Breaking and entering

Hey Ya'll. 

 "4 Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God."  Ether 12:4

I love this idea that if we just have hope in God, it turns to faith and when we exercise that faith it becomes an anchor to us. Even though life gets really rough and hard, as long as we anchor ourselves in Christ and live a Christ-centered life, everything will be alright. There's really nothing to worry about because in the end Christ has our back. I love the line in the Hymn 'I Believe in Christ' that says "I believe in Christ, so come what may." God rarely does what's easiest for us, but he'll always do what's best for us and if we just live the gospel of Jesus Christ (faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end) our burdens are lightened, and life is good. 

Speaking of life being good, this week I was chased by a pitbull, met a lady who claimed she was the resurrected Christ, and had someone try and break into to my house. Pretty normal week....

At 3 AM this morning I was awoken by a pounding at our front door. It was like a violent pounding and super loud. I was really confused why someone was 'knocking' on our door at 3 AM and pretty freaked out. I just kinda pulled my blanket up over my head and waited for it to stop, but the person (aka Sasquatch) kept pounding on our door. Then they started turning the door knob back and forth like they were trying to get in. At this point my companion was also awake and I was like "what do we do?" and he was like "I'm calling the cops." So he calls 911 because some insane person is pounding on our front door and violently twisting and turning our door knob. He told me later the lady on the other end of the line told him they had a unit on Claiborne, Washington, and 3rd ave which all are right next to our house, basically they've got a ton of cops patrolling our neighborhood every night cause it's super sketchy, so it only took like two seconds and then there were eight cops and three or four cop cars in our front lawn. Sometime between when we called 911 and the cops showed up the person stopped knocking and left our door step. As we told the police officer on our door step what was going on, I noticed that for some reason our car's lights were on and that two other cops were talking to these people in a truck right up the street from us. The people in the truck were our neighbors, a crazy old lady named Sister Crochier who goes to church with us and some other weirdo that lives with her. The two cops talking with our neighbors come over and tell us that Sister Crochier noticed our car light was on and wanted to let us know so that our car wouldn't be dead in the morning. I'm baffled as to why she chose to do this at 3 in the morning and even more confused, and slightly concerned, at the fact she tried to open our front door. Long story short, someone tried to break into our house so we called the cops and it turned out to be Sister Crochier telling us our car light was on.

We also have a stalker named Berna. She's an insane old woman who thinks she's the messiah, speaks in tongues to birds, and can read palms. She was a referral from a minister we talk with sometimes, and I'm pretty convinced he set us up. This lady calls us about 30 times a day and sends us really creepy text messages. Also she saw a demon at Walmart. 

To say this week has been interesting is a bit of an understatement, but we've also been super blessed and have more people to teach than we have time for! One of our investigators is on date for baptism and another one is getting pretty close. It's very exciting. 

I went on an exchange to Caswell this week (and got chased by a dog that probably weighs twice my weight)  and met Brother Batten! (Note:  Brother Batten is Sam's uncle's father who lives in North Carolina.)  He gave us a ride to district meeting, very nice guy.

I'm on my way out to Eden to go fishing for a district activity, but I hope ya'll have a great week and keep writing to me! Love ya'll! 

Elder Earnest

Ridin' around on my bicycle

Hey Y'all!

First off, thank you so much for all the care packages and mail! They really brighten my day and help me get through the rough times. It's amazing how much an email or letter from one of you can make me feel so uplifted.

Things in Virginia are pretty chill right now. The Confederate flag is a pretty big deal right now. Apparently Danville was the last Confederate capital before they lost the war, so there are a lot of people really passionate about the flag here. On the other hand, there are also a lot of people that don't like the flag at all so people are taking down Confederate flags in Danville and then other people are putting them back up. I heard that there's this really rich guy going around renting out little 5x5 plots of people's land just so he can put a flag pole up with the Confederate flag. It's pretty nuts.

