Week 23 in Durham 2: Thanksgiving Week!

This week was awesome! Not a lot happened because we had Thanksgiving and a lot of people were out of town. We did get to go to the temple this week, that was fun!We went to Thanksgiving at the Bishop's house. It was a lot of fun, and we ate a lot of food. Friday, we had our weekly Floral Friday picture with. We also had a couple of appointments, but they fell through. So, we ended up tracting most of the day. 

Sunday, we had church and tracted. We also got to teach the Elder's Quorum. Since this email is so small, I figured I would leave something with you that adds some more space. Our lesson in Elder's Quorum was about trusting in the Lord. We used a talk from the April 2017 General Women's session of Conference. It quoted this Scripture:

"5. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

6. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct they paths."

-Proverbs 3:5-6

I looked up the trust in the dictionary. It had a couple of other words used. Faith and Hope. In the lesson we used trust to define faith and hope. It was really cool how similar words are and have the same meaning. As long as we are willing to trust the Lord, everything will work out for us!

Sorry this week was so boring! I do have some pictures of our Floral Friday:

Have a good week!

Love, Elder Merritt

Week 22 in Durham 2: An Unexpected Church Vistor

Hey, Everyone!

So this week was decent. We had a couple interesting experiences happen. So let's get to it!

Monday was a Monday. We did P-Day stuff.

Tuesday, we were supposed to have an appointment with Shariff ( one of our investigators). He had to cancel it, and we moved it to Thursday instead. Other than that we tracted.  

Wednesday, we had District Meeting. We also tracted. 

Thursday, we got a text from Shariff saying he had to move the appointment, again. We moved it to Saturday. Elder Larsen had a pretty fun day on Thursday, though! He plays the organ, and likes to go to other places to play their organs. It's a fun way to mix up missionary work! He set up an appointment with Duke Chapel to play their organ. He's never been to Duke Chapel before, so he was pretty excited. We showed up and they let him play for an hour. People like to come and look around the chapel. all these random people would stop and listen to Elder Larsen play! It was super fun!

Friday wasn't to interesting. We tracted. We also tried to set up an appointment to see Donnie again, but we weren't able to get in contact with him. 

On Saturday, we had our lesson with Shariff (he didn't cancel this time). We just kind of talked and hung out with him a bit. He used to be the Sister's investigator, he has been taught everything. When they gave him to us, we just wanted to get to know him, so he could feel comfortable with us. 

Sunday was our eventful day, which is very unusual. At church, the missionaries stand at the front doors and greet people. Well, there was someone who got out of his car that I recognized. I knew they weren't a member of this ward. As he was walking up, I realized who it was. When he saw me, he knew who I was too! Any guesses? (Jeopardy music playing) No? Well, it was my orthodontist, Dr. Silcox, from back home! He actually remembered me, which surprised me! It was pretty cool! We talked for a bit. It turns out, that he used to live in Durham. HE was in the Durham 2nd Ward when he lived here. 

Another funny thing happened when we were on the bus. We weer on our way home, and we talked to this lady on the bus. We found out that her and I have a lot in common. We like the same stuff. She wants to hang out and take us to Chili's. So, that's fun!

Well, that was our week! No pictures since I forgot my camera! Talk to all next week. 

Love, Elder Merritt

Week 21 in Durham 2: Donnie's Week

This past week wasn't too special. We really didn't find anyone. 

Monday was a P-Day. We emailed and stuff. 

On Tuesday, we met up with Donnie and talked with him about coming to church on Sunday.  He said he'd be there. 

Wednesday, we had District Meeting. We got the car from the Sisters, so we wouldn't have to use the bus the rest of the week. 

Thursday, we had weekly planning. We also went to check on our investigator, Victor. He was busy at the time we went by, but he told us we could come by any day this week to talk to him. 

Friday was a tracting day! We did find someone's slightly used cigarette stuck in a wall. That was interesting.  Maybe they were going to come back for it? I don't really know. The south is a weird place!

Saturday, we went back to see Donnie. We wanted to see if he was still good to come to church the next day. We tried to call him, and it went straight to voicemail. Which either meant his phone was dead, or he blocked us. We went by to see him. When we showed up, we lucked out since his soon to be wife was outside. She let us in and we went up to see Donnie. We knocked on his door and talked with him a little bit. Turns out a lady in the building doesn't like him because he is meeting with us. She told him she was going to talk bad about him to everyone because he was with us. He ended up blocking us because of that. We talked to him, and told him how lots of people don't like us. He was very upset with people talking bad about us. He' said, "They talk bad about you guys, but they don't even know you! They don't know you like I know you!" He decided he would ignore her and be at church the next day. 

