Week 23 in Fayetteville: Down to Single Digits!

Hey, Everyone!

So today marks the day I am in single digits until I am home! It's insane how fast time has flown by!

This week had some good things happen even though I can't do much. I had my last zone conference. That means I had to give my departing testimony. It was pretty weird to have to do that. 

On Thursday we went to an orthopedic surgeon who is a member in the other ward in Fayetteville. He drained my knee of fluid, and   told me he thinks I tore my meniscus. I've been on crutches for a week. I'm supposed to take it real easy, so I don't tear it anymore. 

I hope you all have a good week! I'll see you in a few days!!

Love,

Elder Merritt

PS Pictures of zone conference:

Week 22 in Fayetteville: A Pretty Cool Visitor!

Hey Everyone!

So we had a pretty cool surprise come up this week! 

My knee is starting to get a little better. Still can't do a whole lot on it. So, missionary work was little slow this week.

Our surprise happened on Friday night. We found out about it Tuesday. So we got a text from our Elder's Quorum president saying that President Oaks was going to be at our church building Friday night.  He was giving a devotional along with Sister Bingham (who is the General Relief Society president), and with Elder Carter of the Seventy.  It was pretty cool to hear from them. They came and talked about how proud they were of our efforts with the hurricane relief stuff. There wasn't a lot of spiritual stuff said, which kind of surprised me! It was more of a casual devotional. It was really cool to see that side of the General Authorities of our church. 

I was supposed to give a talk in sacrament meeting, but a high councilor came and took my spot. I was kind of disappointed, but oh well. I did get to go talk to the junior and senior primaries on what being a missionary is like. That was pretty fun!

Well, that's about it for the week! Hope you all had a good one too!

Love, 

Elder Merritt

A few hurricane relief pictures:

Week 21 in Fayetteville: I Hurt My Knee

Hey, Everyone!

Well, this week was actually pretty boring. Not because nothing happened, but because of what happened. Wednesday night we were at mutual with the youth. We were playing basketball( I bet you can tell where this is going) with the young men. Well, I took a shot and came down wrong. I felt my knee bend in, and I heard some crunching and popping noises. I was on the ground! Basically, I've been bed ridden ever since. We did go to the doctor, but somethings happened and we weren't able to see him. Hopefully, we will be able to go this week to see what is wrong with it. 

That's it! I guess that's what happens when you're dumb and play basketball in dress shoes! So don't do that! I hope you all had a good week. See you in 3 weeks!

Love, 

Elder Merritt 

Week 20 In Fayetteville: General Conference Weekend

Hey, Everyone!

We have had a crazy P-Day! We had slow week, however. We had General Conference which is always a good thing. We only got to watch the Sunday sessions because we were doing hurricane cleanup on Saturday. We watched it a Jen's house (a non-member we are teaching who lives in a part member home). They had the idea of turning our dinner into an episode of "Chopped." They gave us the ingredients, and then we had to make our main course. I made Beef Chiles Rellenos. They turned out good. My companion did a version of tacos. 

We had a pretty interesting thing happen on Wednesday night. I was on exchange with Elder Wright, and we stopped by the church to print some stuff off. Well, when I put the key in the door to unlock it, the whole lock slid out! Someone had tampered with the lock! We were thinking that someone broke into the building, so we did what any young person would do. We went inside to check it out!

Looking back on it, it wasn't the smartest, or safest thing to do...But hey, I'm still alive!

I hope you all have a good week! Talk to you next week!

Love, 

Elder Merritt

Week 19 in Fayetteville: Last Transfer!

Hey Everyone!

I'm still in Fayetteville. I will be finishing my mission here. My new companion is Elder Nmesirinoye (mess-ro-nyay).He's from Texas, but was born in Nigeria. He goes home right after me, so he's a pretty seasoned missionary. 

This week we spent time helping with the hurricane cleanup. 

On Saturday we went to Lumberton to help with the cleanup there. We actually had a work order in South Carolina, so we got to go on a field trip! We had three jobs total. We took down a tree,put a tarp on a house, and mucked out a house. It took us around 11 hours to do all of them. It was super fun! We get to go again this Saturday to do some more work orders. 

I hope you all had a good week! I only have a few weeks left, but my mission's been a party! Talk to all next week! 

Love, 

Elder Merritt

P.S. A few more snapshots during the week:

Elder Moeller, Me, Elder Cox