They took our car away last week so we're now in a car share with the sister missionaries, which means we've been biking a ton. It took me until this week to realize how big and hilly Danville is. Not a huge fan of the bikes, but it has brought some interesting experiences.

The other day we were meeting with a less active woman on her porch, and some guy pulled up and asked if we were having a Bible study. I said we were and he asked if he could join and I said of course! Then the dude came over and before he even sat down he was trying to explain that our church wasn't true because our Elder's aren't married. He was using a scripture that I looked at later and saw it was giving the requirements for a Bishop so I'm not really sure what that was about. All he really wanted to do was argue with us, and then he basically told the lady we were talking with that her mom was going to hell because she wasn't baptized. You could tell the guy was just trained to take down Mormons, but really didn't know a thing about our church. He kept saying false things about the church and then we say "we actually don't believe in that" and then he'd say "yes, you do" and I was just thinking to myself, "thank you sir for telling me what I do and don't believe in." I could have sat there and Bible bashed with him, but I could tell no matter what I said he was too caught up in hatred to listen and understand so I just sat there and took it and then told him we loved him and pretty much left. All you can really do in that situation is just show them love.

I've spoken to a ridiculous amount of people here that have suffered from domestic violence. I have heard far too many stories of people's boyfriends getting drunk and beating them. I won't go into detail, but I've heard more detailed stories than I can bare. Alcohol and substance abuse seem to be the worst thing anyone could do to themselves. The sad part is, the people getting abused don't know how to deal with it so they turn to alcohol and smoking and drugs. There's so much filth here, and I can't think of any other way to describe it.

On a brighter note, Orson Scott Card is in my stake!!!! I'll be looking for him at Stake conference.

I really miss ya'll, but your letters and emails and packages really uplift me. Hope ya'll have a fantastic week!

Vic Fitzgerald and the bloody napkin

Hey Ya'll! 

Things in Danville are going great! I apologize for not giving enough details in my previous emails, it's really hard to type out long emails on the iPad so the keyboard will really help. But now I'll answer all of mom's questions!

The first night in the mission home they fed us dinner and then sent us to bed. Haha, it wasn't super exciting. We'd all been up since 2 am so everyone was way tired and I'm pretty sure I was out by 8:30. All the elders stayed at the assistant's apartment and the sisters stayed at the mission home. I haven't really had the chance to meet my mission president and his wife since there were 13 of us greenies and we were only with them for a few hours, but they seem really nice! Elder Clarke is super chill. He likes to play basketball and has a really good understanding of the scriptures so we've had some pretty cool deep doctrinal conversations. He's from Huntington Beach California which is pretty close to San Clemente. On P day we usually just relax and play basketball but today we're going down to Greensboro for a zone cook out. The members occasionally feed us dinner but we mostly just cook our own meals, all though a few times we've gotten lazy and gone to Bojangles. We mostly make chicken and rice with peppers and sauce. I have lost like 5 pounds though which sucks because I want to be gaining weight.  I'm eating a decent amount of fruits and veggies but I've been told it's a good idea for missionaries to eat vitamins so they get everything they need.  Any suggestions on which ones I should buy? We don't really knock doors unless the Spirit prompts us to a specific door. We mostly just contact previous investigators, inactive members, and part member families. Member referrals are like our favorite thing ever though, but it doesn't happen very often. Our ward is much smaller than Cline Falls, it reminds me a lot of Madras. We cover the Danville ward along with a set of sisters. 

Funny story: we were out tracking looking for a former investigator by the name of Vic Fitzgerald. When we got to his house there was an old man chillin' on the porch, a common sight in Danville. We asked if his name was Vic. He didn't reply and just stared at us, so we walked a little closer and asked agin if he was Vic but he just stared at us. It was kinda creepy. Eventually we were up right next to him and we asked again and he let out this strange grunt that sounded somewhat like the word "what?"  And we said a little louder "Are you Vic?" He put his hand up to his ear so my companion yells "ARE YOU VIC?" And it takes like 39 seconds for him to process what we just said and then he grunts, like a legit grunt,  "what's a Vic?".   My companion then points at the door and yells "DOES VIC LIVE HERE?"  And the old man grunts "what?"  At this point I'm just trying not to laugh as my companion says all right, have a nice day. Honestly I'm not sure why we didn't teach him about the restoration right then and there.  Also the guy had a napkin in his hand covered in blood. 

