January 25-Jacksonville, North Carolina

How are things in Utah? I seriously miss the snow so much! I personally believe that if it is going to be 30 degrees in Jacksonville, it needs to snow. However, when anyone in North Carolina hears the word snow, they go crazy!! There was a possibility Thursday night of snow in Jacksonville on Friday so the schools shut down and do you know what? There was no snow, just rain, and there was no ice.

This week has been a pretty slow week. At the beginning of the week, we had a full schedule. However, as the week went on, all of our appointments except for 3 cancelled.

Monday was a good day. For dinner, we ate with Sister Diaz which is always fun. She teaches Spanish at the local High School and so she taught us a little bit of Spanish this week. After dinner, we stopped by the Brooks family. This week, we actually learned that their last name is really Cannup. Amy has never had her member records changed so the name in the roster says Brooks but it is really Cannup so that was awkward. We had a really good meeting with them that night. The only ones home were the parents and their oldest son. For the most part, we answered most of their questions that they had about the restoration.

 

Tuesday, was our deep cleaning day so we stayed in and cleaned our apartment for most of the day. We did see a less active in the afternoon and then that night, we met with the Adkins family. They are always fun to visit with because their two kids always make me laugh.

Wednesday, we had a worldwide missionary broadcast from Salt Lake. We received a lot of great instructions from several of the general authorities. That night, we stopped by a less active named Patrick Libby. We knocked on his door and the man that answered told us that Patrick Libby had moved across town. He told us that missionaries had been to his house before and so naturally we talked to him about what they taught and how long ago he was taught. He invited us back this week and when we asked what his name was he said "I'm going to tell you what I told the other sisters, I am Patrick Libby." So yeah...that was really weird and awkward. We will have to see what happens with him.

Thursday, we had weekly planning in the afternoon. After dinner, we received a text message from the Zone Leaders informing everyone of the ice storm. They told us that if we did not have food to last us for at least the next 5 days to go and get some. Since we hadn't gone shopping since Monday, we ran to Walmart and got some food just in case.

Friday, we had an appointment with a less active named Ashley. She is a lot of fun. She is around the same age as us which is always fun. We watched The Testaments with her and talked a little bit about the importance of reading the Book of Mormon. That night, it was raining so hard that we couldn't see the roads. After about a half hour, we decided that it was unsafe for us to be on the roads. We ended up staying in and getting a lot of administrative work done.

Saturday, the weather started to get a lot better. We had an appointment with Joyce and actually watched The Testaments with her too. Joyce loved it! She said that she had never felt the spirit so strong before. We talked to her about recognizing the spirit and she said that she is pretty sure that she is on the path that she is supposed to be on. That night, we met with the Donadio's and both of the kids decided to be baptized on March 27!

Sunday night, we had a really great lesson with Robert. We talked with him about the restoration using Bible verses. We stumped him a couple of times which was great. He is coming along slowly but surely.

Hopefully this week, we don't have as many appointments cancel. As always, thank you so much for all of your love and support.

Love,

Sister Paynter