Colin White Letter—Week 22

Monday, March 28, 2016

 

This week we helped our friend who is the grounds keeper for some of the historic sites here in Edenton move some desks into an upstairs office in the courthouse. The court house here isn't just any courthouse though, it's the oldest one in the state, built in 1776! If you google “1776 Chowan County Courthouse” you'll see some pictures. He showed us around and even let us ring the bell in the bell tower and then took us up into the attic and let us explore and climb up through the clock part of the tower into the cupola with the bell in it. We had the best view of the whole town. 

   

We had dinner with the Long family here in the branch and Sister Long is from Washington! She's from just down the road—Mowich, by Mt.Rainier, and was neighbors with the notorious Mowich Mike who was an old hippy guy who drove an ancient Studebaker around.

   

By the way, this part is a gross story....On Thursday night I do believe I ate some under-cooked chicken at someone’s house, because Friday morning my stomach was tied up in a huge knot and I was in a pretty bad state of pain, but I figured I would be good. Unfortunately, by 11am I couldn't stand up without being out of breath and in tons of pain so we took our lunch break in a park in Plymouth next to this super-great old screwpile lighthouse. However I couldn't eat and I told Elder Pendlebury, "I know we are in a public park, but I really need a blessing." He gave me a priesthood blessing and I felt much better. Five minutes later I stood up and told him I was going to go to the bathroom, but as I stood up I immediately headed to a trash can by us. I made it just in time and I threw up like I never have before in my entire life. I threw up so hard I pulled several muscles in my back, my back and neck are still hurting quite a bit from that and it's 3 days later. The whole time I was puking (which felt like forever) this random black guy was watching me throw up telling me, "It all good man, get it all out, ‘n jus start again tomorrah" [tomorrow], which is pretty funny now that I look back at it.  Oddly enough all that was an almost immediate answer to the blessing because I felt much better--I just had no energy left to do anything including sitting in the car I was as tired as I was from climbing glacier peak with Noel last summer.

 

With a little (a lot) of rest I had just enough energy to go teach our super-awesome, really great Ukrainian investigator with a less-active couple, which could've been any better! Not only did the less-active members come teach with us, they came to church this Sunday with their son! 

The second lesson we taught with less-active members was on Saturday. First we located the less-active member's even less-active son, so now we can have his records moved here and we were teaching his girlfriend, who referred herself to us. She wants to learn about the church and make changes in her life. The lesson went so well it was impossible not to feel the Spirit it was so strong in the room until the moment I invited her to be baptized into the church and the first less-active member, who is her boyfriend's dad, stops us and says, "Don't push that subject right now. This is not the time! She doesn't need that right now. I'm telling you don't push it!", which instantly kicked the Spirit right out of the door. It was terrible. He didn't even give her time to respond, and when she did respond, she said, "Yeah, I guess I would," so it was totally pointless for him to say all of that stuff. In the end though, we were able to regain the good feeling that was there and she was so excited to have us come back and teach her all about the Book of Mormon which is practically my favorite thing to teach people.

 

Easter really made me miss home because we had lunch at a member’s house that is just like my Grandpa's and Judy’s house. The house was down a little lane through the woods and right on Ablemarle Sound, which isn't nearly as amazing as Puget Sound, but it was raining, so it just reminded me of home a lot. That and we had lamb and mint jelly for Easter dinner with several retired Episcopal clergymen. I don't like mint jelly, but the Episcopalians were very nice and listened to us read 2 Nephi chapter 9, which teaches the purpose of all of Christ's suffering for us and it kinda blew their minds. They had no idea what the Book of Mormon is like and one accepted a copy of it from us. All in all, another superb week! Have a blessed day Y'all!!

 

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-Elder White