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