Colin's letter:

Deer family, friends, and anyone and everyone who reads this,

       It is deer season here in Virginia so we hear people shooting all the time and I just hope the gunshots we hear are from hunters.... The other day we saw a hunting party of about 35 people rallied up in a field. I was rather confused as to how to hunt deer with 35 people?

But anywho, this week has been wonderful. I've had amazing food all week including authentic North Carolina barbecue and unbelievably good homemade bread and soup (not nearly as good as mom's canned soup though;) !

My favorite food experience this week was dinner at Brother Johnson's house. Brother Johnson is the kindest person. He loves kids so much. He is super dyslexic—extremely, but with faith and help from the Holy Spirit he has read the Book of Mormon three times all the way through and understood it. Brother Johnson buys and sells old things to make money from old posters, swords to World War One training rifles. He’s got the coolest stuff! The only thing is, all of that stuff he has is all in his little 900-or-so square foot home, so that means there was really interesting, awesome old stuff pilled up to shoulder height everywhere in his house. There were boxes full of everything, old oil paintings from the 1800's to everything. So there we sat, me next to one pile of stuff (including a bin with 5 or 6 swords), and there at the only clear spot on the entire kitchen counter sat Elder Davis, barely visible over the stacks of stuff. In this house there's only space for one person to walk at a time. The house isn't dirty and gross, it's just full of an insane amount of stuff. He fried us up battered, fresh-caught Speckle that he got fishing that day, and potatoes. It made me feel just like back at home in Seattle eating fish and chips.

We also had dinner at the Moore’s. Brother Moore was in the Coast Guard and worked on drug patrols in the gulf of Mexico and out of San Francisco patrolling the California coast. Now he owns a company that makes weapon management systems and super high-tech radar systems for all branches of the military and some private contractors. Told him about some of your crazy stories, Dad. He thought they were really great.      

But enough about food and dinners. This week we taught over 15 lessons total, to every kind of person available to date--from an almost illiterate practically deaf guy on his porch (we had to yell the whole Restoration to him), to wealthy business-owner kind of people. We have been in the nicest biggest houses I've ever been in and the smallest most rundown homes I've ever seen. This week we strove to follow the Spirit on all our decisions more fully, and because of that, we have three new investigators and a lot of people who have a return appointment set. We have found that the more we follow the Spirit, the more people we find to teach and the more courageous we are about talking to them.

One guy we found and taught this week was Jermaine. He is one of the most knowledgeable people I've met when it comes to the Bible. He understands it so well, he even understands a lot about personal revelation, the Atonement, and he is totally following the commandments. He even quit smoking and drinking, and he overcame problems with morality and things in his life to better follow Christ. Jermaine is so ready to hear the Restored Gospel, so ready.... except for one thing: he refuses to read any of The Book of Mormon, because he says he prayed about it and God told him it was a lie and that the only word of God is the Bible....I was just thinking, “But how can you know it’s false if you haven't even picked it up?”  I was surprised he wasn’t struck down by heaven because we were in the church building sitting underneath the painting of Jesus coming to the Lamanites and people from the book of 3rd Nephi! Either way though, I am sure at one point in his life his heart will be softened and he will understand what we had taught him and will really listen to what the missionaries have to say. In the middle of the week we got the strangest text message from him it said,

"Hey guys it's Jermaine, I have just one question... do y'all believe in hell-fire?"

When I picked up the phone in our apartment during lunch and saw that message I couldn't help but to start laughing because it was just so strange and random.

Emmett, Donte, (and Donte's wife Sherita now too!!!) are progressing very well towards baptism. Donte and Sherita as of our last lesson have their eyes set on the Temple and Eternal Marriage. I have never felt God's love so strongly about someone else and when we told Donte that in two years when his youngest son turns 8 years old that Donte would be able to baptize him, Donte was so excited he thought that, that was the most amazing thing ever. When we showed them a photo of the Washington D.C. temple they were both silent for a second and then both were like, "Wow, its so beautiful!"

So, all in all, it’s been another great week here in Franklin, Virginia. Its starting to get real cold now but the cold air feels nice, so its all good. See (write) y'all next week! Have a blessed day--

-Elder White

 P.S. We went to Murfreesboro, North Carolina this week (yes, part of NC is in our ward boundaries). In the middle of the street there was a group of 8 guys having a craps game in the street! They were right there in the middle of the street shooting dice and betting money and everything!!!! For a second I thought to myself ..."Man, what planet am I on? This ain’t never happened back home in Bothell, Washington!"