Monday, February 20, 2017

Colin's letter:
During a lesson I asked if our investigator still had his “Plan of Salvation” pamphlet and he said, "Yes, but it's over there on the floor." When I asked why, he said he threw it at his cat because the cat was being irritating, and I told him, "That's okay, the cat needs Jesus, too."  They just fell apart laughing and it totally threw off the whole lesson so I felt a little bad, but it was really funny in the moment.
We went with a member named Joe, in his late 70's (and his mom is still alive. She's like 98!), to visit a member whose name is Harold. He is less-active because he has an inoperable brain tumor that is slowly killing him. When he saw that we had brought Joe with us he said to us, "Joe here is one of my oldest friends!" I said, "Oh, really? I didn't know that," and Harold said to me, "I haven't known Joe for that long--he's just older than the rest of my friends!" We all laughed, but really, Harold has a positive attitude and still can laugh and joke about things even though he's dying, which is something impressive to me.
 
We went on Exchange with the Mt.Olive Elder's this week and Elder Weise (said like wee-see) came here to Albertson with me. He's been a missionary for less than a month now, but he's so great. He's 21 years-old and reminds me of Cole Jones in every way--they are almost identical people. While on Exchange we went out to teach with Ben Jones, who's one of my favorite people that I've met in North Carolina, and his girlfriend came with us, too, so we had 4 people which was fun. We went and taught one of our investigators who lives in a janky trailer that isn't particularly, well.. clean. Ben's girlfriend wasn't exactly thrilled to be there in that trailer, but mostly because it's full of cats and she is allergic to cats—so throughout the lesson our investigator fended off the cats from crawling on her by whacking them with a broom handle. After that lesson we went to a taco truck and the guy taking our order did not speak English, which made it difficult since we don't speak Spanish.
 
Also while on Exchange, Elder Weise came with me to visit a person who is super racist. The first time I was at his house he was telling me about all the things he hates about black people. I was sure that he was only joking, so I went along with it.... Turns out he wasn't joking. He is actually super racist and now he likes me a lot because he thinks I am racist, too!! I'm not racist. I don't hate anyone! This time we were talking to his kid, who is 6 years-old,  and were asking him about what he was learning in school (he's home schooled). He told us he was learning about Muslims, and in my head all I could think was,  “Oh no... !!”  He was telling us about Baghdad and I asked him if he'd ever want to go there. He said, "NO WAY!! That's where all the Muslims are!" and then he told us about how he hates Muslims. This kid is only 6 years-old and he already has a hatred for certain groups of people,  which reminded me of the Lamanites in the Book of Mormon and how generation after generation hated the Nephites solely because their fathers hated the Nephites. As we were leaving and drove out past their Confederate flag, I reminded Elder Weise where we were and told him, "Just in case you haven't noticed, we are really in the South down here."
 
All in all, this week was good and full of lots of great learning experiences, but until next week--I hope y'all have a blessed day!   
     
--Elder White

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