Monday, August 4, 2014

Rainy and Gloomy in Shallotte

This week has been interesting because they have been repaving the parking lot at our apartment building. It has also been raining for the last 4 days and it's supposed to keep raining for a couple more days! I wish I could send the rain to Washington!

Yesterday Sister Behrmann reminded me of the fact that I only have 4 months left before I'm home. Crazy how fast time flies!

For Preparation day last Monday we went to Southport and did some fun touristy things. Southport is a small town that is known for having some movies filmed there. The movie Safe Haven was filmed there and we saw some of the buildings used in the movie. (Having never seen the movie I didn't know the significance... but one day when I see the movie I will understand) We also saw the light house... from afar. We visited the Christmas House in town as well as some other cute shops. 

Tuesday we planned a lesson we were giving in Zone Training meeting the next day about the importance of the spirit. Then we tried stopping by some former investigators in Shallotte and had a really good talk with Mr. Chapman. He is a math teacher and knows a lot of the LDS families because he has taught their children over the years. He is really nice and we are hoping to be able to stop by in a couple of weeks to talk again. After that we knocked on some doors. One woman opened the door and said "Come on in!" She was an older woman and as we talked her daughter and son came in. They were planning on going to look for some new carpet for the house. We asked if we could share a scripture with them and the son quickly responded, "No thank you Ma'am." He responded the same when we offered a mormon.org card. Needless to say it was just an awkward situation, but we planted a seed! 

After that we went to see Sister Evans, who broke her ankle 6 weeks ago, and visited with her. That night we had dinner with the Granthams. Sister Grantham is a less active member and Brother Grantham isn't a member. They have two adorable German Shepards! They have so many fun stories and it is great to spend some time with them and they always spoil us with good food. 

Wednesday morning we drove to Wilmington for Zone Training meeting. At the meeting we met the new sisters we will be going on exchanges with. Both sets of Sisters are training so we have Sister Jones training Sister Skokos and Sister Avondet is training Sister Bell. Also! There is a new Elder in the zone (Elder Yates) who is from Quincy! 

After the meeting we did service at the Library and then had a lesson with Joe! Joe is amazing! He is still on date for August 23rd and we will be teaching him the Word of Wisdom tomorrow. He didn't make it to church yesterday because he was in the hospital.... pretty good reason to not come if you ask me. But he called to apologize for not coming and explain why. He's just amazing! After our lesson with Joe we tried stopping by the Hooks, a less active couple, and they invited us in and to stay for dinner! We had a good visit and after we visited Sister King who lives just down the road from them. 

Thursday we did service at the thrift store and had a lesson with Brother Evans. We weren't able to find a member to come with us, so we ended up teaching him outside for about an hour. Luckily it wasn't hot that day and the rain held off just long enough for us to teach him. Blessings!!! He said he would come to church... but yesterday he didn't come. We'll see what happened. On our way back to Shallotte we stopped by the Frink family for a visit. Sister Frink was in Young Women's until a couple weeks ago and Brother Frink is less active. We hadn't met him yet so we stopped by. We had a good visit with them and were able to share Ether 12:4 with them about being anchored in Christ and through our faith in Him having hope. After that we went to dinner with the Babson's. They are one of our favorite families! They have such cute children and great stories every time we see them! 

Friday we had planned on doing our weekly planning... and it ended up taking all day because we had a surprise conference call with the Zone Leaders, District Leaders, and other set of Sister Leaders that no one thought to inform us of until they realized we weren't on the call. Apparently every Friday morning we will be a part of a conference call with the leaders in the Wilmington Zone. After that we had to figure out what we are going to do about exchanges this transfer with our sisters and how many miles it will take for each exchange and for our monthly meeting in Raleigh. Who thought it would be a good idea to have Sister Leaders in the farthest corner of the mission!?!? Oh well, it'll all work out. We will be using our miles very wisely from now on because it is an extra 500+ miles for exchanges and meetings. Hopefully they will be giving us some more miles, but as of now it looks like we'll probably end up using our bikes a little bit!

Saturday we visited Sister Evans again and taught her the Plan of Salvation. She has such amazing insights and such a strong testimony. I just love her! That night we had dinner with the Apple family again and taught them / had a discussion about the Restoration. It was good, there were a few tangents, but a lot of good comparisons. We were talking about the difference between "reforming" something and "restoring" something and Brother Apple said that if you had a bike and you were going to restore it you would make it look the same as it was originally. You would Keep it "Classy." If you were going to reform it, you would "pimp it out." We all laughed for a while about that one. 

Sunday we had church in our building! We had a really good testimony meeting that we wish Joe and Brother Evans would have been there for. Last night we also had a really good lesson with the Smigiels. Brother Smigiel is a new investigator! We taught the Restoration last night and helped him to understand more about prophets and Joseph Smith and I wish I could have a picture of the face he made when it clicked! He looked at us and said, "I didn't realize he was only 14 years old when this happened." We will be teaching them again next Sunday and hopefully Sister Smigiel will start coming back to church now too!

Miracles happen! Love ya!
Sister Shurtz

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