tree of Life--in other words, they knew where they were going. I love that imagery, the difference between "clinging" and "feeling" and I know that when we focus on Christ, that we don't need to feel our way, we can know exactly what we must do.

Other than that, I had an incredible opportunity to do something that I have never done before this week. The picture below explains it pretty good, but we met this guy named Antonio at the library who is really big into music. He said that if we ever wanted to learn how to rap that we could just hit him up one day and he would help us. So Friday we went into the library and found him in the sound studio there; when we first went in, he was listening to all sorts of vulgar and nasty things and as soon as we got in there, he shut it off and we started to make a rap about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm not going to lie, it's actually really good, and looking back on that experience, we were able to help someone who doesnt believe in God and who is just about one of the most worldly people that I have ever met, think about and rap about Jesus Christ for about an hour. And he let me record the chorus! I'll be sure to send you all the song when it's done but the coolest part was at the very end, when we had just finished the first verse and chorus and it was all put together, Antonio had to sit back in his chair and take a deep breath because he was "feeling something really different". We said something like, "Dude, that's the Spirit!" and he just sat there deep in thought for a minute and then got up and said, "I need to take a smoke break." Aw well. One day Antonio.

I hope that you all had a great week, mine was fantastic and my heart is so full of gratitude for the tender mercies of the Lord. I know that He is real and that He loves us. 

Elder Arkoudas

March 12, 2018

Dear friends and family,

I am honestly at a loss for what to write today. I could easily just spew out all that happened, but I don't want to do that and you don't want me to do that either.

I guess the only thing that I can really say about this week is that my family is awesome! I look up to my parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and even those who aren't really my family, but I still see as family.

There is a member here named Chris Schwartz--probably one of the greatest men that I have ever met--and he has taught me so much by his example and his knowledge. I realized that it doesn't matter who you are or what you qualifications are, you can bless the life of someone just by listening to the promptings of the spirit and by acting on them.

I know that Christ is real, and anyone who tells you otherwise clearly hasn't experienced anything too tough for them to handle, because in those tough moments, you can go right to your knees and the power of His Atonement will immediatley begin to act in your life.

I love being a missionary and I absolutely love the relationship that I have gained with my Savior. There is nothing in the world that I would trade for it. 

I love you all and hope that I can have an interesting story for the coming week. 

Elder Arkoudas

Pic 1. It's five o' clock somewhere

Pic 2. Exchanges

Pic 3. Basketball with President Griffin (and Sister Griffin beat me in a game of HORSE, but I'm not bitter...)

Zone Conference Week

Dear Friends and Family,

I am trying to think of all that happened this week but I really can't think of much. I have a few good stories, but I'm afraid that you're going to have to wait until next week for the good stuff.

This week we traveled from Joliet to Peoria to Rockford to Schaumburg (all of my old areas) for Zone conferences and they were a blast! 

Last night as we got out of a lesson with a member family, we had about 40 minutes left before we had to turn in for the night and Elder Champneys, like the great companion that he is, tried to get me all pumped up to reach our goal of finding one more new investigator. I had a rotten attitute and shrugged it off thinking something like, "sure, like we're going to find anyone at 8:30 at night" but I went along with it.

Sure enough, at 8:50pm, we knocked on a door and a man Tommy answered. We had a great conversation about faith and repentace and invited him to be baptized and he said that he was actually looking for a church so that he could be baptized. We have another lesson with him next Sunday night and I am so greatful for my companion who pushed me to find one more person.

I hope that everyone knows that I know that this is Christ's church on the Earth. My committment to follow Jesus Christ has grown more than I ever thought was possible and I am so greatful for this mission experience that has taught me that.

I know that this email was pretty dry, I'll try to get some good stuff for the coming week.

Elder Arkoudas

Pic 1: I forgot, we had a chili cook off for the ward and they asked us to be the judges. Some chili was really good and others was really not too good. It wasn't too hard of a choice.

Pic 2: The Zone