Colin Letter: Week 18, from Franklin Virginia, one last time.

February 29, 2016

 

Well, Well, Well, this is good bye to Franklin, Virginia for me. I'm headed south to the Albmarle Branch in Edenton, North Carolina (it's actually in the village of St. John. Look it up. It's pretty small!) It's the biggest geographic area in the entire mission and there's only about 30-40 active members compared to the 100-115 active members here in the Franklin Ward--so it's small, but the area is massive.

 

Here's some funny/cool things I've heard people say this week:

"I swear I'm not a heathen"

                       -One of our investigators

"Yeah, but the guy who made the Ten Commandments is a lot smarter than the guys who made this country's laws!"        

-Ward member in Sunday School  

While at dinner at a member's home we were eating a pork roast and their 4 year-old daughter and other children had this conversation:

                       Kat (the youngest) "Ooooo, I love chicken!"

                       Mckenzie (older sister 9 years old) "Silly Kat, that's not chicken. It's meat!"

Christopher (8 year old brother) "....Chicken is meat."

Mckenzie responds, "WHAT? I thought chicken was just chicken!"

                      Then Brother Jones tells Kat, "Don't worry Kat, I'll get you some good tasting chicken." 

                                               *plates her up some of the pork roast*

                              And tells us, "If she thinks it's chicken, she will eat anything!"

 

Anyway back to my week, this week was very interesting. On Wednesday there were a total of 3 sighted tornadoes. None hit Franklin, but we could see the outer wall of the whole storm pass by us. In Waverly, which is about 50 miles west of Franklin, 4 people died, and they were related to Brother Washington our recent convert! Mind you, that's all information from locals because we don’t watch TV or the news at all while we are on our missions. We were safe, just had crazy rain and thunder storms above us, but because it was a tornado warning, we had to go back to our apartment--So all of our lessons Wednesday night fell through.  

 

Another lesson fell through because the guy wasn't home from work yet, and our backup plan fell through as well, so we were standing on the street debating where to go next when I said to Elder Rice, 

                     "Hey, is that Keithon?" 

He responded, "No, we can’t go see Keithon--he lives on the other side of town and we don’t have a lot of miles left to use."

           I quickly told him, "NO, LOOK--right there walking down the street past us: It's Keithon!"

           Elder Rice then said, "Oh wait, that IS Keithon!"

So we quickly walked in the direction he was walking and said, “Hi,” but he was in a hurry to get somewhere . . .

         

 

Saturday was fun. We got transfer calls in the middle of a lesson and the call was from President Baker. If he calls it's because either Elder Rice, or I, will be getting a leadership position. So after the lesson we called him back, and luckily, I'm not getting a leadership position--but Elder Rice is! He is staying here in Franklin to train a new missionary, which means that there will have been a new “greeny” missionary in the Franklin Ward for a year straight.

 

Several months ago I said I would be transferred to the Albemarle Branch, and now, I am! I told that to President Baker and he said, "Why didn't you tell me that!? That would've made my job a heck of a lot easier!" He was just joking, of course. President Baker is super funny.

   

Yesterday we went out with two of the youth in the ward and we went to an investigator’s house but the home-owner was not the investigator! It was her 18 year-old daughter's best friend, who apparently lives with them. She goes to school with one of the youth who was with us and when she opened the door you could just see the awkward pain go through him, especially because they have a class together. She opened the door and was like, "Oh, . . . Hey, Adam. How’s it going?" She agreed to let us teach her, so we sat down and were about to start when her mom called and told her she was coming to pick her up in a few minutes. In the end, we didn't get to teach her, and you could tell Adam was like, "Man I just dodged that bullet!" But it was fun. Going to teach with the youth is always a highlight of my missionary work.

Well, have a blessed week all y'all. You'll hear from me next week from Edenton, N.C. 

 Here's my new address!!      

                                      Elder White

                                      711 Mcmullan Ave.

                                      Edenton NC, 27932