Another awesome week here in Durham

It's been another awesome week here in Durham North Carolina! The week started out on foot because my bike was broken. There's a lady in our ward, Sister Smith, and her husband works on bikes. He's not a member but we've spent a lot of time digging ditches in his backyard so we're pretty close with him. He found 3 derailers that would work on my bike and he got it working for free!! It was super nice of him so we're pretty thankful for that.

The lady we were going to get on date for baptism this week dissapeared. We tried calling her a thousand times and we went to her house a few times. We got in touch with her husband and had a nice talk with him. He said that she disappears like that all the time and we found evidence of hardcore drug abuse at their house. Pretty big bummer but we did our best.

On a brighter note we found a ton of super cool people this week. One of them is named Ellery. He's 73 and he's a super nice guy. We met him on Saturday night and he let us in! We had a nice long talk and we went back on Sunday and taught him again!! Pretty stoked for him. Overall Saturday was a bomb day, we taught 3 lessons and met tons of people.

We did a lot of service this week which is always super fun. We reached our goal of 20 hours for the week so we're pretty stoked about that. We dug ditches, layed pinestraw, lots of weeding, and worked in a warehouse, and moved a couch out of an apartment that was covered in bed bugs. Service is a great way to introduce the gospel to people. It worked out pretty well for Ammon in the Book of Mormon. He was able to convert king Lamoni through diligent service, and at the expense of a few lamanites arms. We too can find opportunities to share the gospel through service and it doesn't have to be anything extreme. A small act of service can have a big impact.

One scripture that has been coming to my mind all week is 1 Nephi 8:33, it's from the account of Lehis dream

33 And great was the multitude that did enter into that strange building. And after they did enter into that building they did point the finger of scorn at me and those that were partaking of the fruit also; but we heeded them not.

I love that last sentence "but we heeded them not". The adversary is constantly trying to bring us down but Nobody can bring us down unless we give them that power. We just have to ignore the mocking and continue along the path and the reward is great.

I hope you all had a great week love you!

Elder Forrest

A little frog friend he caught