I Love Being a Missionary!

Like the title would suggest, being a missionary is the best. (That totally rhymed haha) The Lord truly blesses his servants.

Monday- We gave Paul and Susan a church tour. We ended in the chapel and the spirit was so strong. Paul tried to change the subject when we asked him how we felt, and we totally called him out on it haha. No more of that Paul.

Tuesday- We taught a super powerful member lesson. They're the Young family and both of the parents served missions. We talked about families and the family proclamation. The Spirit inspired me and Elder Terril to promise all these blessings if they would find someone to share that message with.

Wednesday- Super huge blessing. The bishop called us after our studies and said he had two referrals for us. One of them is a 14 year old kid who has been coming to church with his sister. He's always been a bit hesitant about being baptized, but he now wants to take the discussions. The other referral is a guy name David. He's been living with a less active family. They are returning to activity and he wants to be baptized. That night we had another powerful member lesson. It was with the Austin family (who just moved from Riverton). They both were able to think of someone that they wanted to share the gospel with.

Thursday- We went to transfer meeting (kind of, we were in the building). I had to say goodbye to Elder Lancaster. He's such a good missionary. I'm going to miss him. Elder Seastrand's new companion is Elder Coy. I like him. He's such a nice guy. We taught David at the church, with like three members there. We watched The Restoration and he said he could feel the Spirit. He's just super prepared. 

Elder Lancaster

Friday- A sister in the ward called us to tell us about a missionary experience she had just barely had. She was so excited and it got both of us super motivated. 

Saturday- BEST LESSON OF MY MISSION (so far). There was a baptism in the YSA ward. David came to it and said he felt the Spirit so strongly he wanted to cry. We taught him after the baptism with a recent convert from Elder Terril's last area. It was really good for him to be there for it. The Spirit pretty much taught the entire lesson. We set David for baptism on the 16th of August. He wants to be baptized as soon as possible.

Sunday- We had dinner with a family in the ward. They made this microwave chocolate cake. It sounds sketchy, but it was sooooooo good. Super moist and fluffy. We had another super powerful lesson with them.

The work progresses the quickest when members and missionaries work together. I have seen so many miracles through working with members. I encourage everybody to look for missionary opportunities in their everyday lives. The strongest investigators are those that are found through the members. Love you all. God loves you all.

Elder Dumont

See what smoking does,  it gets into the couches on onto
the elders white shirts.

Zone Leaders are haunting us

1st Transfer

Last week of the transfer. Here we go.

Tuesday- I met another guy from Utah. They are the Lewis family. The guy is from South Jordan, but the wife is from Durham. We taught them a lesson about Joseph Smith.

Wednesday- We taught a member of the ward who has been struggling lately. She's actually been visited by both us and the Sisters a lot. We did some role plays with her to help her feel comfortable sharing the gospel.

Thursday- We had a conference call with President Baker and the other training companionships. It was nice being able to hear Elder Ludwig's voice. He's sounding a lot better. I learned a lot from the call. We met with a less active member and his girlfriend who is investigating the church. They are both super prepared. Both of their goals is to eventually get to the temple!!! So awesome.

Friday- Huge miracle. We got a phone call from this couple that was moving into the area. We totally thought that they were members because they used all of the Mormon lingo. They wanted help unpacking, but we had  a couple of other appointments. We get through all of our appointments, and decide to go and help them. We helped them for one hour and we came to find out that they were investigators!!!!! Whoops!!! Everything worked out in the end. We both felt heavily rebuked by the Spirit.

Saturday- One of the Sister's investigators got baptized!!! This was perfect timing, because one of the Sister's is going home tomorrow. Elder Terril and I got to be the witnesses for the baptism. The service was super good. They had a few of the converts in the ward bear their testimony and the Spirit was so strong. We got transfer calls today. Elder Lancaster is leaving us. Sad day. He's going to be companions with Elder Terril's trainer up on the Eastern Shore.

Sunday- We helped confirm the Sister's investigator at church.

Super awesome week. I found out that I won't be the only Greenie coming up here. Sister Bunker (our ward's only Sister missionary right now) is training. Her companion left the area today to go home. Keep the faith. Focus on the promptings of the Spirit. They will lead and guide you in everything you do. Love you all

Elder Dumont

Super Crazy Life

We had a full week so I'll get right into it.

Monday- I know I don't usually include Mondays, but some stuff happened. We found out that one of our investigators is in Prison for violating parole. We did finally get the chance to teach her mom, so all is not lost. On our way home, we almost died. We were riding home on our bikes, when a car blew a tire and veered right for us. Luckily the car hit the curb and straightened out, but the debris from the tire went right past our heads. As we went on home, I had some time to think and I realized that that could have been it for me. I was way shooken up that night, but luckily the Lord is on my side. He comforted me and helped me realize that it was him that protected us from any harm.

