Week 11

Monday, September 3, 2012 11:00 AM

Alright family,

How ya'll doin'?? Excellent?  Well, THAT'S JUST FANTASTIC!!!! (anybody catch the quote??)  Anyways,  life's going pretty good.  Funny story.  Today actually ISN'T preparation day.  This

Friday we get to go to the temple, so by default, that becomes our preparation day, but because our area is, I think, the 2nd farthest away, aka a 3 hour drive, we are emailing today.  I'm excited for the temple trip though.  A member is taking us up which translates to we can take naps on the ride up and back.  However, I'm probably going to be writing some letters because when we get back, we're going to have a grand total of about 2 hours of preparation day left.  Fun stuff.  So basically, we don't get much of a preparation day this week.  

We have been getting sooooooooo much rain here; it's crazy.  I think someone said since some date in June, we've had about 30 in of rain, but if you include today, probably more.  Crazy stuff.  Good thing I love rain and thunder storms!!!!  

Side note, today I put on jeans to do some service, which fell through because of the rain, and boy, it looked weird being in jeans...and it hasn't even been that long!!  

So, here's a sad story.  Why is it so difficult for people to come to sacrament meeting?!?!?!  Sheesh.  We had 2 investigators yesterday that didn't show up again, and we had to explain to him that night at our lesson that we've done everything we can do to help him progress.  We've given him all the tools he needs, he just has to make the decision.  So, when he's ready, we're ready, but for the mean time, we're going to back off a little.  Sheesh, that was hard...and sad.  I love that family, but his mother believes that to be the correct next step as well.  This is the brother of the girl that was baptized in July.  We're going to probably have to do the same thing with another investigator on Tuesday, but we know that as we exercise faith, the Lord will bless us with people who are ready to receive the gospel into their lives and progress in their journey back to our Heavenly Father.  

I love the Holy Ghost and Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.

To answer some of Dad's inquiries, No, we really don't go sight seeing a lot...slash at all.  But we are planning a trip up to Cape Lookout (look it up ;), a light house, with the Harkers Island elders in the next couple of weeks, which will be really intense and amazing.  That's when I'll snag that picture for ya, Dad ;)  We do have 1 investigator who is still on track for being baptized on the 15th of September.  He's a 9 year old in a returning Less-Active family.  Great family.  We're super excited for them all as they work toward the temple.  Last week, we had about 13 lessons, which is pretty good, but since we are teaching less investigators now, our usual lessons won't occur in the coming weeks, so we may dip down a little for a couple of weeks.  We'll see.  The Lord, if we're faithful, will probably bless us with more opportunities to teach different people.  There's always work to do.  

Here's the update from letters etc from family: I got 11 from mom, grandma's, and if I hadn't already said, #2 from dad, and a delicious package with delicious gold fish deposited within its depths ;)  Yum

For Grandma, yes, there is a Subway about a half an hour from where I live that's actually owned by the bishop.  It's in my area too.  So, hopefully that answers any questions you had.  

Sorry about the pictures not going through.  I'm sad on you not getting the district one, but I'll have to send it again.  Not this week though because I don't have my camera stuff with me. I'm eating well, and the members are great.  Yesterday, there was an 8 year old baptism and there were so many people attending that they had to move it to the chapel, and everyone didn't fit in the actual font room for the ordination.  Intense.  

Well, I don't know much else to say.

I could tell you a funny story?  I'm gonna tell you a story.  Huh? Huh?  Back a while, back a while...I was in this potential investigators home in Havelock on exchange and I was giving one of the individuals there a Book of Mormon to read out of.  Guess what got jammed inside the cover.......a chastity pamphlet!!! Wooooo :)  It fell out and this other girl who was kind of just sitting there on the couch picked it up and started reading it.  Tee hee.  Funny stuff.  I kind of felt dumb, but hey, maybe that's what she needed.  Then again, maybe not ;)  Oops.  ps.  I hope you liked the introduction to this story ;)...Deej...especially...

Another story...

So, I don't know if you know how exciting it is to get a media referral via text.  Well, it is.  And the other day, we received one.  SUPER EXCITING!!!!!  However, as it turns out, it was just a less active couple in the ward who logged a request via mormon.org for a reason that still seems to escape us, especially considering they know about half the ward and have regular contact with some of them.  Probably, they just wanted us to visit with.

Anyways,

Hope you like the stories,

Have an excellently fantastic week,

Luvs,

Elder Patty

ps.  I usually have enough time to write.