Letter first, then photo:

Colin White Letter

1/11/16—Franklin, Virginia

This week was delightful; so many things happened. Unfortunately I didn't bring my journal with me as I'm writing this--so I'm not sure all what happened this week, but I know it was good, just too much to remember! I'll do my best to write something of significance.

Earlier this week we went Gatesville, North Carolina to see people and contact referrals. It’s about an hour south of Franklin and we passed by Merchants Millpond State Park which is a super amazing place. It's a big cypress swamp and lake that has alligators, turtles and all kinds of fish. In the park they even have canoe camping along Bennett's Creek. 

Here in Franklin it seems like everyone has cataracts in their eyes, diabetes, and everyone has had at least one stroke, some even 5 or 6 strokes. Obviously not everyone has all of those, but it feels like there isn't a day that goes by where we don't talk to a handful of people that have those problems. People with bad vision or extremely low reading levels make it so hard for them understand everything we teach, because everything we have to help them is more or less reading material that we ask people to read, for themselves. People can’t read the Book of Mormon and pray to know its true if they can't understand even the introduction, so we do our best to explain to people very simply and clearly the message that we teach, but that doesn't always mean they understand.   

     Sometimes people here with super bad tooth aches or bad dental problems just get their teeth pulled instead of getting it properly treated. It is cheaper to just get them pulled out. We are teaching multiple people who only have 3 or 4.... ---or 0 teeth. However, the number teeth people have doesn't affect how good of a person they are. The most open and the best people to talk to are almost always the ones who don't have much of anything, but they have much more to offer by way of stories and life experiences. Out here there is such a wide divide between the wealthy and the impoverished. We almost never talk to or teach people that are well-to-do mostly because a good majority of those people here just won’t listen to you at all. 

    My Favorite experience this week was a lesson with an investigator named Tabatha. She had two strokes in December and it hasn't been until this week that we were able to actually teach her. Her left side still doesn't work all to well. She can’t really do anything with her left hand, but none of that gets her down! She knows that God will help her because He always does. We took Brother Washington (Emmett, who got baptized 4 weeks ago) and it turns out that they know each other! They even grew up together. They've been friends for 40 years or so. This was the first time they had seen each other in months and she had no idea he had gotten baptized and she was so excited to see him. The spirit was so strong in the lesson and when we got towards the end Tabatha told us, "I really gotta set a baptism date with y'all. I need this in my life." Brother Washington was the perfect person to take to that lesson. It strengthened not only her, but him, too.   

On the way back from the lesson Brother Washington said, “Boy! We just gettin started! This just the beginnin’ I needa come out with y'all all da time. Just come get me, and I'll come!" When the members come out to lessons with us it automatically makes the lesson so much better.

    That’s all that I can think of to write this week. Have a blessed day, all y'all!!! 

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-Elder White

:)

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