Tuesday- Miracles Abound!!! So I've said how we're trying to work more with less actives. Well, while we were out with a member, we visited a couple. One of them had told the Sister missionaries not to come back, but she invited us to come back any time. Then we met another less active who had not been to church in 30 years. The Spirit really spoke through us in comforting her. Then we visited another one who had been praying for the Elders to come and give her a blessing!!! Today was awesome.

Wednesday- We visited a less active family in the ward. The wife is from Ukraine and their meeting was definitely set up by the Lord. He has a super powerful testimony. We don't understand why they don't come to church, but we won't give up.

Thursday- It rained more today than it did during the Hurricane haha!! The streets were flooded. We had dinner with a less active (he's only less active cause of work). He took us to an asian buffet called Hibachi and it was delicous. We had a lesson afterwards and we encouraged him to find missionary opportunities. He's awesome.

Friday- We had interviews with President Baker. I was really super nervous before it, but once I got in there, I calmed down. The interview was pretty short. He gave me some really good advice. He commended me and Elder Terril for our diligence and wisdom. After interviews, I went on an exchange with Elder Seastrand. I've decided that I need to learn Spanish. Or at least enough to get by. The lesson that we had was with a family that spoke little English. It was still a really powerful lesson. That just goes to show that the Spirit can work even through language barriers.

Saturday-We did some service for one of the less actives we met on Tuesday and she was so grateful. We worked on her yard for three hours. That was the majority of our day.

Sunday- We attended the funeral of the son of a recent convert. She moved to the other ward when I got here. I did not like the pastor that spoke at the funeral. He did not seem sad at all and most of his sermon was spent on talking himself up. I felt really bad for the mom. The pastor did nothing to comfort the family. I'm so glad that I know of this gospel and about the Plan of Salvation. We met with an excommunicated member. He really wants to turn his life around. He is ready and willing to accept Christ back into his life.

So this last week was a pretty wild week. Almost died, saw a ton of miracles, had an actual hurricane (not really), and had an Interview with President Baker. The Church is true, the book is blue, and Jesus Christ is a Mormon. I love you all. May Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ watch over you always.

Elder Dumont

Hurricane Arthur

Yeah, so I had my first experience with a hurricane, if you can even call it that.  We were pretty far away from the eye, so all we got was wet. This was the earliest tropical storm in NC history. 

Tuesday- A couple of our appointments stood us up. We talked with this one lady who was all like "Y'all are wrong, Jesus is black!!!!!!!" We're were a little confused. We told her that it didn't matter what color his skin was, he's still Jesus.

Wednesday- We were helping people move for a good part of the day. We had to get permission to leave our zone so we could help them move into their new apartment. The biggest struggle was trying to get a couch up the stairs to his new apartment. The stairwell was way to skinny. It seriously took me, Elder Terril, Elder Lancaster, and Elder Seastrand half an hour to get it up, then another 15 minutes to get it to the point where we could get it in the apartment.

Thursday- We helped our neighbor move to another apartment. We talked with her and she is prepared. We're going to give her the church's 15 step program to quit smoking. We had a member present with our investigator Kecia that night. We usually talk to her on her front door step, and the roof leaks when it rains. This of course the time that it decided it wanted to start raining. We got soaked. Cool thing though, we went out with a member of the ward who had recently moved there from RIVERTON UTAH!! 

Friday- Happy 4th of July!!! Today was a non proselyting day. We went to a breakfast and then went to our zone meeting. Near the end of it, they stressed how to become a consecrated missionary, and then keeping on doing missionary work after we went home. It gave me a ton of motivation to be a better missionary. We helped a member family move a fridge into their home, so more service!! The fireworks were pretty cool, but the show was pretty short. We went and got frozen hot chocolate with the zone leaders in the new Van. They are very proud of it.

Saturday- We went on an exchange today. My companion for the day was Elder Lancaster. He's been out for almost a year. He left the same time that Courtney did. We went and did some service for a member. It was her birthday, so we cleaned up her lawn a little bit. She has a way special gift of discernment. I don't even know how to describe it. We went to a couple of appointments. Elder Lancaster is a Spanish Elder, so I wasn't of much help, but I did learn a lot from him.

Sunday- We went and gave the sacrament to Sister Marshall. For those who don't remember, her daughter fell out of a two story window onto the concrete and was in a coma. She looked a lot better today. She was awake, but they gave her a ton of drugs, so she was a little loopy.

Shout out to my nieces and nephews that sent me letters and drawings last week. I love you guys too.

Elder Dumont

The rain from Arthur rolling in

... and down it comes

We got new chairs!