Pittsboro Got Snow!

Picture of Sister Hunt and I with the Pickards from the branch. :)

First of all... I love Sister Hunt!!! She's just the best.

Tuesday we had some snow here... like the smallest amount you could imagine! People were freaking out all over the place. They were scared for their lives! It was so funny! We ended up doing a lot of studies and phone calls that day. Luckily our power didn't go out so we didn't have to worry about freezing.

Picture of a beautiful sunset right by the college and library where we go to do facebook every day.
 

Wednesday marked 8 months since I've been a missionary... can you believe it?!?!? We had district meeting that morning and some really good lessons with people on facebook. That night we had dinner with the Coopers in our branch. They are very sweet and I love spending time with them! Their children are grown, and a couple live in the branch as well. We talked a lot about teaching people because Sister Cooper teaches the youth Sunday School and Brother Cooper teaches Seminary. It was fun to swap ideas and tell some stories.

 

Thursday we had lunch with the Pickard's from the branch. They are the perfect grandma and grandpa! I love them! They spoiled us and then sent us on our way. Later that day we did some more facebook teaching. That night we had a lesson with Sarah at the Moon's. We watched President Monson's talk from the Relief Society Broadcast this last October and then talked about living prophets and also about listening to and following the spirit. We invited her to pray about the things we've been teaching her and about prophets like Joseph Smith and Thomas Monson. She said she would, but she told us that she's already felt like there is a reason we are in her life. She wasn't able to come to church this week, but hopefully we will be meeting with her again soon.

Friday we had lunch with another member of the branch, Sister Paradise. She is going into a form of Chinese medicine that is all about what you eat and your environment and everything. We had a really fun lunch with her and ate some yummy but different food.

Saturday our plans ALL fell through and we were both feeling sick again! This weather is really making it difficult for us. It is warm for a day or two and then it gets down into the 20's for a few days. It's like I'm on a roller coaster! It's messing with both Sister Hunt's and my health a lot. Headaches, sore throats, runny noses, stomach aches... Over all just no fun!

Sunday was good. Lots of meetings and no investigators at church. Sister Hunt still had a killer headache! We did our studies after our meetings and lots of other things just around the apartment to help the week go smoother. This week we have exchanges on Wednesday, when it's supposed to snow... and I'm supposed to be going to an area that is using bikes this week. It's going to be an adventure that's for sure! :) I'm realizing how blessed I am to have a HUGE area... because it means we have a car full time, especially in the winter.

Life is good when you are focused on Jesus Christ and inviting others to come unto Him. It might surprise you who is more open to hear about the restored gospel... I know I am pleasantly surprised every day. :)

 

Love,
Sister Shurtz

Such a Wonderful Week in Pittsboro!

This is Sister Hunt and I with Sister Moon after we were done raking :)

Last Monday we spent some time shopping and looking at shoes. That night we were SO blessed to having Family Home Evening with the Moon family and our investigator Sarah! We had dinner together too. The Moon's have 3 children, Mariah who is 16, Kendra who is 14, and Brandon who is 13. They are just amazing! The children kept us very entertained during dinner with sharing lots of fun stories from school and from Girl's Camp and Trek and things. It was fun for Sarah to understand a little more about the youth activities and programs in the Church. After that we watched the 20 minute long Restoration video about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. We had a really good conversation afterwards. It was so great! Sarah is so amazing and so are the Moons!

 

The next day, Tuesday, we deep clean day for all missionaries. We spend as much time during the day that we need to REALLY clean our apartments and we even ended up rearranging all the furniture. It was good :) That afternoon we had an appointment set up with Sarah to help do some service. We helped carry her Christmas decorations back upstairs. After that we had a really good discussion about the organization of the church. Everything from Branch Presidents and Bishops, to Stake Presidents, on up to the First Presidency and the Prophet. She asks such great questions! Unfortunately she was out of town this weekend so she didn't get a chance to come to church with us, but hopefully she will come next week.
 

Wednesday we spent most of the day with the Browns, a less active couple. They do not come to church because of heath reasons, but they are the nicest people with the strongest testimonies of the gospel. We had Sister Feaster, a member of the branch, with us because she is Sister Brown's Visiting Teacher and they have known each other for years. It was so great to be able to get to know them better and spend some time with them. Usually we only see them every couple of months, but so far we've been seeing them every couple of weeks! We are going to go over this Saturday again for a visit and hopefully to help with some yard work or something. Sister Brown is a famous chef, especially for her sushi and has her own book and everything. She is half Japanese and half Korean. Needless to say she cooked for us and sent us home with a lot of food! None of it sushi haha. She made a 22 pound turkey, stuffing, fried rice, and kiosas, which are kinda like pot-stickers or dumplings. We have been eating lots of that this week and finally have finished off all the food she gave us.

