Settling in to Providence

Hey y'all,

First off, thank you so much for the wonderful birthday presents! My birthday was kinda wired because no one really knew it was my birthday, but for some reason the family that brought us dinner that night brought a cake too no knowing it was my birthday. Tender mercies from the Lord! It was pretty great and overall I had a wonderful birthday!

This week things started getting a little better. We put two people on date for baptism and last night we had dinner with a family we're teaching. It seems like missionary work here is a lot slower and requires a lot more patience, but has a greater reward. For example, one of the recent converts here is named Abel, and he is one of the most spiritual people I've met. He's great to take to lessons and his whole family is going to the temple to be sealed together in a few months. The baptisms here are harder to come by, but tend to stay more active.

The ward members here are really fun! Saturday night they had us judge the pinewood derby and it was great. Tons of people were there and they even had a GoPro hooked up to a tv screen so you could see the finish line from the crowed. I had to ref who won. Luckily there weren't too many close calls so I don't think I've offended anyone yet.

I also went on exchange with my district leader to Weddington. That was pretty fun. We also had zone conference and they had us skype one of the sister missionaries that was on The District videos. She talked a lot about how we can fulfill our missionary purpose in any situation and also about how The District was filmed. It was a pretty cool zone meeting, a lot different than any I've ever been to.

Yesterday we also talked to some drunk dude that showed is his detailed sketch of how the assignation attempt on Ronald Ragan was fraud. So that was cool.

But yeah I'd love to hear how you guys are doing! I really like reading your emails so keep sending them! 

Elder Earnest

Providence Ward, Charlotte, NC

Hey y'all. 
Glad to hear everything's well back home. I'm in my new area now and it REALLY different from Danville. In Danville I was teaching starving children that didn't have any food in the cupboards; the other day I walked past a kid that couldn't have been over the age of 10 complaining that he couldn't get his email set up on his new iPad. It's so different from what I'm used to. I talked to Elder Clarke (my trainer who just became an assistant) last night and he said he had to adjust quite a bit as well coming from Danville to Sharon, the area just north of ours. All of the homes here are huge and people actually have cars and work...I feel so out of place😂

The missionary work here is really slow too. People are really busy with work and family and don't always want to listen to us. Our evenings are usually pretty full but the afternoons and mornings are rough. The good thing is the ward is really big and there's a lot of ward missionaries to go out with us. We have dinners with ward members
most nights of the week and the families are nice. Outside of a missionary perspective, I really like the area. It's similar to the area that Danford and Beth live in and is just up the way from up to Charlotte. Our teaching pool is really small and there hasn't been a baptism in a while but we'll change that up right quick.

We also live right around the corner from the mission home. In our interviews this week President Alexander said we could have investigators over to his house to teach and we actually went to one of those firesides last night with a recent convert! It was pretty great; president talked all about Christ and Easter.

My new companion is Elder Snyder from Ogden Utah. He's only been out 3 months and was trained by someone I came out with, but we get along well enough.

But yeah I really miss Danville. I always knew it was a great area, but now I really know how great it was. On my last night there I said goodbye to my friend Keith (guy in the McDonalds shirt bellow) and he was really sad that I was leaving because he's getting married to his girlfriend this summer to work towards baptism and wants me to be the best man. I'm gonna miss Brother Barker a lot too. (He's the super southern high priest group leader) and when I left he told me "Elder Earnest, I have enjoyed my association with you" then he gave me a hug and said in my ear "go home and make lot's of babies, boy"😂😂

Well, I'm not really looking forwards to this week; it's gonna be a whole lot of walking around looking for people to teach but I'll just have to make the best of it.

Tornados

It's good to hear from you guys! This week has been crazy. On Wednesday we had three tornados touch down our area, I was told three people were killed. We didn't see the tornado over in our area but it was still crazy. The clouds were moving super fast and it was really warm and windy. Elder Everett and I rode up the street to see
Robert and while we were talking it started to drizzle. We decided to head back home so we didn't get rained on and only made it about 30 feet before it just dropped water from the sky. The phrase 'pouring rain' doesn't do this storm justice. I couldn't see 10 feet in front of me there was so much rain. By the time we made it back to the house we were drenched and I had water overflowing from my shoes. Elder Everett slipped in the mud and got super dirty so when we got into the house he went straight to the "washroom", as our Canadian roommate Elder Galvin would say, and took a shower in his full proselyting clothes. We were probably wetter than we would have been if we'd jumped into a swimming pool.

