February 29-Jacksonville, North Carolina

How has the week been?!?! Today it is almost 80 degrees here.....at the end of February....WHAT?!?!

This week has been a really good week!!

Monday after emailing, we went to Hobby Lobby!!! I felt like I was home!!!!! Tonight, we had dinner with the Miller's. It was a lot of fun! I always like going over there. After dinner, we met with the Adkins family!! They are a less active family that we have been working with. The dad has only been baptized for about 2 years. Each week they keep progressing really well, so hopefully this week we can get them to CHURCH!!

Tuesday, we got a lot of the preparation stuff done for Makayla's baptism. For dinner, Sister Parker took us to Cracker Barrel!! Sister Alldredge had never been before!!! I had a chicken BLT sandwich that was delicious and then, of course, I ordered hashbrown casserole on the side!!!

Wednesday was Makayla's baptism!! Tuesday night, we received a text message that there was a tornado warning for Wednesday.....we were not too thrilled to hear that. It was pretty windy all day and the clouds were moving so fast!! Everyone kept texting us and asking if the baptism was still going to happen. We said that unless a physical tornado touches down in Jacksonville, this baptism is not going to be cancelled!! By the time everyone started coming to the church, the storm had died down! It was miracle!! The wind even stopped! The baptism was so good!!! That night we had an appointment with our less active Falon. She ended up basically bearing her testimony to us and it was amazing!!! She is determined to come back!!!

Thursday, we stopped by Robert's with Sister Mitchell. Nothing really happened there, but he did say he would come to church to say goodbye to Sister Alldredge. After that, we met with Patrick again. He still isn't really progressing so we may have to drop him but we did find out that he is not really angry at the LDS church, just religion in general.

Friday, we saw Joyce! I don't know if I told you, but she had texted us a week or two ago and asked us not to come by. It turns out, she had pushed everyone away that week!! We had a really good talk with her. That night we had dinner with sweet little Sister Smith and she invited a non-member boy to come and eat with us! We watched Finding Faith in Christ and he seemed to really enjoy it. For the rest of the night we went and stopped by some less actives on base with Sister Johnson.

Saturday, we stopped by a lot of potentials trying to find an investigator and clean up our teaching pool. After that we had an appointment with our investigator Vanessa. She is an amazing investigator!!! She talked about how ever since we told her that in the future we would be inviting her to stop drinking wine, she has been trying to stop.....we haven't even invited her to do it yet!! She also said that she has really loved the feelings that she has been feeling as she has met with us. Many of her friends who know she is meeting with us have told her to just join another church and she has told them that she has tried other churches and none of them have felt right!! She is scheduled to be baptized on April 9th and she is definitely looking forward to it!! That night we met with a less active family and then ended up waiting at the church for a half hour for our other appointment. She ended up not showing up and texting us to tell us that she was in Wilmington (2 hours away)....not happy.

Sunday Makayla was confirmed! It was such a neat experience. We gave her a CTR necklace with a ballerina on it and she loved it!! We met with Michelle and Jeremy after church, they are still making an effort to get into the habit of scripture reading and this week they will be trying to come to church!! The rest of the day was spent stopping by less actives and another potential.

I am so glad to hear that everyone is doing well!!! I love getting everyone's emails and hearing about the new things that go on.

This week Sister Alldredge goes home so I will be working in a trio with the other sisters in my district since Sister Alldredge is going home 6 days earlier. I think it is going to be a lot of fun. One of the sisters that I will be working with is actually the cousin of one of my friends from Snow!! 

I hope everyone has a good week!! I love all of you so much and miss you all!!!

Sister Paynter

P.S. You might not want to send letters or packages for about two weeks, just in case I get transferred!

 

 

My "little" DISNEY fanatic...