 

Thursday was pretty decent weather, so we decided to do some tracting on our way to and from the library. We met this really nice man named Benny who was walking down the same street we were. He was smoking when we started talking to him and he told us he was on his way to the store to buy a beer. We set up an appointment to talk to him a little more a couple hours later. We ended up walking around town and talking to him, but he is very not interested and just kept talking about how people shouldn't rewrite the bible. No matter how many times we explained that that is NOT what the Book of Mormon is, he didn't really listen. But we made a new friend.

 

Friday was a day of miracles as well! We had Zone Conference from 9-3 and then we were able to get a hold of an investigator named Janice who we haven't been able to meet with in months! We were able to go to her home and help her move some stuff around in the garage and clean it out. Pretty much everything that can happen to her has. She has been having a lot of health problems and she was just fired on top of all that. She is so great! Hopefully we will be able to see her again this week. She didn't come to church this week because she was really sick on Sunday morning.
 

Saturday we had a very busy day too. We had an appointment in the morning with Sister Butler and Sister Hargett, a new branch missionary, came with us. After that Sister Hargett took us to lunch and we got to know her a little better. From there we ran to go see Dawn and help her around the house. We were going to have dinner with a family that night in the branch, but he got the flu so she ended up buying us food for dinner and dropping it off at our apartment. People must think that sister missionaries eat as much as elders do.... because we got SO much food this week! We are being well taken care of.

Sunday the Moons invited us over for lunch after church and we got to spend some more time with them. They are one of the very few members that actually live in Pittsboro and not 10-20 minutes away.
 

Yesterday, Monday, the weather was up to around 70. It was SO nice! We went for a bike ride and then we went over to the Moon's again to rake up some leaves and do some yard work. We raked, and raked, and raked for about 2 hours, and they were working for 2 hours before we got there, and there are STILL leaves on the ground!!! We filled 32 big bags with all the leaves we raked and we stopped when we ran out of bags. It was fun though and the time went really fast. After raking we went to the Parrish's for dinner and had Family Home Evening with them.



Some of the bags we filled with leaves and the Moon family at their finest with Sister Hunt :)

I love it here in Pittsboro and especially working with Sister Hunt. She is so amazing and I love her to death!

 

Hope y'all have a great week! I love you so much and I am so grateful to have each and every one of you in my life. <3

Love,
Sister Shurtz

The Adventures in Pittsboro Continue!

A picture of the sunset after the storm we had on Saturday. The picture doesn't do it justice, it was BEAUTIFUL!

This week has been a very cold, eventful, and all around amazing week!

On Tuesday it was VERY cold. I believe it was around 10 degrees. Which is REALLY cold for North Carolina. You should've seen how the people here were freaking out! We were doing our shopping on Monday and it looked like people were stocking up for the end of the world! Schools were delayed because of the cold weather! I can't tell you how many times I would drive to Seminary in the morning and the car thermostat read 2 degrees. It is definitely different over here! Because of the weather we didn't get to go do service at Sarah's either! The weather is definitely messing with our plans! We rescheduled for Saturday. (also known as the day the tornado came to town).

 

Wednesday we had an amazing district meeting! Our district has been working on being unified and following up more with the things we are all trying to work on. I just love my district! Right after district meeting we drove out to meet with Sister Snow, a sister who doesn't come to church for medical reasons, and were able to have a really good visit with her. She is having some struggles but we were able to just be her friends. Hopefully we can start meeting with her more regularly.

Thursday we had even more plans and appointments fall through, but at least it wasn't quite so cold outside.

Friday was the start of the storm. It started pouring rain first thing in the morning. And when I say pouring rain, it was seriously like someone was pouring tons of bottom-less buckets on our roof and there was a resulting waterfall no matter what window you looked out of. Luckily it lightened up by the time we needed to leave to meet up with our Sister Leaders to go on exchanges for the day.