On Friday the Spanish Elders came up and spent the night. Their area includes all of the Greensboro and High Point Stakes so they go around a lot looking for more Spanish speakers. To put it simply we had 6 Elders in an apartment meant for 2, one bathroom, and a bunch of Nerf guns. It was a riot. Elder Prado is from Mexico but speaks perfect English. I really like him and I'm excited because we'll both be in the same zone next transfer (p.s I'm getting transferred). Elder Johnson is from California and is also really chill and fun to hang with. He came out a few months after me and wasn't originally called to be Spanish speaking, but when he got here President Alexander decided to make him one. He's doing really well with the language considering he never got trained for it in the MTC. While they were here they were able to find two new Hispanics that are willing to learn more.

So I'm leaving Danville tomorrow. Sad day. I'm going to an area down in Charlotte called Matthews. It borders Wedington, which is where Michael Jordan lives.  Yesterday and today I've just been saying goodbye to everyone. There are a lot of great people here I'm going to to miss. 

Alright I love you guys and love hearing from you! Till next week,

Elder Earnest

Got caught in the rain

The Clays

Quick week

Dang, this week flew by! The whole Tuesday p-day thing threw me off, but it was still a great week! Saturday Johnny and Robert both went to the temple in Raleigh. Johnny was baptized and confirmed for his father and grandfather.  Robert is afraid of water so he just did a ton of confirmations. Sadly Quill and Sienna couldn't go. Yesterday we took Johnny to Brother Martin's and he blessed the sacrament for the first time. It's been really fun to see Johnny progress this far so fast.

We also had zone conference this week in Greensboro. They talked a lot about working with members and our stake president, President Hyatt, came and spoke. Elder Galvin and I also did a piano/organ duet of 'Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy' for the musical number (see video below). Sister Alexander gave a training on dinner appointments and proper behavior which we actually got to use this week! We had dinner with the Tuckers, the Wileys, and the Christensens this week.

So I've been explaining American government to Elder Glavin this week. (He's the Canadian). Everyone seems to be talking about Trump here and Elder Galvin has been pretty lost about how it all works.

I'm still on track with finishing the Book of Mormon by Easter! 10 pages a day isn't easy but it's totally worth it. The other day we were eating at Chiros and the movie "Dances with Wolves" was on one of the T.Vs and I kept getting glimpses of it (you have no idea how hard it is not to look at a movie when it's on, try it sometime) and ever since I've been reading the Book of Mormon and picturing the Nephites being more like the Northern Native Americans. It's like reading a whole new book and super enjoyable. After I finish the Book of Mormon I'm going to spend more time in Jesus the Christ and the New Testament. I've also been studying Preach My Gospel a lot, too. I love the big copy you sent me, thank you so much. It's really helped me learn a lot of new skills for teaching and training. 

Well, time to go play some basketball. Sure love ya'll!

President's Day

Hey everyone...

Yesterday was Presidents' Day so p-day got moved to today. They wanted us out proselyting because people would be home from school and work.  Sadly most of the people we teach are not in school or employed. Sunday night it snowed and then all day yesterday it was freezing rain which meant we couldn't use the car because the roads were a sheet of ice. So we walked around and delivered cookies and had FHE with the Webb's.

Yesterday we were talking to Quill and she said she's going to make me some real "ghetto black southern food" before I leave. They said they're making pig's feet, chitlins, turnip greens, fried okra, ox tails, and pig's face. Like literally the face of a pig. That should be an interesting night for my digestive system...

Johnny was in the hospital all last week because his leg got infected, but he should be going to the temple this Saturday along with Quill and Robert. Robert was ordained to the office of a priest on Sunday and we're really excited for them to all go do baptisms for the dead. 

It was really cold here for a few days, but now it's in the 50's and really nice out.

 

I wish I had some good stories for ya'll but this week was pretty bland. I do want some stories from dad though! I realized I don't know like any of his mission stories at all, so if he has a chance I'd like to hear some. Also I wanna know if he ever trained or was a district leader or anything like that. 

