The Lord Is Blessing Us For Our Hard Work And Making Up The Difference For The Rest

Dear family and friends,

This has been a great week! It was kind of weird being away from home on Thanksgiving but it was very fun! To answer some of your questions we don't teach college kids really, we refer them to the single adult branch elders unless they are married. The ward in Greenville is great! It seems like most of them are here in Greenville for the medical school. There are a lot of young families with young kids. Id say the ward is about the same size as the one in Wilmington with about 150 or so every week at church. There are a lot of less active members though. There are also a lot of teenagers in this ward.

I still enjoy being companions with Elder McHan, he is a great missionary! We spend a lot of time on the bike contacting people. Ive decided I like having the car for some things, but on the bikes we get to talk to a lot more people on the streets. My favorite miracle this week was our Sacrament meeting attendance!! This ward had gone like 5 months without having an investigator at church but we were blessed to have 3 come this week!! I think the Lord is just blessing us for our hard work and making up the difference for the rest. I also had the opportunity to give a talk in Sacrament meeting on the Doctrine of Christ, it went pretty well. Another miracle was us being able to teach so many lessons this week despite it being a holiday. The most frustrating thing that happened this week? I know there were many, but none of them come to mind (its funny how that always works).

For Thanksgiving day we spent pretty much the whole day eating and spending time with members. For breakfast we went to the Pinder family home. She cooked us some monkey bread with pecan's, it was very good! They are converts of about 5 years so it was fun talking to them about their conversion to the gospel. They also have 3 awesome kids who were really fun! After that we went to the Grants. Brother Grant is from Ireland and has a strong accent. He had his mother and brother over so it was pretty much like we were in Ireland!  They have 3 young kids and were also really fun. After that we went to the Paries family for another meal. They are really awesome and have one daughter who is 17ish. They were really fun to get to know better. They are a great family. To finish our day up, we stopped by Bishop Jones home and had some pie. That was about all I could eat because I was so full at that point. He has a big family. overall it was a really great day to spend time with members and get to know them better. I think one of my favorite dishes was green bean casserole and the sweet potato pie. They were two of my favorites, other than that we had mostly traditional food.

Our investigators are all doing well. James is one who came to church this week. He is a very humble man. He is a gentle giant if Ive ever seen one. He loves Christ and has really strong desires to come closer to him. We are helping him overcome his smoking addiction in order to prepare him for baptism. For some reason I feel a really strong connection and love for James. Krista is also one who came to church. She is really excited to be baptized, hopefully before the end of the year! William is the other investigator who came to church. He had seen the missionaries about 7 months ago but stopped meeting them because he couldn't overcome smoking. The first week I was here he called us up and said he wanted to give it another try. He believes everything we teach him but struggles with smoking. We hope to be able to help him overcome that. We have many other investigators but my time on here is short. I love it here in Greenville and love being a missionary here:)

A scripture that has helped me this week is Alma 34:40-41. It teaches to bear with patience all of our afflictions. I've seen as I've been patient and diligent this week, the Lord has blessed me, and I know he will bless you too.

Love, Elder