November!

 

 

Hello everyone! Here's some beautiful North Carolina in the Fall scenery for you :) But of course I can't do it justice with my camera. But I'll try :) This week we went on exchanges with North Wilksboro. Sister Mortinsen ( who is actually from the Parkway Stake in South Jordan and I knew her from High School, not very well but I knew who she was)  and that was fun! She is a very hard worker. She is one of the hardest working missionaries I know. They had a baptism last week from a person they met knocking doors! Sometimes it is frustrating and tiring when you have to to tracting instead of working with members or less actives (that is the better way) but sometimes you do have to do tracting, and sometimes it is successful! They met a girl who got baptized last week and wants to go on a mission next year. What do you know. 

On Wednesday we had District Meeting, it was our District Leader's last district meeting, so he was pretty emotional and having a hard time. We have learned a lot from him this transfer though, and he is a good missionary. It is weird when people do go home and move on with life. Here, you only know them as a missionary and sometimes you forget they are real people with real lives too. On Thursday was Halloween. What do missionaries do on Halloween you might ask? Good question. Well first we went to a members house who had a party for some members in the ward. We ate with them, and all of their neighbors thought we were in costume. I think in their heads they said "Oh mormon party, and they are dressed up as missionaries! Funny!" Ha ha. But then we went to another members house who had all of her neighbors over for a neighborhood party and we got to meet a lot of people. We met a guy from Belgium, and I told him my Dad lived in Belgium for two years so I got some cool points there. ( I also have a picture of ya'll on my scriptures I pull out to show people :) ) Then we went back to our apartment, our neighbor Sandra, she is an old catholic lady from Columbia. She is super nice, not really interested in coming to church, but she likes us, we remind her of her daughters. We were supposed to proselyte, but obviously knocking doors won't be effective, and setting appointments with anyone on Halloween will be distracting. So we asked if we could watch a movie with her. We watched "The Testaments of one fold and one Shepard" with her. She doesn't have a TV in her living room, just in her room. So we sat on her bed and watched it :) It was SO Fun and we had a blast. She is the funniest, cutest lady. She also accepted a Book of Mormon after the movie! Sweet! 

Friday we had Missionary Leadership Council. All of the Zone Leaders, Sister Training Leaders, assistants and President and Sister Craven go to it. I love those meetings. The Assistants trained on how to work with members, praying WITH them to find people to teach. President talked about how in October, there was a low number of baptisms, and how we can improve next month and month after to still meet our goal for the year. We counseled together on what happened, and how we can do better. Right after the meeting, we drove to Kannapolis to go on exchange with them. I was SO excited because I got to go with Sister Buckley. She is the sweetest Sister who actually came out with me, but I have never been companions with her but we have always wanted to. I got to spend the day with her and I was so excited. She's such a sweetheart. We went to a "child of record" baptism. I hadn't really thought of it before, but she said it's a great opportunity to find people to teach. I was like wow, why haven't I done that before??? And we had a great time together. And she taught me how to be more effective on Facebook, I taught one of my recent converts in another area a lesson on Facebook and that made me happy. Sometimes I don't know what to do during Facebook time to be effective. But I am learning. 

I love you all so much! Thank you for your support and your love. I know the Gospel is true and I know that by living it it will make us the most happy and the most successful in this life. The Elders in our ward, one of them his father is dying of cancer. He is debating on wether to go home to be with him. It's hard to see him struggle, but he does want to stay because he knows he is engaged in the work of Salvation. I know I am too, and I am glad that I have the opportunity to be here, and that my family at home is safe and healthy! I am so blessed. I love ya'll so much.