Week 61

Dear Family,

With the start of the new year, President Weed was instructed by his leaders to hold interviews and zone conferences every transfer. Unfortunately for President Weed that tripled his load, but I am grateful for the extra instruction I get to receive. This transfer the conference was supposed to be held here in Kinston, but a man in the ward passed away and his funeral was the same day. After some minor stress on the Relief Society President, President Weed contacted the Greenville Wards and moved the whole conference there. 

The conference was nice, I learned a lot about working with members of the church. One of the trainings was about using social media. We all thought we were going to be authorized to use Facebook, instead we were taught how to conduct "The List" activity from PMG with Facebook. We learned to have members pull out their phones and have them prayerfully identify a friend they could share a video with. Then we have them share that video while we are there.

We also studied the Susan Fulture Case Study, which is about a missionary and what she did to work with the members. 

As far as funny stories go, we received a call from a Sister.  She is an incredibly sweet, loving, Sistser.  During her call, she informed us that her cousin, an elderly member of the ward with some slight dementia, had thrown away his TV because he thought it was broken. However, he usually manages to unplug it and forgets to plug it back in. She asked us if we could quickly run over and dumpster dive for his TV. After some decent searching, we concluded that garbage truck had already come and his TV was gone. 

This week we also went on exchanges with the zone leaders. Elder Talbot, who came out with me, joined me in my area while Elder Vranes went to Greenville YSA. It was fun to see how much we had progressed since entering the field. It was also amazing to see how powerfully we taught. We met one man.  As we began to talk to him we each noticed how the Holy Ghost was guiding our words. He did not believe in Jesus Christ, but he did believe in a God; something of higher power. He grew up reading the Bible but had lost his faith. Through the conversation it became evident to us that we needed to teach him about why a faith in Christ is so important. We used the Plan of Salvation to convey our testimonies. We saw him feel the spirit. I know he felt it because of how much he understood exactly what we were trying to teach. He would try to state his beliefs, but he would recognize his own confusion. We just need to meet with him again.

I Love yall,

-Elder Shill