Anyways, thank ya'll for the emails! A couple of you have said sorry that they're long but honestly the longer the better because I love hearing from ya'll! 

If you have anymore questions about what's going on here just let me know! I miss ya'll so much and hope yins have a fantastic week!

Elder Earnest

2 Corinthians5:7

A video from Danville

Yins and Ya'll

Hello from Danville Virginia!!!!

I'm totally living in the ghetto and it's nuts. Last week my companion went outside and heard a bunch of gun shots. I've seen some pretty crazy stuff already. No one has street addresses so they just spray paint the number on their garbage cans and almost all the houses have "no trespassing" signs on the front door. The other day I'm pretty sure I almost witnessed a hit and run and then we saw two guys trying to break into a funeral home in broad daylight. It really feels like I'm living in a 3rd world country. The tap water isn't even drinkable. All the people here are super easy to teach because they all sit on their porch all day but they're really hard to commit because they all are literally chained down to smoking and it's very sad. If I've learned anything so far it's to stay as far away as possible from any form of smoking and any other type of addictive substance because I've seen first hand that it will literally control and destroy your life. 

We've been working like crazy trying to find people to teach and the Lord has really been blessing us. Last night we taught a lesson to a random kid we found on our former investigator list and the Spirit was so strong and intense. The kid was really tearing up by the end and I could tell he's been waiting for the gospel for a long time. It made me feel so good to know I made a positive difference in his life that day. 

I also have a new companion named Elder Clarke. He's from Cali and is super chill. We get along really well so I'm very grateful to have him. 

I love yins and miss ya'll so much. Also I can read emails every night; I just can't send any until Mondays so if ya'll have a spiritually uplifting thought or just want to send me a story or what not I'd love to hear it throughout the week! 

Love, 

Elder Earnest 

Arriving in Charlotte

The newest missionaries in the North Carolina Charlotte mission.

Elder Earnest with President and Sister Alexander.

On my way to NC

Hey guys! 

I went to the Provo temple this morning and also this will be my last letter from the MTC because I leave for NC on Monday (August 3) at 3:30 AM. Not too happy about that, but I'm super excited to leave because the food here sucks. Also over 1,000 missionaries showed up on Wednesday and there's a record breaking high of over 3,000 missionaries here right now so cafeteria lines are super long. I'm still really enjoying all my classes here though! I've learned pretty quickly you can't teach what you don't know, and you sure can't teach without the Spirit. There was a day here where they pretty much blew my mind and shattered my testimony (in a good way). I figured out, though, that having a testimony isn't enough, you've got to be truly converted so that's what I've been working towards. My teacher is so dope, he's like crazy smart about the gospel. He spent a term studying in Jerusalem through BYU last spring, and now I'm seriously considering doing that when I get back.  

Get this, I got a new set of leather scriptures, not a quad, for $16 dollars. We were doing service the other day and we were in the cleaning room and I saw this huge pile of clothes and manuals. I asked the guy what they were and he said it was stuff people left in dorms and it was all going to the DI pod and I could take what ever I wanted. Most of the stuff was in another language but I found a brand new English Bible. Then I went to the MTC store and got a triple which only cost 16 dollars because they give missionaries super discounts.

Anyway that's whats up with me! I'm very sorry to hear mom is sick and I hope she gets better! Enjoy Bear Lake and let me know how it goes. I'd write to all of you individually but they only give us an hour to write emails. I love you all and miss ya'll a ton. Hope to hear from you next week, 

Elder Earnest

P.S Thanks so much for the minonaries, I was having a rough day and it totally made me feel so good. Love ya'll.     

Sam's first missionary package. Thanks to Quinn and Jonas for drawing the faces!