Oct. 12, 2015 in Greensboro, NC

Hello!

On Monday, after p-day, we tried to see T___. He didn't answer but then we went down the street and saw our classy 85 year-old Pentecostal friend D___, and he is doing well. He surprised me because his tool shed that we helped clean up was magically off of the sketchy trailer it had been on and actually looked pretty good! Mom, you need to forward this picture to Elder G___. His socks will be blown clean off!!!!:) Anyways, D___ was happy to see us, and his wife was too. We talked about his brother S___, who is having health issues and isn't "saved," so D___ wants us to help him. We offered service or teaching him, but when they asked S___ he turned it down, which was a bummer. Anyways, at the end of the lesson, D___ randomly started getting off his chair and onto his knees, and it looked like he was falling or something, only in slow motion. Turns out he just wanted to hold our hands, bless us with power, and pray, which was pretty nice of him!

After that adventure, we 'felt inspired' to go get smoothies from Smoothie King. It turned out it was real inspiration, because we talked to the guy who worked there and he was pretty neat. We gave him a Book of Mormon.

On Tuesday we taught the S___'s and E___ all about general conference, and reviewed our favorite parts. We committed E___ to go back and read/watch the talks once they were posted online.

Probably the 2 best parts of the week though were these. First we got to visit with Brother R___ on Friday morning, and we invited him to a ward cook off that night. Turns out, he came!! That was a pretty big step for him, because so far he has only really come to things if he was going to do service for someone, but this time he came just to have fun and get to know people! It was great!! As for the actual chili and international dishes Cook off, they had a whole competition and everything. People made lots of chili, and there were also a couple international dishes. Best part was... Elder J___ and I were two of the 3 judges! I have a whole new respect for the judges on Chopped and such, judging is really hard!! There were some mighty tasty things there. In the end, we decided that the egg roles were the best, and the Sister who made them was super touched and even cried a little bit :) It felt good.

With transfers coming up, I guess my main focus has been on working as if I am staying forever, while trying to leave things better than I found it. So for my letter this week, I would love to share a story about one of my favorite people I have been able to teach here. When Elder G___ and I were together, we met P___. She answered her door and asked us to pray that she would have confidence to meet with us. We prayed for her, and in 2 weeks, followed up. This time, she said she had to tell us something, and broke the news that she was actually a member but she hadn't been to church in 30+ years. We got to start teaching her, and it was a slow process. At first she didn't want her records transferred in. Slowly but surely, she started opening up. Just this last week, we were able to go over with a great couple and we invited her to church, and yesterday she was right there beside them, taking the sacrament for the first time in 30 years. It was a wonderful blessing to be able to see that, and I am so happy for her! This truly is a work of love.

Elder TooBlessedToBeStressed Branch

(Elder Branch has a friend serving a mission in Russia who sends pictures of Russian cats in his emails most every week. We can only suppose that this is Zac's response to his friend's Russian cat pictures, two North Carolina cats.)