Letter from Colin:

Dear everyone,

It wasn’t possible for this week to be bad. General Conference was just too good, so anything else that may have happened throughout the week that wasn't great didn't seem so bad at all.

 

One thing that happened was that transfer calls were on Saturday. We were sure that Elder Garcia would stay here, but the assistants to the Mission President called us and Elder Garcia will be leaving this Wednesday, going to Norfolk, Virgina. Elder Grow will be coming here to Albertson to be with me. Other interesting transfer news is that Elder Pitts, and Dennison are staying in my last area in Edenton, and Elder Pendlebury, who is the first missionary I was with in Edenton is leaving Franklin (my first area) and going to Elizabeth City to be the District Leader over Elder Pitts and Dennison. I do feel a little left-out of that party, but I am so glad to be staying here in Albertson. I love this ward so much. Missionary work is kind of hard here, but as far as the ward goes, it's pretty much the “promised land.”

  

Vincent, our Investigator who is set to be baptized on October 29^th, is doing well. We are going to go to his shop and teach him and then help him drop an engine back into an old Chevy pickup this week (at least we have planned to). On Friday nights at the church we are having some members and less-active members bring their friends and we all play basketball and then, hopefully, we will be able to teach a lesson at the end of the night. Last Friday was the first time we have done this and there are already a bunch of new people that we will hopefully be able to teach soon! Colton, one of the ward members here, is a returned-missionary and he brought all of his super black friends to play ball with us. Everyone was infinitely better at playing basketball than I, so it was a little humiliating, but it all worked out really well.

 

This week we also taught a guy who was on meth while we were teaching him... I didn't realize it until we were well into the lesson. Out here Meth is a big issue even though we are so far into the country. All over the place there are signs that say, "Meth: Stop before you Start!" or other kinds of signs for drug recovery help. The guy who we taught was extremely knowledgeable on the Bible though, which is strange because you don't really think being a drug addict and scriptorian goes hand-in-hand together, but he was. He knew it all so well. I have discovered, oddly enough, that Ministers are not the ones down here who know the most about what is actually in the Bible (most of them, in all reality, understand little of what it actually teaches). I have met people who have spent years in prison, and they are most knowledgeable about the scriptures. When we talked to this man about the Atonement of Jesus Christ, he responded by explaining to us the significance of animal sacrifices from the law of Moses, and of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son, Issac. He knew and understood the symbolic nature of scripture very well, while most ministers out here believe we are literally going to burn for eternity. This man, whose religious training was solely reading the Bible in prison, understood that what the Bible speaks of is a symbolic burning. It will be the burning of our of consciousness and our painful guilt before our Heavenly Father if we do not repent and change our lives to follow Christ. He understood very well that was exactly how he will feel if he does not change his life, so maybe we can help. All-in-all another good week: 11 days till “hump day.”  I hope y'all have a blessed week!

 

-- Elder White