Week 10 in Durham: Minister Barnett, Pastor Barrett, and Larry

Monday this past week was pretty fun! We have this new game we play with Nerf guns.It's called, "Zombies." We pretty much have all the elders in the zone in on this game. We played it for about 4 hours and the next day we all regretted it. I won't go into the details of the game because people probably don't want to hear about that. Later that night, we went to check on one of our potential investigators, Alvin.When we knocked on his door, he was on the phone and asked us to come back in an hour. So we went tracting around his apartment complex for about an hour and went back. When we knocked on the door this time, he was still on the phone, but hung up and let us in. We talked to him about the Restoration and he seemed to rally like it. He brought up a concern, He said he had been attending his church for 58 years, and has never felt the Holy Ghost in his entire life. We explained that the Holy Ghost works through a feeling, and it' not this miraculous thing that happens. We invited him to come to church and be baptized. He said he would come to church, but he wants to feel the Holy Ghost telling him to be baptized. 

(P-Days at the church)

Tuesday was one of the greatest days of the mission. The sister missionaries gave us a referral to check out. It was a Bible study with a guy named, Larry.  We decided to go check it out. We showed up and it was weird from the start. The three people that were there were:  Minister Barnett, Pastor Barrett, and Larry. We were having a Bible study with two Baptist preachers, and we were a little worried this was going to turn into a bash session. It started out with Pastor Barrett asking everyone a question about salvation. Everyone made their comments about it. We all had the mutual agreement that we are saved by faith after we do all that we can. It was great way for Elder Rawlins and me to move into the Plan of Salvation. We showed them Jeremiah 1:5, and explained to them that we believe God knew us before we came here. We told them about the Pre-earth Life and why we are here on earth today. We actually shared stuff from the Book of Mormon and they liked it! They told us they are going to incorporate the Book of Mormon into their Bible study every week! It was a really cool experience. It was what I expected coming to the South; there was a lot of "Amen Brother" and "Hallelujah!" It was so fun!

(Bible study class: Ryan, Minister Barnett, Pastor Barrett, and Larry)

Wednesday was a glorious day throughout the world! We had a Worldwide Missionary Broadcast and got some pretty great news! They made some changes to the missionary schedule and to the Key Indicators (numbers we report each week). The new schedule isn't crazy different, except for Mondays. We have a lot more flexibility with when we can do our studies and that stuff through the day. We also plan in the morning instead of before bed, and we can go to bed now a t 9:30 instead of 10:30! So much sleep! On Monday (P-Day) we get an extra 2 hours! The chapel we were all in exploded! Everyone was cheering and so happy! We now start at 8 am instead of 10 am. It's so awesome! Now with reporting numbers we only report 4 different categories instead of 9. It makes it a lot shorter than it used to be.

(new mission schedule)

On Thursday, we met with one of our investigators, Ian. We had met with him once before and taught him the Restoration. this time, we just wanted to answer some questions he might have. It went pretty well. I can't tell you what his questions were because I can't remember them. He said he would come to church that week, so it must have gone well.

Scrap Exchange Friday! This place is so weird. It's a new experience every time we go. This time, I was cutting fabric they had into one yard strips. We also helped trow away a bunch of tile they had. While we were throwing away the tile, we found a mural we had never seen before. We took pictures with it.

(mural with his famous cat shirt)

On Saturday we went to Duke Hospital to talk with a less active member. Afterwards, we looked around Duke Campus while we waited for a member to come pick us up. 

 Duke Campus

Sunday we were hoping that I an and Alvin would be at church. We got a call from Ian saying he had been called into work, so he wasn't going to be there. We weren't able to get a hold of Alvin, so we had little hope that he would be there. Well, we were humbled when we showed up to church. Alvin had gotten there 30 minutes early and had just come from his church. I am never going to doubt people coming to church ever again!

That was this week and it was pretty great! We did have two investigators drop us, Jim and Carrie. It was discouraging, but we are more determined to find solid people.  Have good week!

Elder Merritt

Week 9 in Durham: King of Nerf and Edomites

On Monday, after we finished emailing home, the D1, D2, CH1, and CH2 all got together afterwards and we had a Nerf war inside the church gym! This is one of those moments that makes P-Days awesome! I guess this is my time to brag about my Nerf gun skills. There was one round we played where I eliminated everybody on the opposing team (4 elders). Now, that might not sound super cool, but I was the last one alive on my team. It was 1 vs 4 and I won it for the team! I guess playing all those video games was good for something.

