Week 1 in Durham 2: Back Again!

Well, everyone, I got transferred back up to the Dirty D- that's what it's known in the mission! I am so happy to be back in the city! I am not back in the same part of Durham that I started my mission. I am in the Durham 2nd Ward. Here's my new address:

2950 Bertland Ave Apt 116

Durham, NC 27705

Here in D2, we have something different going on. We are in a trio! That's righ, there are three of us! Me, Elder Haslam, and Elder Tellez. If Elder Haslam sounds familiar, that's because we were in the same district during my 1st transfer. Elder Tellez is in his last transfer, so we get to "kill" him off. We all get along pretty well. Elder Tellez tried to force feed Elder Haslam a Swiss role. I got it all on video that I will try to share. We also attached Elder Tellez's Millennium Falcon to the ceiling fan and it flew pretty fast. 

We are teaching a 17 year-old girl named Hannah. I have only met her once. We taught her the Plan of Salvation on Tuesday. She had a lot of good questions. We are going to meet again with her this week and, hopefully, she'll have more questions for us. 

So, before transfers, we got a call from the mission stalker, Sonny. If you remember, he called me while is was in Durham my first time. Well, he called us again in Dunn. The elders there are always the first to get a call from him when he changes his number. I must have a weirdo magnet, or something, because I got a weird call on Tuesday when I got to Durham 2. Here's the story:

We had just gotten home after being gone all day. The phone rings. Elder Haslam answered it. The guy says he wants us to come over, but only one of us. We told him we couldn't do that. He said, "Never mind!" and hung up. 15 minutes later, we got another call from him. He said, "You have 3? Bring all of you over!" He wanted us to come over right then! We told him we couldn't because it was too late. We told him we could come by on Thursday. He told us Thursday was too late and then hung up. If you can see where this is going, he called us the next morning. He said, "Thursday? Come Thursday!" We told him we could come around 6:30 on Thursday. We were a little wary of this and the situation. When we showed up on Thursday, we were just praying that we weren't going to be kidnapped or die! We knocked on the door and...NOTHING! He wasn't even home. We text him and told him we had stopped by. He replied and said that he was working. He said he would call us when he had time for us to stop by. We haven't heard from him yet, so maybe we aren't going to meet him. 

Other than that, we tracted A LOT! Not much to report about this week. It was still pretty good. Talk to you all next week!

 Love, Elder Merritt

PS Here are a few pics of us being bored...

Week 6 in Dunn: Getting Transferred...Again...

I guess I was only to be in Dunn for 6 weeks. I am getting transferred, again. I don't know where I am going. We had a really slow week this week too. 

We were able to talk to one of our investigators this week, Reece. We taught him about the Word of Wisdom. It went pretty good. Since Elder Larsen and I are both leaving the area, we took a picture with all the young men and Reece. 

We spent Saturday and Sunday night packing. We also went to say goodbye to some people. Today we have to clean the apartment. 

Sorry for such a boring report, but we didn't have much happen this week to talk about. 

The church is true! Lear it, live it, love it!! Talk to you next week!

Love, Elder Merritt

PS Just though I'd share this license plate. I though it was pretty funny.

Week 5 in Dunn: Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream?!

Hey Everyone! This week was pretty solid. We didn't do a lot of teaching, but we had a lot of fun!

We were only able to teach one person this week. And that was Emily. I was on exchange with Elder Flake. It was good to have him because Emily's dad only speaks Spanish. We talked with her about why reading the Book of Mormon is important to knowing if this is true or not. We watched President Monson's General Conference talk from this past April conference. Then we read a little bit of the Book of Mormon with her. We have been trying to set a baptismal date with her, but it hasn't felt right yet. Hopefully soon!

Well, while we were driving, two birds fell from the sky. They both hit our car. One rolled off the top, and the other kind of disappeared. We were on our way to the church at this time, and when we got there, we looked at the front of our car. Elder Larsen saw some feathers, but looking closer you could tell it was a lot more than just feathers. The second bird got stuck in a hole in our car! It was dead. Neither one of us really wanted to touch it, so we went inside and got some of the young men to come out. One of the deacons was excited to be the one to pull it out! He pulled it out and then chased the young women with it! 

Poor bird!

We had dinner with a member on Thursday. Afterwards, we went to this place called Sunni Skies. It's an ice cream place with 150 flavors of ice cream! I got pumpkin pie with cookies and cream. It is probably one of the best things I have ever tasted!

For the past month we have been working with the Methodist church in Dunn to set up a Hymn sing with our church and theirs. Well, after a lot of planning and moving things around, it happened yesterday (June 11th)! It was an awesome experience! A lot of people showed up and we all had a great time. The Methodists even put an announcement on their sign outside! It was an awesome missionary experience, not just for Elder Larsen and I, but for the whole ward too! They were all on board. They talked to so many people they didn't know. It just turned out great!

That's it for this week. Talk to all next week with some more stories!

Love, Elder Merritt

Week 4 in Dunn: A Platypus and Jerry Seinfeld

This week we were able to talk to a few more of our investigators. We also had interviews with President James. In the interview, we had to demonstrate a 4 minute Restoration. A 4 minute Restoration is where you have to teach the entire Restoration discussion in 4 minutes. I didn't make the 4 minute time. It took me 5 minutes and 11 seconds. But, President James said I did a really good job and that he forgot there was a timer because I had him invested in the conversation. So I guess that's good!

We had a basketball day last Monday. I ended up rolling my ankle pretty bad. Instead of stopping, I just kept playing. When we got home that night, my foot was supper swollen! It was so big and it hurt to walk for the next few days. 

(my fat foot)

We had District Meeting on Wednesday. The "Get to know You Question" was: "What animal and what famous person does your companion remind you of?" Elder Larsen told me that I was a platypus and Jerry Seinfeld. I don't know if those are good or bad things, but I liked them!

We also had Exchanges this week! On Wednesday, I was with Elder Flake( our District Leader) in Clinton. We had a family history night with some people that were friends with one of the members in the Clinton Branch. We also taught one of their investigators. 

Then, on Friday, after interviews, we went on exchange with the Zone leaders. I was with Elder Jorgenson. He was an assistant last transfer, so I was kind of nervous to be going on exchange with him. I really did not want to mess anything up. It ended up being really fun! He goes home after this transfer. We found one kid named Que while we were tracting. We are going to go see him on Tuesday. 

Well, that was the week! This next one should be really good too! We are on week 5/6 on this transfer. Talk to all next week!

Love, Elder Merritt

PS I got a kick out of this car. I really don't know why. Also, My mom asked me to name three things I really like about the area I am in right now, and three things I like about my companion. So here goes!

3 Things I like about Dunn:
1) the people
2) the Ward
3) a full time car- no bike!

3 things I like about Elder Larsen:
1) plays the organ
2) really funny
3) he's a relaxed person