Colin White “Week 21”  Letter March 21, 2016

From Edenton, North Carolina

 

This week was rather tiring, but that's good--that means we are working hard, at least it feels like it!

 

The most Important thing this week was our new investigator who is amazing! She is Ukrainian, but was adopted by a family here when she was younger. She's in her mid-20's and still has a very strong Ukrainian accent, but since she has lived here for so long, she uses words, phrases, and speech patterns from here in the south. She has a "southern" Ukrainian accent. She was a referral from her American grandfather who we taught but is not interested. He told us his granddaughter might be interested. We went to go see her--and she was interested so we came back later that same day with a member to teach her. She not only listened and participated in the lesson, but she accepted the invitation to be baptized and has a date set in April! Not only that, she then asked if she could get a ride to church on Sunday!

Then Saturday morning came. It was raining and we were off to go to a funeral at the church, so it was kind of a dismal sort of day. Right before we left the house we got a text from our new investigator saying, "I've talked it over with my family and I'm not going to come to your church tomorrow. I'm going to stick with the church I was going to." We were devastated. She was going to be the first investigator in 6 months to come to church in this area, but mostly we were disappointed because we know how much joy this Church has brought into our lives and the peace and rest that it offers. That said, this week I promised I was going to be more persistent and wouldn't give up easily. . .     What followed felt like the most extended and stressful conversation via text messaging I have ever been a participant of, but nevertheless, with much prayer and help from the Spirit (and quite a bit of long-suffering, I might add) we answered many of her questions and concerns and referred her to discover.mormon.org (which is an superb website by the church that everyone should look up! It's relatively new). She actually went on the website and talked to online missionaries.  What felt like an eternity later---that day, we received a message from her saying she had changed her mind. She felt like this was the right thing to do and that she was going to come to church after all! Anyone who has been a missionary, or had a similar experience, can imagine our relief.

Then Sunday, we were at church early to set up the Sacrament and we got a phone call. . . . I picked up and it was our investigator! I just knew she was going to cancel on us, but she didn't! She called to tell us she didn't need a ride because her friend was going to drive her! This Sunday was the perfect Sunday for her and three less-active people we have been working with to come to church. President and Sister Baker, the mission president and his wife, came and spoke. They said exactly what the people who came to church with us needed to hear. It was all about the Atonement and God's love for us. Elder Pendlebury and I then taught the Gospel Principles Class in the smallest classroom in a church building I have ever been in--with more people than could really fit in the room. After church, while talking to our new investigator, we learned that her mother had been telling her very bad things (lies) about our church and was strongly discouraging her to come, which was confusing to her, because she felt like this was the right thing to do. What her mom told her didn't seem to match with what we had taught her, and that was the reason for her saying she wouldn't come. We have an appointment set to go teach her with the branch president, so we will see on Tuesday how this might all work out.

All in all this weekend was full of lots of prayers and many answers to those prayers.

     On Friday we went with the Branch Mission leader to go teach a person up in Winfall. We couldn't find the address and as we were backing up to turn around to go back down the other direction, we were doing just fine when THUD! Brother Bond backed up too far! the car was in a ditch at a 45-degree angle looking up at the sky, directly in front of the Jehovah Witness' Kingdom Hall!!  We were high-centered and stuck with no hope to be able to get the car out on our own. We sat there trying to find someone to call with a truck to pull us out. About 15 minutes later, this guy in a massive diesel Chevy truck stopped and pulled us out of the ditch as I directed traffic around us. Luckily there was no damage caused to Brother Bond's car, but when we found the right house it was too late, they were gone. All our backup plans fell through just as fast as we had backed up into the ditch, so he took us back and we didn't get to even teach anyone!

This week we got invited into a less-active members’ home that was built in 1758. It has doors that are 5'11" tall and has old-growth hardwood flooring that is 3 inches thick. Each floorboard was about 6 inches wide. That house was built like none other. It was incredible.

Also this week, we started driving down a road and at the exact same time we both got this nasty-bad feeling that we shouldn't be there, so we immediately turned the car around and went somewhere else. We may never know why, or what might have happened, but it's better to follow the guidance of the Spirit than to wait and see what would've happened.

All in all 'twas a good week and I am very glad to be here! Hope y'all have a blessed week!   

     -Elder White