Wednesday we had exchanges with the Chapel Hill elders. In my area it was me and Elder Evans. This meant that i was in charge of the area for the whole day. It's kind of scary, but fun at the same time. It was my chance to prove that I knew what I was doing. I had to plan out the day, and come up with backups if things fell through. That day we had an appointment with our investigator, Nick. With Nick, we talked about how we are saved by faith and works. Nick believes we are saved by our faith alone. We showed him James 2 where it talks about "faith without works is dead." But then he showed us in Romans that is says we are saved by faith, So in stead of having a Bible Bash situation, Elder Evans gave him a great analogy. He said, "Think of life as a marathon. We need to put as much effort in as possible, but no one will be able to run the entire race. The only one who ever ran the race completely was Jesus Christ. In order for us to complete the race, Christ had to be the one to finish it for us, but he expects us to put in 100%. Even if our best is 1 or 15 miles. He knows when we have done everything we possibly can, and then He steps in and takes us the rest of the way."  I though t is was one of the best ways I have ever heard it explained. Nick asked, "What if we don't give our best? Will Christ still carry us the rest of the way?" I answered, "Since He knows what we can actually do, He will only take us the amount He needs to.  So if your best is 13 miles, but you only run 7, He is only going to carry you to the 20 mile mark and you must run the last 6 miles. It goes back to the Plan of Salvation. If the Celestial Kingdom is the finish line, but we don't give all we can, God won't give us all He can. Why should we not give all we can, and expect God to give us all He has?" I don't know how correct my statement was, but it seemed he understood what we were saying. When the lesson was over, we invited him to be baptized when he comes to know what we are saying is true. He said he would have to pray about it.

We stopped by Jim's on Wednesday as well. He had been reading The Book of Mormon a little bit, but had some questions. He was wondering why we had said the Book of Mormon took place in America when it starts out in Jerusalem. We explained to him at the beginning of  the book they are leaving Jerusalem and God is going to lead them to the Americas.

On Friday, Elder Rawlins and I went with the zone leaders to volunteer at this place called The Scrap Exchange. It's kind of  like an arts and crafts place where they take recycled stuff and people come and make art out of it. This week they put us in one of the new places they bought. They call it the "Black Market." They had us taking old floor boards and bundle them together. Afterwards, I went on exchanges with Elder Hawks (one of the zone leaders) back in our area. The whole day was pretty much tracting. However, tracting helped produce part of the title.

It was about 7 at night and we were just trying to find someone to teach. We ran into an African - American woman who said she was from the tribe of Judah. In other words, she was saying she was a Jew. She started explaining to us that the real Jews were actually black and that Jesus was actually black. She then called us Edomites. My research on the topic of Edomites is very small, but what I do know is the Edomites and the Israelites hated each other in the Old Testament. She told us that we had changed the Bible and that we were going to Hell because in Revelations it says if you do anything to the Bible, you're in big trouble! We asked her if she knew anyone we could talk to. She then said, "I would never send you to my fellow tribe mates, but there are some Edomites over there." She pointed to the door across the hall and then shut the door in our face. Elder Hawks turned to me and said, " If she's a Jew, why is she quoting Revelations? Jews don't believe in the New Testament." This experience probably made the top 3 in the weirdest experiences on my mission.

   That's it for the week! Talk to you guys next week!!

Elder Merritt

PS Question of the week :

8th Week in Durham: Obedience to Rules Brings Blessings

So it might not have been the most eventful week, but it was pretty good! Nothing exciting happened Monday or Wednesday. But Thursday. Thursday was interesting...

Tuesday was a little weird. We tried to see a less active member. We had gone by with a member a couple weeks ago, but it looked like the door had been kicked in and it was 8 o'clock at night, so needles to say we didn't feel safe. We went back on Tuesday and the door was still kicked in...We came to the conclusion that if he was dead, we would call the police and never go back. We walked up to the door and it didn't smell like a dead guy was in there. We knocked on the door and called inside. No answer. There was dog food everywhere inside, it seemed like no one was there. So, there might be a member of the church who got kidnapped, or something.

Thursday all started at 6:30 am.We had interviews with President James (our mission president) at the Stake Center at 2:30 in the afternoon. There was a slight problem. We didn't have the car this week. The Stake center was in Chapel Hill. It is in a totally different city than Durham. We had to get on the bus that would take us to Chapel Hill, then find the other bus that would get us close to the church. The bus we needed to get on left at 9:30 am. We got on that bus and were on our way to Chapel Hill. The Sisters had given us direction on where to get off. They told us to get off at "Franklin St." Well, we got off at Franklin, but it wasn't the right stop. We needed the stop that was 2 miles up the road. So, we started walking. We finally reached the stop we needed and rode the bus to the church. We got there around 12:30, and did our weekly planning until 2. About this time, the Chapel Hill elders showed up for their interviews. When 2:30 came around, our president still wasn't at the church. We waited until about 3 and gave him a call. He said he was on his way. He arrived around 4 and we hurried and di our interviews because we had a dinner appointment at 5. Well, we realized the bus wasn't going to get us there in time, so we pretty much begged the sisters to let us borrow the car. They let us use it and we got to our dinner around 6. That day was stressful!

