So remember how I said the weather has been so nice lately? Well, it was a different story this past week. Yesterday I felt like we were in an oven that was like 5000 degrees. Baked Sister Missionaries! It was really 107 degrees with heat index making it like 112 or something. All I know is that it was HOT. H.O.T.

 

Today is quite pleasant though.

 

This past week was pretty good. It was long and hot. Last Monday after "preparing" for the rest of the week, we went out to the furthest corner of our boundaries in the city of Spring Lake. We had a referral down there named Shelby that we wanted to go and contact. We contacted her, she wasn't interested, but referred us to her neighbor (who is a member and was the one who told us to go see her) It was kind of funny that they referred each other. We went down the street a bit and contacted there and met some great potential investigators! One lady had read the Book of Mormon about 20 years before and wants to learn more. Unfortunately, they are going out of town for the next month. I love summer and being a missionary. :]

 

Tuesday: So, I know my middle name should be "grace". We were running (on a completely flat surface of course) and I definitely sprained my ankle. Thankfully it is not as bad as last year. No boot, but it is a hinderance and I can't run! :(

 We had a great lesson with Sis. Saylor on missionary work. She wants to come on exchanges with us! And she also had a chance to talk with Margaret (other investigator) after her baptism and told her about how she knew the Book of Mormon was true. We asked her how she felt as she was talking with Margaret and she said that she just "felt really good." It was great! Jan is amazing. She took us to lunch after the lesson. Did you know KFC has a buffet??? I didn't. It's prolly just a North Carolina thing. They had really good butter beans. I ate a lot of them and I'm pretty sure I met my sodium limit for the day. We had a neat experience with the Trueloves who took us to dinner at Subway. We were talking about missionary work stuff and this guy that was sitting across at a table by us overheard our conversation and asked to know more about the church. It was a great contacting moment. Especially since we were with members! It was really good. We met with the Hudsons afterwards and had a nice lesson about the restoration (again) and why the first vision was important to the restoration of the gospel. Margaret is still stuck. We decided that she just needs to make a decision. Bruce bore a great testimony about the Book of Mormon on Tuesday. It was very powerful. He has grown a lot. I just wish we could figure out what is preventing Margaret's faith from building...

 

Wedesday=district meeting. I think the heat was getting to everyone. We had a good lesson nevertheless on revelation through church attendance. All the elders told us we should teach it because we were the only ones who had investigators come to church this past week. We learned a lot from the lesson. :)

We talked with Deborah (former investigator). She has been reading the Book of Mormon and says that she agrees with everything she's read. She just has issues with Joseph Smith. We talked to her on the phone for about 20 minutes addressing concerns because she won't meet with us in person. She said she would continue reading, but that she wouldn't ever convert. (sigh). However, she did tell us that she had been doing some family history and wouldn't you know it, she has Mormon ancestors! How crazy is that? Deborah agreed in the end that we could continue to call her and help her with things she is struggling to understand. So I was happy that at least she is okay with having contact from us still! :D

We had dinner with the McAllisters that evening and had a great lesson about missionary work.

 

We had a lesson on Thursday with a man named Aaron. He is very less active. The last time he talked to missionaries was when the Elders were here..which was a while ago. He didn't understand why we should pay tithing. He said he isn't going to change his views even though we explained the doctrine behind tithing and he said he understood the purpose. I wish people would just be humble! We had a crazy miracle lesson that evening. We went on exchanges with the Daltons and Bro. Dalton felt impressed to go by a less active family (the Giddens). We had tried meeting with them before, but they work crazy hours and we hadn't ever been able to catch them home. Well, miracle #1: they were both home! miracle #2: they just hired a man named Enrique from Nicaragua and he is staying with them until his wife can come up as well. The Giddens have had several gospel conversations with him and he said he could feel something 'different' about them. (side note: bro. Giddens is a really recent convert...like only a few months. They just moved to Dunn from Durham). Miracle #3: Enrique only understands mostly spanish. Bro. Dalton speaks fluent spanish! It was amazing! We had a great lesson with them all. They came to church on sunday and Bro. Dalton bore his testimony in espanol for Enrique. I think my favorite part of the whole thing was how excited Bro. Giddens was to tell Enrique about the Book of Mormon. "This is good. You want to read this, okay?" It was really funny. :)

 

Friday we met with the Links. They are less active. Bro. Link is stubborn...with a captial S! It was a good lesson. We found out a lot about why he doesn't want to come to church. We also found out they have a non-member living with them. So naturally we set up another appointment and invited the Links to have them come for the next lesson. We are hoping it goes well!

 

Saturday was painfully slow and SO hot! We did a lot of contacting. We didn't have any appointments and I think everyone went out of town for the 4th of July. We had dinner in the evening with the Christensens and went and visited Bro. King (not the one that lives in front of us). We discovered that Bro. King is a man of many talents! He speaks spanish, and is a very well rounded guitar player. We enlisted his skills with Enrique on Sunday and it went perfect!

 

Sunday was a hard day. Sis. Tillman had a rough day, but all is well now. Everyone came to church so that was good. We had dinner and a lesson with Bishop Ginn and his family. I though I was going to pass out from lack of water and the heat. Hooray for the power of fasting though. :)

 

I hope you all have a great week. I love each of you and appreicate all you do.

 

The Book of Mormon is the word of God and Joseph Smith translated it. I do know that.

 

Have a great week!

 

Love,

Sister J