I can't think of anything else to tell you guys about. Next week should be better. Thank you so much for all the love and support you've shown me! I really appreciate all the letters and packages you've sent me. Till next week,

Elder Earnest 

Cold baptisms

This week we had two baptisms! We ended up having to get special permission for Robert to get baptized because he had only been to church twice, but a few weeks ago church got cancelled because of the snow. We have a temple trip coming up and we want him to go, so President Alexander said we could have him baptized. This was the guy that's reading Jesus the Christ and has already finished a ton of church material so he was pretty ready.  Baptisms for missionaries are pretty stressful. Robert showed up 30 mins before the baptism as
planned, but the baptismal pants we had didn't fit him. So me and Elder Everett scrambled around for about a half an hour looking for baptismal pants in his size. Luckily, a guy in the ward had some we could borrow and it all worked out. Elder Everett baptized Robert and Bishop baptized Shequilla. I confirmed both of them yesterday. We also messed up on the water temperature and it was freezing cold. That was pretty funny to watch.

I also had interviews with President this week. He gave me the feeling my Danville days may be over soon, but that's okay because I'm starting to wonder what the rest of the mission looks like. Seven and a half months is a long time to be in an area.

Okay funny story: so there's this guy in our neighborhood we've talked to a few times named Larry, AKA the local drunk. And me and Elder Everett were walking on the sidewalk and see him stumbling along ahead of us. He's got a beer in one hand and a cigarette in another. He keeps swaying back and forth because he's super drunk and then all of a sudden he just stops in the middle of the sidewalk and we see a pee stream splatter out between his legs. He's literally peeing in the middle of the sidewalk on Washington Street.

I've always loved the parable in Mark 4:26. It applies really well to missionary work in that we plant gospel seeds and invite people to do things, but ultimately the spiritual growth is out of our hands just like the planter can't really control the sun and soil of a plant. All that we can do as missionaries is invite. Then it's up to the investigator to act. I've been really fortunate to have been able to find a lot of people here willing to act. Heavenly Father wants to bless us more than anything, we just need to use our agency so he can do that for us.

Sure love ya!

Elder Earnest

Some beautiful (but unidentified) buildings in Danville:

Still alive

I've had a pretty good week here - the snow finally melted so we could actually get out and see some people. We've got a baptism this Saturday and another one on the following Saturday which is pre dope.  Yesterday our recent convert, Johnny, was given the priesthood. That was super exciting for me. We starting meeting with him at the beginning of December and now he's going to the temple to do baptisms for the dead at the end of the month. I'm so grateful for the opportunity I've had to watch his conversion. One of our investigators that is getting baptized next week, Robert, is progressing really, really well too. He's keeps telling us how this is going to be a lifelong thing for him and how he wants to progress in the priesthood and he's read the Book of Mormon and the Gospel Principles manual and the Howard W. Hunter Sunday school book and now he's on Jesus the Christ. So you tell me.

Last night Elder Everett was sick. That was fun... The best part was we had a dinner appointment with Sister J, who's an amazing cook, so we still made him go. He took a nap on the floor the whole time, way to take one for the team buddy but today he's been feeling really crappy so we'll  probably have to stay in all night.

I can never remember what I wrote last week, but I finished the Book of Mormon last week, great book by the way, and I've made a goal to read it again by Easter. Our stake has stake intervals where every three months they have a new challenge or goal, and this interval is to read the Book of Mormon by Easter. I didn't think I was going to do it because I had a late start having to finish it first, but this morning I realized I only have to read like ten pages a day, which only takes a half hour, and I can be done before Easter. I'm pretty excited for that. Me and Elder Galvin have also been reading 4 pages of Isaiah every day and talking about it, which has some REALLY good stuff in it and also some stuff I really don't understand, but I really want to read all of the Bible by the time I finish my mission so I figured this was a good was to jump on the Old Testament.

Being with four missionaries in an apartment is so fun. We're always getting in fights or throwing sweet potatoes at each other or shooting each other with my cross bow. Elder Galvin is a true homie. We've been
writing music together in our free time and the four of us have been playing some pretty intense games of Munchkin.

But yeah I'm still alive and doing well.

Sure love ya!