Colin White Letter: 22 Feb. 2016, from Franklin, Virginia

Mormonettes and White Rice!!

 

This week I have felt tired every single day and I know that Grace is real, because without the enabling power of Grace, there is no way I could do all the things we missionaries do all day--every single day. At the start of this week our zone had a special training with President Baker and Sister Baker. At the training we spent most of the time role-playing how to teach the Temples and Family History lesson. The missionary department of the church is working on a new missionary pamphlet, on it so look out for that! It won’t be released for a few months though. During the training we practiced teaching it in 7 minutes, for the sake of time, and President Baker jokingly told us, "It's not a sin to go over 7 minutes---- It's a transgression." President Baker is really funny and will only be the mission president for a few more months. The new mission president will be President Weed.

We went and did service at the Habitat for Humanity “Restore” this week and the sisters were just leaving when we got there. One of the guys running the place said, "Hey look! It's the Mormons and the Mormonettes!" He was very nice, I just wasn't sure if it was offensive or not, but it was funny--that's for sure. We went out with Brother Almond this week. He’s the ward mission leader and one of my favorite people out here (along with many of the Franklin ward), but Brother Almond loves to give me all kinds of grief, every which way, but he only does that because he loves me so much--haha. We taught a few lessons with him and there's this one investigator who never wears a shirt when we are over, but luckily it was really cold that day so he put on tank top when we taught him with Brother Almond!

We went to knock on a potential investigators’ doors, and while we were doing that, Brother Almond went and talked to this random guy on his porch and when he came back our conversation went a little like this:

"You're not going to believe the peculiar question that guy just asked me!" 

we responded,  "What? What did he ask you?"

Brother Almond then told us, "He just asked 'hey those two young men over there knocking on that door,  is that.. is that--White Rice?!'" 

We said, "Brother Almond quit pullin’ our leg! There's no way he just asked you that!"

And that all brought the "White Rice" jokes this transfer to a count of 32 so far with a week to go of this transfer. We will see next Monday what the total comes out to be. Elder Rice and I, no matter how hard we work, we will mostly likely always be known here in Franklin as "White Rice."

We also did service for a Brother and pretty much dug out a driveway in his front yard, so my arms are still sore three days later. We taught an investigator the Word of Wisdom this week. That's always an interesting lesson. He responded by saying, "Now how long am I supposed to abstain from these things?" We said, "Umm, well, your whole life."  Then he responded, "Wait, wait. Hold on just a minute!...Now alcohol I understand, but COFFEE and TEA! I be drinkin’ sweet tea everyday!" Funny enough he agreed to try the Word of Wisdom even though that was his response.

 We also went to the scout troop’s spaghetti dinner and the youth who are in scouts served us. The scouts here are part of a community troop. Troop 17 has been continuously chartered for over 100 years and has something like 70 scouts. They meet in this massive Methodist church just outside of town.

All in all, another great week. Just wait ‘til next week to find out if I get transferred or not!! Have a blessed week!
                                   ---Elder White