First week in North Carolina

What an awesome week! When we got off the plane President Holland was there to pick us up, and we headed to the mission home. President and sister Holland are so awesome, couldn't have asked for better mission president. Our mission has a Hispanic sister that cooks for any events and she made the best street tacos I've ever had, or maybe they were so good because I just came from the MTC. But after dinner we had a very spiritual testimony meeting. They sent us to a hotel after that so we could get some sleep and get ready to get to work in the morning.

The next morning We went to the stake center and met our companions. My companion is Elder Cook out of Salem Oregon. He plays sports and he's been out for about 5 months. We headed to our area Durham, otherwise known as the dirty D. It's the hood of the mission. I've only been here a week and I've already seen some crazy stuff, but the people here are nice. We have a car every other week because we share it with the other Durham Elders, so this week we've been on bikes.

The first night here Elder Cook took me to get some Boberry biscuits from Bojangles which are pretty good, we also had cook out which is a super cheap and greasy fast food place that tastes amazing. The members here are super cool, we've been fed dinner every single night.

On Thursday it was raining and there was thunderstorms and of course we had an appointment on the other side of our area which is like 40 minute ride, the appointment went pretty good but as we were riding back I hit a piece of glass and my tire exploded, so me and Elder Cook had to run 3 miles in the rain with our bikes so we wouldn't miss our next appointment. We did end up being late for our next appointment because we stopped and talked to some drunk guys at a bus stop for 10 minutes, but they were nice guys.

We are encouraged to do 10 hours of service each, every week. It really helps to start talking to people because everyone down here knows about Jesus, so they don't want to here a message about Christ but they often need help with yard work which allows us to talk to them more and gain their trust. We've been doing a lot of service, everything from mulching, mowing, lifting, digging, weeding, it's been awesome.

On Thursdays we get to teach a book of Mormon class at the church where we get to read and discuss. It's a lot of fun to here what everyone has to say. Most of the members that come to the class are older, Elder Cook and I acted out a scene from the Book of Mormon and they got a kick out of it.

When we were out tracting We knocked on an 85 year old Methodist lady's door and she was very nice. We told her we were doing service, and she said " how much do you charge?" We told her it was free and she couldn't believe it. She couldn't understand why someone would do that, it was pretty funny. She needs pine straw spread in her yard so we are going to do that tomorrow. While we were talking to her a bird fell out of the sky and nearly missed our heads and just smacked the ground and started screaming. Then he just sat right by us and stared at us, pretty bizarre, but it was a cool looking bird.

A lady we are teaching, Henrica, has been sick so we went to go and give her a blessing, and we brought a couple from our ward that happen to be nurses. As we walked through the door her 3 year old son spilled boiling water on himself and was burned pretty bad, after about an hour of screaming brother mauldwen got the boy wrapped up and Henrica was very grateful. We gave her a blessing which was pretty spiritual, we are hoping to commit them to baptism soon, they've been taught for over a year. She's just really busy and she's trying to get all her licensing to be a nurse, but she's a really awesome lady.

It's really easy to get people to commit to coming to church and stuff but it's really hard to get them to keep the commitments. We had like 4 people tell us they were coming to sacrament meeting and none of them showed up, and a lot of our teaching appointments people cancel. But that's part of the work, Elder Cook said that he's only gotten one person to sacrament meeting his whole mission. There is A LOT of churches here, and most people are Baptist and so is there whole family and they have no desire to change that. Most people are willing to talk about religion though which is nice.

The craziest thing that happened this week though happened right before church. Everyone that we invited, didn't show up. But a young woman named Kristen showed up with her newborn twin boys and said she wanted to know about our church. So we took her to the meetings and then answered her questions, we are meeting with her tonight to teach her more. Pretty crazy, The Lord just placed her in our path.

If we put our trust in the Lord we will not fail. The Lord wants us to succeed and as we learn in 1 Nephi 3 : 7 he doesn't give us any commandments without providing a way to fulfill them.

Heleman 5

12 And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.

Anything is possible with Jesus Christ. Press forward in Faith and remember that faith is an action word, as we do the things that we've been commanded we will grow closer to Heavenly Father, and he's provided us with a Savior to help us fulfill those commandments perfectly.

I love you all so much! Thank you for all you've done for me. Mom, Dad, I cant Express how grateful I am for you, you've shaped my life into what it is today and allowed me to have this opportunity. I hope to one day be half as good as you. Thank you for your unconditional love and for always guiding me in the right direction.

Elder Forrest 💪

Elder cook putting a Book of Mormon in the Baptist book exchange