As he was walking us out of the building, there was this old man sitting near the door. He asked us if we could go get him some coffee. We told him we weren't able to because we had an appointment to go to (who ended up not being there). He started yelling at us and telling us that we weren't Christian. It was kind of funny since we had just told Donnie about that stuff happening a few minutes before. 

On Sunday, Donnie showed up for church, He loved it! He told us that he learned so much and would be back next week. 

That was our week, it wasn't too eventful. No crazy bus stories! Talk to all next week!

Love, Elder Merritt

Week 20 in Durham 2: Crazy Week

Hey, everyone! Oh, boy! Do I have some experiences to share about this week! Our week was pretty normal, until Saturday. It took a turn for the weird! So, here goes!

Monday, we didn't have P-Day as you all should know. We went tracting and found this guy named Shawn. We talked to him at his door, so we haven't taught him anything, yet. 

Tuesday was Halloween and P-Day. We had a district activity where we carved pumpkins. Mine was the best, I must say. That night we were on "lock down." We weren't allowed to go proselyte. 

On Wednesday, we had a combined Zone Conference. President Catlett is in our mission presidency. He has a fram that we go to once a year to do activities. It was super fun! Our zone won the competitions!  That was pretty cool!

Thursday, nothing super exciting happened. 

Friday, we didn't have anything happen either. 

Saturday was a very eventful day!!

So, we go to get on the bus, before we get to the station, a guy gets on. He sits a couple seats away from me. The bus starts moving again, and the guy turns to me and says, "Ephesians 4:31." I go to grab my Bible out of my bag, and he stops me. He says, "No. Recite it." I told him I didn't know it off the top of my head. So, he recites it- I didn't hear all of it because the bus was really loud. He asks why I don't know it. I told him that I just didn't memorize it. He turns away. Then, he turns back around, and asks, "Why does your church not study from the Bible?" I told him that we do. He asked again why I didn't know Ephesians 4:31. I gave him the same answer. He turned away again. A few seconds later, he taps me on the shoulder. He asked, "Are you saved?" At this point I know he just wants to prove me wrong, so I want to end it quick. I asked him, "By saved, do you mean living with God again?" He replies, "Yes. That's exactly what I mean." I answered, "Well, then no, I am not saved, because I am sitting on this bus talking to you." He looked dumbfounded. He said, "Have a nice day." He didn't talk the rest of the bus ride.

We had a referral we went to check on in the ghetto of Durham. We went during the day( because we don't want to die) to meet up with him. Well, the problem is that he lives in a building that only the tenants can open from the inside.  We looked up his name in the directory. His name is Donnie Moore. As we were looking, we found an R. Moore in 327. We thought that maybe we had misheard his name, that it was actually Ronnie instead of Donnie. We call and no one answers. A random guy walks past and lets us in. We told him we are looking for room 327. He said, "307? Yeah, I can get you there." We told him no, 327. He said he'd still get us there, We follow him up the elevator. When the door opens, we see a sign that says, " <-- 326-331." Our guy goes the wrong way! Elder Larsen tried to stop him, but I whispered, "Adventure." So, we follow this guy, and he realizes he went the wrong way. Then, we show up to the door of Ronnie. We knock on the door...nothing. We call the number we have, and someone picks up. While I'm on the phone, a guy walks by and say, "Oh, he's in the hospital." We were so confused because I am on the phone with him and he says he's home. The guy on the phone tells me he's sending a lady in black down to come get us. We hung up, and kind of stood there not knowing what to do. We decide to go down the elevator to see if she is waiting for us. We get down there, only to find there is no lady in black. So, we go back up the elevator. We step out, and we see the lady in black. She asks, Are you looking for Donnie?" We say, "No, we are looking for Ronnie." She replied, "No. Ronnie is Donnie's twin brother. You looking for Donnie." We follow her to room 320-not 327. We meet Donnie. Well, he was busy, so we had to reschedule. We leave, but the adventure doesn't end there!

We go out to the bus stop to head back home for lunch. At the bus stop, there is this guy rustling in the bushes, behind the bus stop. We decided to leave him alone, and walk to another stop until he left. About 5 minutes later, we walk back to see if he's gone. He was, but we wanted to see what he was doing in the bushes. I go and look, and there is a spot cleared out! There are also suitcases and clothes! THE GUY LIVES IN THE BUSHES! It was so weird. The bus came and we got on. But, we still have one more experience for the day...

We get to the station, and get on the bus we need to go home. While we are sitting on the bus, a guy gets on yelling and the driver follows him on. He's also yelling! They are yelling at each other for not having respect.  It got to the point where a cop in the station had to come and drag the rider off the bus. It was so crazy! Saturday was exhausting! 

Well, Sunday wasn't exciting. I hope that this week makes up for the past few boring ones. Talk to you all next week. 

Love, Elder Merritt