I went up to Chapel Hill for the day with Sister Brunner. She is so great, and a lot like me. We had fun in the rain, but luckily had the car as we drove by the elders on their bikes. That night we had dinner with a couple of people from Africa! They have both been through a lot in their lives and have joined the church in the last couple of years. We helped to cook dinner, a concoction of cabbage, spinach, tomatoes, onions, and sausage covered in African spices. We sang as we cooked and learned a little bit of Swahili. It was so fun and tasted so good as we ate with our hands. All in all Sister Brunner and I had a great time on exchanges and learned a lot from each other.

Our companions on the other hand were not having the greatest time together. There were some feathers ruffled and some things that were taken offense to. All in all, our experiences were as opposite as you can get. Sister Hunt and I are very happy to be back together and we are more unified than ever!

Saturday the storm continued as there were tornado warnings and even a sighting of a funnel cloud just a few miles outside of town.  Of course, as missionaries we didn't know anything about it while it was happening. It was just another rainy and windy day. There were several trees that fell over, including one a block away from our apartment. It fell right through the power lines, causing us to lose power in our apartment for the rest of the day. It wasn't really a problem during the day because it was light enough outside to see, and we were gone part of the day anyways. But then when the sun set, and we are supposed to be in our apartment, it was SO DARK! We called our District Leader, Elder Sosa, and asked if we could have permission to light candles so we could have some light in addition to our little flashlights. Thank you so much Jenny and Erin for sending me candles a few months ago!!! As we were saying a prayer to end our planning at around 9:45 the lights came back on and luckily that means our heater did too so we didn't freeze at night. Over all it was a very adventure filled weekend.

 

A picture of Sister Hunt and I in the dark, using candles, because we didn't have power pretty much all day during the storm and everything.

Sunday Sarah came to church!!!! She came and had a great time and met lots of people. After church we had so many members come and tell us how amazing she is and that they hoped she would come again. We will be going and seeing her tomorrow and answering any questions she has about the lessons. Sister Hunt and I taught Young Women's yesterday about helping the girls feel more prepared and confident in answering questions and how to tell people about the church. Over all it was just an amazing day! Helping others come unto Christ really does make you happy!!!

 

I hope you all have a great day, and a fabulous rest of your week. I love you all so much!

 

Love,
Sister Shurtz

Oh, The Ups and Downs of Missionary Work!

Sister Hunt and I around Christmas Time

This week Michelle dropped us and said that she doesn't want to get baptized and doesn't want to come to church, but she's fine with us still having bible study with her. So that's a hard place to be. For now we will continue to have shorter visits with her once a week.

Tuesday was the last day of the month and we had a lot of extra miles so we used them to go and visit some less active members of the Branch. We had some great visits and one couple, who don't come to church for health reasons, wants us to come and visit with them again next week. :) It is always so amazing to see these people who physically cannot come to church but still have that great desire to and such a strong testimony.

That night we had dinner with the Zrubek's again. After eating some really yummy enchiladas and rice and brownies we watched their kids do some small fireworks before running over to visit with Sister Butler. We had a great visit with her and I saw the BIGGEST dog I have ever seen in my life! (Hopefully pictures to come soon) Her son was in town for Christmas and it was his dog.

 

Here are pictures of Sister Butler and I with the GIANT dog and little Lulu

Wednesday we had a Zone Training Meeting that talked a lot about how to work with members and how to help them to do missionary work.

On Monday we had an appointment with Sarah, but she had a funeral to go to so she needed to cancel. We rescheduled for Thursday evening. That night we had a 17 year old young woman, also named Sarah, come with us. It was so great to have her there with us while we taught Sarah about the Restoration. She has some really great questions, she's started reading the Book of Mormon, and she is open to being baptized when she learns of the truthfulness of our message. She said that we were coming into her life at a specific time for a reason. I love her so much! We will be setting up another appointment with her sometime today. We were going to go help her take her Christmas lights down on Saturday  and she was going to come to church yesterday, but she got sick and it was REALLY cold on Saturday and she didn't want us to be working in the cold.
 

The rest of the week was full of studies, visits to less active members, and facebook lessons. I am so happy that I get to stay here with Sister Hunt for at least another transfer! She and I really get along well and we have so much fun! She is so amazing! We also teach really easily and naturally together. This transfer is going to be a good one! :)

 

Hope y'alls week is good and you can all adjust back to normal life after all the holiday fun. I'm so glad to hear that Nathan is alright! I know that the Lord is looking over each of us. I love you !
 

Love,
Sister Shurtz

Sister Hunt and I Being Goofy