Dear Sister Emery Collins

Wow, it has been a crazy busy week! Everyday kinda blurs together and I'm exhausted by the time we get back to the apartment at night, but I love what I'm doing! We have a really cool and effective way of finding people to teach on the UofA campus. Every Tuesday and Friday we get to set up a booth for about 4 hours. We do either a Book of Mormon experiment or a restoration board/game. It's fun and a great way to have conversations with lots of people. We had our first lesson with Richard, who we actually found at a booth. He's awesome and has so many questions. He grew up southern Baptist but stopped going when he was told God didn't love him because he's gay. We testified that God loves all His children, that we could feel Gods love for him then, and that he isn't alone. He showed us a video about what "mormons believe" and wanted us to tell him what was true or not. It was horrible and completely anti lol. He felt bad for making us watch it...

Wow I've officially been out for 1 month!! And I'm in Arkansas now... woot woot!! You know you're not in Utah anymore when there's a little stripper coffee shop right next to your apartment so that's fun to see everyday👍 My area is Fayetteville YSA. I'm basically serving on the University of Arkansas Campus right now. It's party central on the weekends here. We're not partying of course. My companion and I and another companionship of Elders are working hard, serving in a YSA ward. It's pretty great. My trainer/companion is Sister Miller and I love her! Shes from Idaho and has been on her mission for eight months now. I'm so excited to learn and grow from her as we serve the Lord together! I taught my first real lesson on Thursday! We taught this guy named Panpan. He's from China and doesn't speak English very well, but is trying to learn it. The gift of tongues is real, even when you're a English speaking mission! Panpan def...

Dear Brother and Sister Collins,    Your daughter has arrived at the Mission Home, has been well fed, and will sleep there or at the home of a nearby member who loves to pamper our missionaries.  Attached, as “proof of life” is a snapshot of your tired but excited missionary with President and Sister Strong.  Tomorrow morning, she will receive her (prayerfully considered) first assignment, then one of the mission vans will transport her to her first location!  She will be able to email you on Monday with her new address.  Let me reassure you that President Strong assigns his  best  missionaries as trainers, so your daughter will have a cream-of-the-crop companion.    You’re welcome to call or email me with any concerns.   Meanwhile, we invite you to join the Arkansas Bentonville Mission – For Friends and Family Facebook Group, where you can watch for future photos of your missionary! Sister Dodds Secret...

Hey everyone! I hope all is well outside of this MTC bubble I'm stuck in haha. I hit three weeks tomorrow and normally that's when we'd be leaving, but because of Christmas, I get to stay another week! I got my travel plans though, so I hope this next week flies by! Being a Sister Training Leader is not that hard when there's three of you and only two other sister companionship's in the other district. But we're supposed to be getting two more districts tomorrow so that'll be fun. Our TRCs have been going really well! We are getting way better at teaching and using the spirit. Or at least we thought we were haha. During our TRC yesterday, we sat down and my comp, Sister Beal, and I completely blanked what lesson we were supposed to teach. The Sister Beal forgot the girl's name during the prayer... oops. Sister Stockham kept looking to us for help, but all we could do was give her a blank stare back haha. It's okay thoug...

Happy New Year everyone! I hope your holiday season was wonderful! Christmas at the MTC was so so good! It was all about Christ, who was born so we can live again. He is our Savior who knows and loves each and every one of us. I know thats true with my whole heart. Elder Bednar came and spoke to us and it was pretty cool! He talked a lot about receiving revelation and promptings from the spirit, buti really loved another thing he said. He shared the scripture Matthew 5:48 which says "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." He explained that Heavenly Father knows we are not perfect, he just wants us to be complete. So lighten up on ourselves. As long as we're loving and serving others and doing our best, the Lord will make up the difference. David Archuleta came Christmas night too. He performed lots of songs and shared some cool mission experiences he had. Then he shook every missionaries hand. It was great talking to my ...