This week has been really frustrating finding "golden" investigators (golden meaning ready to accept the Gospel). We found 2 this week , but one was a YSA (Young Single Adult) age, so we had to refer her to different missionaries. The second was a 71 year-old lady we met on the bus, but she lived outside our area, so we had to refer her to a different set of Elders. Even though it was frustrating, we kept saying that if we were obedient, we will find someone this week. 

Last night (Sunday), we had someone tell us through the door to come back later. It didn't seem solid, but we felt like we should try to see them. We knocked on the door, and they answered! we taught the Restoration and they wanted us to come back so we could tell them more! This is the blessing we received for striving to do what we could to find someone who was ready to teach. 

This week has been really good for me. The homesickness is gone and we are successful from a numbers standpoint. Mom Wanted to know about goals. We set goals everyday! The work is going great! Doing this everyday really makes you appreciate all that Christ did for us! I feel His love everyday. I think one of my favorite things as a missionary is seeing people how God sees them. You can just feel His love for them whenever you meet someone new! Love you! And tell everyone I love them too! 

Elder Merritt

PS Mom, this picture is for you because I know you like pictures like this.

7th Week in Durham: Snow in Durham

This week has been pretty fun! Last Monday after emailing we went to Walmart and Elder Rawlins bought a Nerf gun, and we have been randomly breaking out into Nerf wars. Thanks for the Nerf guns!!

On Tuesday, I made fish tacos and they were so good! It is probably the fanciest thing I have made so far. While we were tracting, we saw this porch that had like 8 doors just sitting there and we were so confused to why they were there.

We had district meeting on Wednesday and met the new missionaries in our district.Later that night we saw a house with a light show going on. We couldn't listen to the music they were playing, so we made our own!!

Thursday (my birthday) was great! We went and played disc golf with one of our investigators. I was so bad at it! I was +21 by the end of 18 holes. I got my birthday package from the family and Wendy that day. It was great they didn't get stolen. Thanks so much!

Friday was crazy! First off, we started the day coming across two creepy dolls sitting on a front porch. Also in North Carolina, it's an Armageddon when it snows. The forecast said there would be snow around 6 at night. We went to the store to restock just in case we got  stuck inside. We walked over to the bread and it was all gone! People here are crazy! It ended up only snowing 3-4 inches, but no one was out doing anything. It was crazy!

creepy dolls

everything in the store is gone!

Saturday, we woke up to about 4 inches of snow and ice. We received a text from our mission president that we couldn't drive on snowy or icy roads, so we had to walk all day. We went and checked on the creepy baby dolls.They were frozen solid! Later that night, while we were walking around, we found some metal animal sculptures. It was really cool! We were able to teach Jim and Carrie as well. They hadn't been reading the Book of Mormon, so we read 2 Nephi 32 and 33 with them. We explained why reading the Book of Mormon is so important to knowing what we teach them is true.

 frozen, creepy baby dolls

animal sculptures

On Sunday, church got cancelled due to weather. It ended up being a normal missionary day. All of our appointments fell through, so it turned into a lot of tracting. After about 2 hours, we decided to turn back and eat dinner, but on the way we had a little fun. We played in the snow and tried sledding down hills on our butts. It ended up not being a very productive day, but we had fun!

playing in the snow

When we left this morning to come email, it was 13 degrees! It has been so cold! The humidity makes it worse! Hopefully it warms up soon.

That's this week! It might not have been very productive, but I had fun!!

Love, 

Ryan

6th Week in Durham: Slow Week with a Dash of Homesickness

So since it's the holiday season, everyone decided they didn't need to be at home. This led us to not doing too much, except tracting...but Elder Rawlins loves it, so that's what we did everyday.

I got to FaceTime home on Christmas. It was awesome! I was glad to see my dad really didn't get rid of my XBOx One! It was great to see the family too! And, the great news is my package was not stolen! It arrived late Wednesday night! So thank you! I have already eaten all the food that was in it!

It was also the last week of this transfer, so we are getting new people in our district. Elder Rawlins and I will stay together in our area, but other people are leaving. One of the Sisters is training this transfer, and that means I won't be the youngest in the district anymore! It's great!!

The mission is better than I thought it was going to be! It's great to be in a new place and just talk to people about Christ and what we believe. But the homesickness has kinda started hitting the past week or two. I'm trying to push through it, so if you have any advice, I'd love to hear it!

Have good week!

Elder Merritt

FaceTime on Christmas day. Dinosaur on the head the whole time!

Ryan's First District in Durham