With my old companion in Eldorado, Illinois -- Elder Stange -- after he gave his final testimony to the missionaries at Zone Conference on Friday, January 29th.
We have a
busy Pday so this will be a quick email.
Elder Barrus at the
Northcutts Cove Chapel
Monday we drove on down to Northcutts Cove
Chapel after having a problem with our car. Turns out the gas had frozen so we
had to thaw it out and get more gas after that. Fun process. But yeah, then we went
down to the old chapel so that Elder Barrus and Beckett could see it. Once
again it was open so we got to go inside. I left a Book of Mormon on the pulpit
and recited the Vision of the South which was a pretty cool vision that was
given by Elder Vaughn J. Featherstone, talking about how one day the South will
baptize more people into the church than all other English speaking
missionaries in the world together (you hear that my fellow stateside
missionary friends?) and many other amazing promises.
Here is
the link to Elder Featherstone’s letter:
The roads
were kind of slick on the way back, but we managed. It was the first day we got
to leave our apartment since the snow last Friday. Other than that, that was
about all we did that day.
Tuesday we helped out Brother Henessee
again with his house. It was the first time we had been back since the transfer
began. He is really close to finishing the house. We pulled up staples from the
floor most of the time and also helped lift some debris out of the house. Later
on we tried to contact a few people while walking around and got in a few
places. We also invited one of our more promising investigators to church. He hadn't
been to a LDS church since '88, but said he would come.
Wednesday was more walking except we didn't
really see anyone except this lady who sells Confederate stuff at a flea market
which we will definitely check out this week. Incidentally on average, we have walked
over 20 miles per week usually. Sometimes it's over 30. We usually come home
tired.
Elder Cox, Elder
Beckett, and Elder Peery at the Barren Fork Dam
Thursday we drove down to Morrison, TN to go
on exchanges with the Manchester elders. Elder Cox, a greenie (new missionary) who's
been out about three weeks in the mission came up with us and Elder Barrus went
down with Elder McClain. We tried a bunch of people but didn't have too much success.
But we did drop two of our investigators that day because one was flippin'
crazy (spouting out all kinds of false doctrine like how she didn't think
Christ created a church and such) and the other was sadly not interested in
joining, more interested in just hanging out with us. In the early evening we
tracted for two hours and got a few door slams.
What was
fun was we tracted two huge mansions. They
looked like plantations almost. I ended up using some money from home to buy
Elder Cox and Elder Beckett some dinner since it was Elder Cox's first
exchange. I hope he had fun.
Friday we had Zone Conference where the
entire McMinnville stake got together for it. President and Sister Andersen
trained along with our zone leaders and sister training leaders. One of my
favorite things that
President taught was this story about Winston Churchill. Sometime after the
war, he was coming to speak to a group of students somewhere. The teacher,
before he entered the room, told the students something along the lines of,
"This is one of the most courageous and brilliant men this country has
ever seen, so you'd better be taking notes and listening to what he tells
you." Churchill comes in, takes a look at the
gathering and says, "Never...
Never... Never, give up." And sits down. It was pretty powerful for
sure. So yeah he trained on diligence
and that was probably my favorite training of the day.
What was weird was since we no longer have
testimony meetings at transfers for
departing missionaries; instead, we have them during zone conference. And Elder Stange, one of my companions who
came out a transfer before me, gave
his parting advice alongside Elder Loveless, another one of my good friends who came out that same
transfer. This means that I'm in the
next group to do so in about two months. That's weird.
We also
had this really powerful lesson with Debra. She was on the verge of giving up
investigating because she was unable to come to church or quit smoking. But
when we came she felt she needed to continue.
During the course of the conversation she said, "I know this may sound
crazy, but I truly believe that I've heard this before. Like my spirit is an
older spirit and has heard this before this life." I testified
to her that what she said was in fact true, that we are all spirit children of
our Heavenly Father and that the reason certain things seem familiar or good,
is because we learned about it before from Him.
Cool experience.
Saturday we tried some more people including
Brother Mathis who said he'd come to church. We did more walking and were very
tired in the end. While we went tracting, this old guy wasn't exactly the
nicest person in town and basically didn't want any part of the church. We even
said "God bless!" in parting but he yelled "I don't need your blessing!
You need to be blessed!" Funny stuff.
In the
evening we had dinner with a family who's son in law was a Samoan. He
challenged me and Elder Barrus to an eating competition. My advice to anyone
who doesn't know Samoans, don't take that bet. Three burgers and a salad later,
we struggled to continue as this guy laughed as he pounded a bunch of cookies.
It was a fun experience though.
Sunday we finally had church so that was
awesome. Nothing too big happened other than Bro. Mathis showed up. He was the
only one who came that we saw this past week which was sad, but life goes on.
In the evening, Brother Wade took Elder Barrus on a split while Elder Beckett and
I tracted. Not too much happened other than some more rejections, but we did
contact a former investigator who said she was still interested, which was
good.
Today we plan on going to Cumberland
Caverns, which is a series of underground caves and one of the largest this
side of the Mississippi River. Should be fun. Hopefully I'll get some good
pictures. This week we are
also going to the temple which should be cool. Anyways I hope you have a good
week!
Elder Peery
Thank you for your prayers and your support. Please keep in touch. It's great to hear from you.
Here is my contact information:
Thank you for your prayers and your support. Please keep in touch. It's great to hear from you.
Here is my contact information:
Elder Andrew
Peery
Tennessee Nashville Mission
1646 Sunset Road
Brentwood, TN 37027
Email: Andrew.peery@myldsmail.net
Rebel Hill. Site of
a Confederate encampment where they held on to
McMinnville for a
time. Union drove them out in like 1863 or
something. Lots of old
trees but that's about it.
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