Colin's letter:

Yesterday when we got in our car after church the car thermometer said it was a cozy 80 degrees out..... today it's 50... and last night we had a torrential downpour of rain.....that lasted 34 seconds, and then it all cleared up.  I thought the weather in Seattle was weird and unpredictable, but it's got nothin’ on this here eastern North Carolina weather!

 

Yesterday in Fast and Testimony meeting a youth from the ward bore his testimony on not judging people so harshly. He said, "As I was thinking about getting up here, I started thinking 'people probably don't want to hear what I have to say, or they won't care what I think,' then I realized that I was judging myself about how other people would judge me for getting up here and speaking about judging each other... It's insanity."

 

After church we took that youth to some lessons with us. He saw a chess set in one of our investigator's home and after some talk about chess, Cameron, "the youth," challenged Rick, "our investigator," to a chess match (Rick had just been talking up his chess skills quite a lot). Cameron beat him so badly, I mean Cameron lost 3 pawns in the whole match, and Rick lost every key piece and  was left only with pawns when Cameron Check-Mated him. I feel like we probably shouldn't have let them play chess because the guy we were teaching was kinda frustrated about it all when we actually started the lesson, and afterwards Cameron told us that he felt kind of bad because he was honestly trying to go easy against him. So a word of wisdom: Don't let the member you bring to a lesson duel it out in a chess match with the person you're trying to teach before you even start the lesson.

     

The other day we were driving down the Guy Sanderson Road (all the roads here are named after the first guy to live there, or whatever. Church is on that road).  While we were driving I was pointing out a few houses that belonged to some members of the ward and outside of the Harpers’ house (that doesn't tell you much--There are 50 Harpers on the roster and like 10 live on Guy Sanderson Road), we saw Sister Harper who is 87 years old,  outside putting up birdhouses, so we stopped the car to help her. Out here when you pass people's homes, many times you'll see tall poles with several cross members on which hang gourds that have a big hole drilled in them  so that Purple Martins can nest in them when they migrate back here during summer. We ended up placing 80 gourds, 25 at her house and then we followed her to her son's house to put up 55 gourds at his place! Each of the gourds Sister Harper grew in her garden and over the years has dried them out painted them white with a special paint and cut the hole in each of them, and then has put them up every year for the last two decades. I have never seen a Purple Martin, but they must be pretty great if people put this much effort into making places for them to nest. We enjoyed helping her and after all we had prayed right before leaving our trailer that we'd be able to serve someone that morning, and that prayer was definitely answered.

 

So much  happened this week--we even had a less-active member that we work with come to church, and she even bore her testimony in Sacrament Meeting! But until next time, I hope y'all have a blessed week!

       

-- Elder White