Week 48

Mon, May 20, 2013 at 9:38 AM

Hey family,

Life's going well for me here down in Southport

This past week, neither Elder Mickelsen or I received any mail that we are aware of, minus the mission newsletter. So, it's possible that the mission office is super behind.  They just had one of the sisters go home early due to health reasons...I liked her too :(

So, time continues to fly mightily speedily if you know what I mean.  We saw a lot of success this past week and found several new investigators.  We had 2 investigators in church, and they both had a really good time I think. 

I have some funny advice from a missionary in my district:

We have so much food in our fridge...

We're working with 1 young man who is making a lot of progress.  We've been working with him and his family for about 5 months now.  His grandmother is a recent convert of about 6 months.  He is making great strides though.  It's definitely amazing to see what miracles the spirit and the Lord can work in the lives of our Heavenly Father's children.  Us on our own? Yeah, we're failures...us with the spirit?? Yeah, that's unstoppable ;)  Nothing can compete with the feelings that people have as they read the Book of Mormon, attend a simple worship service, and pray to their Father in Heaven.  He'll be baptized next month sometime...we don't have the exact details worked out yet. 

This lady, one of our investigators, the other day when I was talking to her on the phone told me that she was the reason I was sent here.  She said that I've done a lot to help her get on the right path and change her life.  Not including this to try and boast or anything because we all know as I said before...me alone...failure...me with spirit...slightly less than failure... :)  but regardless, it made me feel good that my hard work is benefiting at least someone.

The other day, I asked Elder Mickelsen why everyone can't just join the church (or I should say, join the gospel and be active in it).  It's sad to see -- we meet a lot of people as you can well imagine.  And we meet some ridiculously nice people and fantastic individuals, who want to do what's right and have a strong faith in Christ, but various life experiences have inflicted sundry wounds on their willingness to change/listen/search for more etc.  We met a very nice lady yesterday, who firmly and unalterably believed that it wasn't possible for there to be a 100% true church.  So many people after many years of dealing with other religions and faiths, just settle for a broken system.  They turn to the bible and then just go to church for the kicks, I guess.  Or we meet many others who are simply turned off from religion because of the childish fails of other religions trying to tear down one another or other religions being very hypocritical / conflicting / confusing etc.  I just want to make people understand sometimes, but that's slightly against God's gift of agency. 

Overall, life's good though.  It's hard to believe I've been here in Southport just as long as I was in Morehead City. 

oh,

ps. We went to the Oak Island Lighthouse last week.

I'll try to send some pics

Thanks for being the best stinkin' family in the whole world.  I love you all so much.  Don't blink too many times...my mission is going by fast enough as it is :)

Love,

Elder Patty

Week 47

Mon, May 13, 2013 at 12:57 PM

Hey family,

What the heck we're all y'all up at 1:00 in the morning??  If I were a betting man, (which I'm not), I would wager there was some chit-chatting going on.  :)  Anyways, it was nice to talk to y'all last night (no, that's not slang) ;).  Everyone seems the same except Chris, who seems slightly older.  :)  

okay, since I forgot last week...I received 45 and 46, 2 from grams, Dad's funny card "eh, scruffy"!!! hahahahah :)  It made me t'giggle.  One from Rachel and one from Kati Kamas.  Thanks all ;)

Anyways, what else to say.  so...that baptism on Saturday was super good.  It was very well put together.  The spirit was very strong.  Elder Kilbourne (my last companion) 's family flew in for the baptism.  Long story short, they were a big part in her first looking in to the church when she and her granddaughter went to Utah.  Bro. Kilbourne baptized her.  Elder Kilbourne's sister played a beautiful rendition of Come Thou Fount, which was very powerful.  Overall, fantastic. I couldn't help but smile when she was baptized.  It is just so amazing to see a child of our Heavenly Father take such an important step in their eternal progression.  And if you think I couldn't help but smile, imagine the smile our Father had in Heaven.  :)  I know baptism is so essential to making this life worth it, and it can only be performed in this church by His authority, which should make each of us so grateful that we have this gospel back on the earth in its complete, restored form -- exactly as Christ originally established it.  

