A Merritt's Adventures in NC: Second Week in Durham: Tracting and more Tracting

This week was awesome! We actually had people to teach! But, before we get into that, I have a couple funny moments of the week.

Story #1:

So, we were out tracting (knocking door to door) in an apartment complex. We knocked on one door a couple of times and no one answers. We turn around to knock on the door behind us. Well, they answered and so did the people of the previous door we knocked on. Elder Rawlins and I just kinda looked at each other. We were so confused! So, he turned and talked to one and I talked to the other. These people looked just as confused and uncomfortable as we did!

Story #2:

We were tracting again (Anyone sensing a pattern here?). I think I have this magnet that attracts weirdos and angry people. The doors I knocked on comprised of these people. Crazy cat lady, some one who could have easily been a witch, a guy who looked like the stereotypical lumberjack, and an angry grandma. I want to focus on the angry grandma. As we approach the house, I looked around and I told Elder Rawlins, "I think a nice old lady lives here." I was right about the old part. It was my turn to knock on the door and when I do this lady answers. I said the usual missionary thing. "Hi, how are you doing today? We are missionaries from..." She cuts me off and yells, "You need to revise your tenants!" And shuts the door. I look at my companion so confused. I asked him, "What does that mean?" We both just stood there looking at each other and started laughing.

Now, here comes the best part of the week! It's Tuesday night and we are knocking on doors in a neighborhood. We get to the point where we are about to leave to a different area, but Elder Rawlins suggests, "Let's just do one more." So we walk up to the door and an elderly guy opens up and his little dog bolts out the door into the yard. Well, we started talking to him and found out his name is Jim. He's a Nazarene. We started talking about our church. He invites us inside and we start talking to him about the restoration for about 20 minutes. We ask him if he'd like us to come back and talk more, he said yes. His wife and daughter walk in the door at this moment, his wife just kind of stops. She looks at us and just has this confused look on her face. We told her who we were and left. Our return appointment is for Sunday at 7 pm. Sunday comes and we knock on Jim's door. He lets us in, but this time his wife is there. She sat down with us and said, "We aren't interested in changing our religion. We just want you to tell us about your church." She was sitting there like she really didn't care about what we had to say. She looked like she just wanted to prove us wrong. She asked us some questions that were pretty hard, but when we answered them she seemed surprised that we had an answer! We went into the restoration again and taught both of them about it (the restoration is our belief that when the apostles had all been killed, the Gospel of Jesus Christ no longer was on the earth. We believe that Joseph Smith restored Christ's church on the earth again). At the end of our lesson, when we were about to leave, Kary (Jim's wife) told us, "I'm going to be honest with you. When you left last time, I asked Jim why he invited you back. But now I want you to come back! There's just something about you guys!" It's like the stories you hear other people tell, but think it will never happen to you. She started off by not caring about what we had to say then she wanted us to come back so she could learn more!

Well, that's all for this week! I have some pictures I want to share. Talk to you next week!

Love, Elder Merritt

PS I have to add this because Ryan wrote this just for me! He ate broccoli for the first time! He said, "You better be proud of me, Mom!!"