This Sunday James Jones spoke in church. He is truly happy because he lives the gospel. His, is the frequently quoted saying in this ward, "If you want to be happy like James Jones, then you have to live the gospel!" During his talk he started out by saying that he has a hard time getting started when he speaks in church because he has so much to say. He said, and I quote, (seriously, he said this in Sacrament meeting) "I feel like a mosquito in a nudist colony: I know what to do, but I don't know where to start!" He also told a story about a young man parked in a car with this girl and she said, "If you get the car-top down-- I'll give you a kiss!” The boy quick gets out and in 45 minutes had the top down on the car. While the boy recounted this experience to his friend, his friend said, "Boy, 45 minutes! If it were me, I would’a had it down in less than 5 minutes." Then the first boy says, "Yeah, but your car is a convertible!" I feel that story is probably a bit of a tall tale, but it actually was related to his talk--believe it our not. He said we need motivation to do things, and our motivation to keep the commandments of God comes from the temporal, and eternal spiritual blessings that Heavenly Father promises us for keeping His commandments. Then he bore powerful and sincere testimony of how keeping the commandments has blessed him in the last 53 years that he has been a member of this church (he got baptized when he was about 23).
In other news, this week I accidentally invented a new Southern-sounding word. As we were walking into our trailer I was telling Elder Grow about something another missionary tried and I said, "Y'all know he's the only one who ever trynakindadoneit." That breaks down to: "try-na-kinda-done-it" which would translate into normal English as, "you-know-he-is-the-only-one -who-ever-tried-to kind-of-do-it." I mean people round here don't even say that! I definitely don't have an accent when I speak compared to the local people, but I say weird stuff like that. Here it's interesting because people in Albertson sound different from people in Edenton, and people in Edenton sound different from those in Kilkenny and people on the western side of the state sound different too. Here in Albertson people always call each other "Shug" like sugar with out the "ar." Nowhere else do people say that all the time, or things like, "He grow'd up here," but in Edenton the real locals would say something like, "Y'all been knowin," or, "I've been knowin’," or things like, "I've been round here for a minute now," but I haven't heard anyone here in Albertson say those things.
It's interesting how we all have different phrases and words that we say depending on our background or culture, or even just a short difference in geographic location. We have the same thing in the Church. We have words like: Atonement, Gospel, Ordinance, Priesthood, Revelation, or words like “proxy,” or “vicarious.” Those are all words commonly used within the Church, but being a missionary teaching people, some who have never gone to a church--these words have no meaning to them. For example, we use the word "Gospel" all the time, but if someone doesn't know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is: faith, baptism, the gift of The Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end, then telling them that “by living the Gospel,” they will be happy does not really teach them much of anything. Or if we say, because of the Atonement you can be forgiven of your sins and mistakes--unless you know exactly what the Atonement is, that sentence most likely does not mean a whole lot to you, but when you learn in depth the incredibly significant meaning behind these words, then when you hear them, you know that they are of eternal consequence for every one of us. So sometimes as a missionary teaching people, it is a struggle to teach these things simply enough for people to understand what they are, but in the end, all of it is incredibly simple, which is why I think it is strange that it is hard to teach simply.
All in all, it has been a great week. Elder Grow flies home in 4 days, so I will be in Mt. Olive for most of the next 2 weeks, but I will be back and forth a bit so I can still get mail at the 925 Piney Grove, Deep Run, NC 28525 address. I hope y'all have a blessed week!
-- Elder White
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