Dear Family and Friends,
Hello from North Carolina! I hope you all have been having a fantastic week! It's been a great week here in Ayden/Greenville/Winterville/
Monday was good. We didn't have a prep day because we went to the temple on Friday. We met with the stake president, Pres. Walker that night. He asked us if we had done anything fun for prep day. I told him we didn't have one today because of the temple trip on friday. Then, he asked us what we normally do on prep day. We told him about our adventures. He told us we need to lighten up and his best advice to us was, "go and hit something." So, I guess I'll have to find something to hit today.
Tuesday was a great day. We went out to Grimesland and tried to contact a former who informed us that she was not at all interested in ever joining the church. Then, we decided to go to a less active who lived down the road. We had tried contacting her several times before, but had no success. However, she was there today! We talked to her in her garage with the chickens. In the heat. Chickens are pretty funny to watch. They each have their own distinct personalities. We invited her to come to church and she said yes! So, it was a successful visit. We also went and visited another less active whose son is not a member. She is from Europe and had a pretty strong accent. The first thing she asked us when we came in was, (in an italian accent or something like that) "where are you from?" we said, "utah" and then she said, "oh. well that explains why I can't understand anything you say on the phone." (we thought the same when we spoke to her) After visiting with Sis. Visbal we went onto ECU campus to meet with some new members who had just moved to campus. The campus is HUGE. I learned some fun facts about ECU.
1. ECU is the #3 party school in the world. I think it would be great to go and give out word of wisdom pamphlets, but I guess that would be wasteful.
2. they are not that good at football
3. their colors are purple and yellow
4. their mascot is a pirate
5. their school saying is, "aaaaargh!"
After meeting with one of the members there we went to Matthew's. Matthew said that he didn't get a chance to talk to his parents this past week. We encouraged him to have faith and confidence. I read a really good conference talk from 2009 entitled, "Hope". It says that hope is when we place confidence in something. We were initially not sure what to do when we first got there, but we brought a fantastic member with us who just returned from his mission about 3 weeks ago and he did a great job explaining to Matthew why it was so important and how Heavenly Father blesses us when we do what we know in our hearts to be right. I am so thankful for members. They always make the lessons complete by adding personal experiences, etc. It's wonderful!
Wednesday we had district meeting. It was Elder Tibbetts last district meeting! We had a good discussion about the importance of members and having them help out during the lessons. It was a good lesson that I needed to hear. Afterwards, we went to Brother Parker (a recent convert) and taught him the last of the new member lessons. His wife past away a few years back and he shared some very tender words with us about how much he loved his wife. It reminded me of Elder Scott and how he speaks of his wife. It was a good discussion about the temple and such. We went to Kia's that evening and she said she wanted to move her baptism to the 12th because she was tired of moving it all the time. We told her we couldn't do it on Monday nights so, since she has to work on the 17th, it is now officially set for the 24th. Hopefully there won't be any hurricanes, tornados, etc this time.
On Thursday, we did weekly planning. It actually worked out quite nicely! Weekly planning isn't so bad. We went to breakfast with the 2nd ward. I lost my wallet and after thinking about it for a while realized I had left it in a member's car (thank heavens). We called her and I told her it would be fine to get it the next day. I forgot we were going to the temple though. So, Friday morning I woke up at 5:30 because I was so excited to go to the temple and I realized that my temple recommend was in my wallet. Which I didn't have. So, we called Sis. Rice (the member) and made arrangements to pick it up that morning before we left. Everything worked out nicely. We made it to the temple and the session was the best one I've been to yet. The Raleigh temple is so tiny! We road home with Pres. Cotterell and Sis. I got to see sis. oliverson and sis. bateman again. It was good to see them again. Sis. oliverson had me almost rolling on the floor reminding me of all the crazy things we did in the MTC. I can't believe I forgot about everything we did there. We ate lunch with all the other sisters and I finally met them all! The sisters in this mission=the best ever. They are all amazing and I don't think I would mind being companions with any of them.
Saturday we met with Trisha after a long period of not seeing her. She told us that she felt guilty for never returning our calls, but she just didn't know who to believe. She recieved some anti material apparently. She also told us she had a dream about how one of us went home because she wasn't doing what we had asked her. It occurred to me then that we need to make sure that we clearly state that when they are making commitments, it isn't for us, but it is for Jesus Christ; who we represent. That really hit me hard. I am going to make sure every person who we teach knows that now.
Sunday was good. Every meeting was about the importance of families and making our homes a christ centered home and about how we should keep our bodies clean (law of chastity). They were all really good talks. I learned a lot. Everything we bring into our home should help our home maintain it's sacredness. Our homes are comparable in sacredness to the temple. So, we should be mindful of what we bring into our homes. It was a wonderful sunday!
Love you all!
Sister Johnson
No comments:
Post a Comment