Elder White's letter Apr. 10

This week was Fast and Testimony Meeting at church, and Man, do I miss church in Albertson! The first lady who got up has some mental instability-- like she checked herself out of a mental hospital because she was certain they were trying to kill her by giving her pills... How do I know that? She told the entire congregation all about it when she was bearing (perhaps “baring” is the more appropriate spelling in this case!) her "testimony." She was up there for 30 minutes and the bishop had to get up and ask her to sit down. It was terrible! These are a few choice quotes, one of which I actually like a lot.

•"Well, you may think 'Oh, it's her again--all jacked up,’ well, .. I am!"

•"God's changing me into a person that you really don't want to tango with." 

--and my personal favorite, which I will always remember:

•"This church is like McDonald's: a cheeseburger in Virginia is a cheeseburger in California."

         My interpretation of what she meant by that was: Wherever you go McDonald's is the same. A cheeseburger here is the same as it is at any other location, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the same everywhere you go. It doesn't matter if it's in Seattle, or in Paraguay, the Church is the same. So at least I pulled something from what she said.

         The part that I did like about church is: First of all, we have 7 Elders and a senior couple in the ward, which is a ton of missionaries! And Second: on Sunday about 25% of  the congregation members were black, which is amazing! This is a much more diverse ward than anywhere else I've been. Even in comparison to churches not of our faith, that is pretty diverse for here. Generally churches out here are primarily black, or primarily white. There are a decent amount of Latino churches, too. Our ward building is across the street from a Southern Baptist church, a Methodist church, and right next door to an Eastern Orthodox church. There are churches everywhere here!

         Last Monday President Weed (the mission president) and his wife, Sister Weed took us (just Elder Beeston and I) to the Newport News Mariner Museum, which was amazing, to me at least. They have all the artifacts from the USS Monitor and many from the CSS Merrimack. The battle between the two ironclads happened right offshore of where I am now. We saw the places where it actually happened. The Museum takes a fairly northern perspective. They make it sound like even though the battle was a draw, the Monitor was really the victor, but the Merrimack wrecked house and destroyed several Union war ships before the Monitor even got there. All in all, it was a very fun and historical P-day. Today we are going to Fort Monroe to see Robert E. Lee's old house and where Jefferson Davis was imprisoned! We also saw "Big Bethel" this week, which is the site of the first land battle of the Civil War.

         This week we have had a member come with us everyday of the week. That has been possible because the week before I got here there was a boundary change. We now cover the Langley Air Force Base and a good portion of  Newport News, so we have lots of work to do! Until next time I hope y'all have a Blessed week!

 

--Elder White