Monday, January 18, 2016

Dear Anyone Who Reads This,

   This week was transfers. Elder Davis is being transferred to Bennett's Creek to be a zone leader and I'm staying here in Franklin to take over the area with Elder Rice... I'm guessing that there will be quite a few jokes about us being: Elders White and Rice. It is rather scary to be taking over the area because now the fate of missionary work in Franklin depends on my organization and motivation to work and know the area, but I will be fine I'm trying not to worry about it too much.

   

  Some memorable quotes from this past little bit from locals or something I read in my studies.

 "Television is the mouthpiece of the devil!"

       -Really, really old guy in the ward during a priesthood meeting

 "Newel K. Whitney! Thou art the man."

        -Joseph Smith Jun.

 (read more about that story its pretty awesome)

"Today I'm going to speak on prophets, that is prophets with a 'ph'."

         -Brother Muldowney's talk in Sacrament meeting

 

This week for the first time I was very grateful that a teaching appointment fell through, because then we talked to the guy's neighbor who then gave us a referral for a seemingly random house a block away. This is what happened when we knocked on the door of the referral:

 We knock, and a man comes to the door. He opens the door and says, "Y'all Mormons!?" (that's almost never said in a positive way when you knock on someone’s door). We respond, "Yes, yes we are." At this point we were just waiting for him to tell us to get off his property, but then he says, "Alright! That's What's up! It's cold outside Elders, come on in!"

 "You got some good word for me? ‘Cause I really need it."  So then we taught him and even set him with a baptismal date. That is my favorite miracle this week, not the only one, but I think my favorite!

   One of many funny things that happened this week was our trip to Eure, North Carolina. We were getting close (“close,” as in 9 or 10 miles away,) to where this person lived and we decided to take the route the GPS suggested.... down a dirt forest road, that consisted of only pot holes there were no smooth parts.... so we drove and kept on driving for about 35, 40 min and it just kept going and then about 4 miles or so into the road we came around a corner and....... there was a gate.. and it was locked with no way around it..... By the time we had turned around and driven all the way back down the road to the main road we started on we were out of time and had to drive back, we didn't even get to go where we were actually planning to go! 

One other funny event was our painting of Brother Cantrell's ceiling. We painted it white with the paint he told us to use, and we had a great time, and they joked about how we were just training for the celestial kingdom, because after all, someone has to paint all those many mansions white! Not 10 seconds after we finished his wife comes in... and she asked Brother Cantrell, "What paint did you use?" He pointed to the can, and extremely frustrated, she  states, "I told you to wait until I was home to paint!!!!! That's not the paint for the ceiling! That was the Glossy enamel paint for the window sills and the trim!!!!" Sooooo, now the Cantrell's have an extremely shiny ceiling in the living room of the old house they're renovating... We felt bad, but it kind of was just a little bit funny. All in all, a wonderful week. Thank you all for the wonderful letters getting letters in the mail is the best thing ever as a missionary! Have a blessed day! 

--

-Elder White