Speaking of which, see if you can find the book or whatever that contains that rendition.  Come though fount-Marshall McDonald.

On Sunday, after her confirmation and throughout church, she was simply beaming.  Seriously, I think she's become a 3rd granny to me ;)  It's times like that that I remember exactly why we serve missions and why I've given 2 years of my life to this work -- the Lord's work.  

Okay...what else.  honestly, not much.  How can it be mid May almost.  The Weather is starting to get warmer.  Keep me posted on hurricanes.  I gots 1 more summer left.  and they're due for a big one here.  It's been a few years.  :) :)  

Okay...this letter is quickly tanking...I think I'll end it before I start talking about what I ate for breakfast (it was cereal and some banana bread by the way) :)

Love,

Elder Patty

enjoy the pics...since it's been a few months ;)

Week 46

Mon, May 6, 2013 at 10:03 AM

Hey family, 

Alright, alright, hold your horses...here's the details.  Yes, I can skype.  The time of skyping will be ballpark 7:00 my time, (5:00 your time).  It could be as early as 4:30 (your time) or slightly after. It will last 40 minutes.  I think that takes care of all the details.  Yes, mom, you can open it without me.  

Okay...what else...well...Dad, no fair on Elder Rhodes coming to whoop all y'all into shape...did you perhaps ask him if his next stop was Southport?? I can hope, can't I ?!  Also, props on the promotion.  You stud.  Sounds like a fancy new title too.  Can I call you Doctor now?  Mom, I forgot to take a picture of the pants...again...maybe one day I will.  Oh, theoretically, I might decide to get a voice recorder for journal writing because it is proving mighty difficult as of late to actually get any quality journal writing in.  Just BTW.  

In terms of exciting news, we are witnessing a baptism this weekend.  This lady we've been working with, who is ridiculously solid and twice as active as 95% of the branch, will be baptized.  It's super exciting.  As a booster for y'all and a testimony for member work, her interest came from her recent convert granddaughter inviting her on a trip to Utah.  That's right...it came from inviting someone on VACATION!!! Not the usual idea of member missionary work, but that's the thing!  We don't have to invite our friends to be baptized or to convert to our religion, we simply have to invite to little things like my fabulous mother is doing with the 10 virgin's thing (ask her for details ;).  Oh, and how did the recent convert granddaughter get her seed started, from an invitation from a friend to go to church one Sunday.  That's it.  For some reason or other, I think we, as members of the church, are sometimes under the impression that in order for us to do missionary work, we must actively seek to convert everyone or get someone to have a lesson from the missionaries, but as Preach My Gospel explains, it comes from our sincere desire, not to convert our friends, but to love and serve them.  Okay, what else...

Time continues to fly...hard to believe it's almost mid transfer again...well, I think I told you all about the outage that was going on with Nuclear Power Plant about 3 months ago...well, it was "supposed" to be over about a month ago almost...yeah, that didn't happen.  And guess what, midst all the goodies going on with the unit that they had shut down and were working on, another broke or something, so they're going to have to shut down that reactor too and fix it.  aka...another outage...they say 10 days?? I say lies.  Outage is all Elder Mickelsen is going to know about this place.  That one starts May 17...watch them overlap.  

This is probably a boring email

We have interviews with President tomorrow.  That'll be good.  I love President Bernhisel.  I hope I don't have to leave this mission, but I'll do whatever the Lord needs me to do...or at least I'll try to.  We're kind of stagnant with a lot of our investigators as of late.  We're either in the early stages or limbo stages.  

My bike is still holding up well.  So, we were joking about keeping a tally of how many times people are turned off from religion because of their poor experiences in other churches.  I can't tell you how many times someone's told they don't like how church is all about the money....or.... that they don't like how everything conflicts.  Seriously, if all my experiences had been founded in other man made churches, it would be hard for me to believe too that any one of them was the true original one that Christ started.  It's definitely frustrating sometimes.  Sometimes it feels like other churches have poisoned the well before we even get the chance to introduce them to the real deal.  Oh, and on a side note, we had a lady try to convert us to Catholicism yesterday.  I told her in the early stages of the conversation that my mom grew up Catholic and then converted to the LDS church.

