Elder CS White—Monday, August 8, 2016—Edenton, North Carolina

 

It was raining this morning, so I assumed it would be nice and cool--but no, it was still at least 80 degrees outside!

 

Everyday we text out a whole scripture from the Book of Mormon to a lot of our investigators, and some less-active members. It takes a lot of effort to find a scripture everyday (especially not repeating any after 4 months) and then to type out the whole scripture on our little flip phone is fairly difficult too, so it's always nice to hear the affect it has on the people who read it. . .

 

. . . Well, sometimes it's nice to hear-- but just this week, on Sunday, we sent out an uplifting scripture from 2nd Nephi and an inactive sister, who a long time ago said she would like it if we sent her a scripture of the day, texted us back telling us to "get off her *donkey*" but she used the biblical term for donkey if you know what I'm sayin’, then she told us to delete her from our contacts and never speak to her again..... so that wasn't exactly what we were expecting to hear. However in response to the same scripture verse yesterday we had a different less-active member text us and tell us that he really wants to change and wants to meet with us this week, and that he wants to start coming back to church! Why the two drastic differences in response to the same scripture I do not fully know, but it's interesting how that works out.

 

Last month, similarly, a different less-active member, in response to our scripture, told us to never talk to him again, but to the very same scripture, an investigator told us that she was at work and was having a horrific day, she was about to walk out and quit, but then her phone went off. It was our text with the scripture, she read that scripture, and prayed, and she told us that it was the absolutely most perfect scripture she could have read at that moment. Because of it, she decided not to quit, and it gave her the strength to make it through that trial. Those are just two examples of the miracles that have happened from just a simple scripture each day from the Book of Mormon. Although there have been several very negative responses, I believe that overall it has been well worth our time.

 

On Saturday we went with a member to the far reaches of our area, the furthest member we visited was about 70 miles from where we live. The member we went with is a Cahoon. He was born and raised down there, and believe me, it's out in the sticks like I've never seen before. His uncle lives across the street from the house he was born in, and drives his big old John Deer farm tractor right up on his front yard, all the way up to the front porch-- so he can step off the tractor, right onto the porch, and into the living room at the end of his work day on the farm. Now the Cahoon name is big down there in Hyde County and so is Brickhouse, Smith, and a few other family names. We were in a little hole-in-the-wall place for lunch in Englehard, right on the edge of our area, and when we walked in, Brother Cahoon, who we were with, went over and started talking to some seemingly random people. When he came back, he told us that he’d just met a couple of his cousins who he never even knew existed. Everyone down there is related in some way or another. Everyone is cousins of some relation, down there. If two people have the same last name they are 100%, most-definitely, related to each other--and even if they don't have the same last name, they're still probably related to each other!

 

As we were driving back home, we were in Fairfield, and Brother Cahoon stopped and told us to take a picture of this 116-year-old wooden warehouse shed-thing that was used by steamboats that ran up and down all the big canals to pick up cotton and corn and stuff from all the farms. It turns out that decades ago, around World War II,  the very first Mormon missionaries to ever go down to that area went down, and no one received them, no one would feed them, or let them stay overnight, and they ended up being run out of town--so that big old woodshed is where they hid and spent the night before they got out of the area. As they were leaving, they brushed the dust off their feet at the people of that area. For years that area suffered, and no missionary work whatsoever happened. The economy started to die and people left, and things got bad for everyone there. Although since that time, one of the past Stake Presidents went and blessed and reopened that area for the work of the Lord, it has never fully recovered. The population is still declining. Nothing is improving. 

 

The most interesting lesson we taught this week was to this funny old black guy who was a media referral. He requested a Bible, and when we got there and were teaching him about the Restoration, he asked us if we were ordained (which we are), so we told him, “Yes,” and then he wanted us to consecrate some oil for him. He really understood nothing of what we shared with him, but he knew enough that he didn't have the authority to consecrate oil for the anointing of the sick and afflicted. We tried to explain to him that even if we were to do that for him, he still couldn't use it, but he didn't get it. Still, he wants us to come back and teach him about The Book of Mormon so that's good.

Well that is all that time permits me to write about this week, so until next time, I hope y'all have a blessed week!

-- Elder White