Well, I'll talk to y'all Sunday.

ENjoy the week.  Happy soon b-day, Chris

Love

Elder Patty

Week 45

Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 9:44 AM

Well first off, I stinking forgot to say in the last email...... HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE BEST FATHER IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD!!!!!!!! Do know that on your birthday, I wished you happy birthday ;)

second,

Hey family, :)

Hard to believe it's almost May...I'm not sure what keeps happening...perhaps I blink too often or too many ospreys fly by (inside joke) I don't know, but April just disappeared like nobody's business.  I got letters from mom, grandma, Holly, and Stephanie H.  Thanks all.  Oh, mom and dad, can you track down my friend from bananas who served a mission in Mexico that joined the church in the singles ward?? I'd like to write him :)  

Well, another week, come and gone, we are crazy busy all the time...there's not enough time in the day to do all what we need to do, Tuesday this week is going to be nuts.  We have like 6 or 7 appointments and we're helping someone move.  God's trying to help us learn how to make sure our lessons stay under 45 minutes ;) haha  

Let's see...hmmmm...honestly, these emails are probably going to be like 2 sentences long by the time 2 years rolls around... I never know what to say.  We have a baptism coming up on the 11 of May.  So that's ridiculously exciting.  She's so ready and solid.  It's great. Definitely one of those who only hadn't joined the church because she "did not know where to find it" and yes, it came from working through members. ZING! another one for the members vs tracting score...hmmmm...if I didn't know better, I'd say that working through members is infinitely more effective than trying to find people on our own...perhaps that's why Elder Bednar calls missionaries full time teachers and members full time finders ;)  Here's an interesting thought that y'all can use for your own purposes.  This girl who's related to someone in the branch just entered the MTC and she's going to a non-proselyting state side mission.   The only lessons she teaches are basically the ones that the members set up for them. What if every mission was like that?? Perhaps, we, as members of this church, should convince ourselves that they all are... food for thought that you may feel free to share with anyone who is hungry :)

We really have seen some miracles this past week with following the spirit.  Here's 2 to build y'all up :)

1) we were driving down this busy street when we saw a lady outside that works at this store on the side of the road.  We'd talked to her before and everything.  As we drove by, we commented on the fact that we seem to see her outside all the time when we drive by for that 2 seconds every so many days...we said maybe God was trying to tell us something.  So, we decided to flip around and go talk to her.  We did, and it was an amazing experience.  We talked with her for a long time.  She shared some things that she said she doesn't really share with anyone, not really even with herself, and she also said that she felt something that she hasn't felt in a long long time while she was talking with us.  She was a precious daughter of God unknowingly crying out for help on the inside and God knew it.  It's a good thing we didn't just keep driving to go home and have dinner or something.

2) We were driving down another street, and we drove by a lady raking up some leaves.  It's impossible to stop the car every single time you see someone outside when you're driving but for some reason, we decided to actually stop this time and go see if we could help.  She, like everyone, said she was alright and didn't want us to get our clothes dirty...I can't tell you how many times people say that and I tell them, "these are our work clothes :)"  So we helped anyways, whether she wanted us to or not.  This gave us the opportunity to share about who we are and what we do.  She just "happens" to be in between churches right now.  Her past one wasn't fulfilling her spiritual needs, and we just "happened" to drive by that day after an appointment "happened" to fall through and we had "happened" to set a back up plan that sent us up that street that we wouldn't have normally taken.  Wow...that's a lot of coincidences ;)  God sure is lucky when it comes to Him accomplishing His work and His glory...or wait...maybe there's something more than luck involved ;)

Anyways, stay strong in this gospel for it is the only source of true happiness :)

Love,

Elder Patty