Elder Dylan Hutchings: Sick days can't get us down!!!

Monday- We had a district activity that went really well. We all met here at the church and played some card games for a bit which was surprisingly pretty fun! Then we played some volleyball and chair soccer which are always fun. The best news was I didn't hurt my ankle playing volley ball this time which is always good! Most of the time was spent playing chair soccer which is really my favorite game out here. Then that night before we left the Wilmington 2nd sisters stopped us and told us that they had someone that they wanted us to go teach. We went and taught him, which turned out to be him and his 2 friends who are all pretty interested so we will see how it goes after the second lesson. We will see if we can get them to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. That was exciting because we were a bit skeptical of the appointment but it went really well! Then we spent the rest of the night tracting, which wasn't to much time since that night we came back to the church so some other elders could help elder Rawlins give me a blessing since I had been sick for a day or two!

Tuesday- Woke up feeling some what better but definitely didn't do any exercising. I really wasn't up to it, was kinda sore from all of the sports that we had been playing yesterday but it went good! We had to do our accounting which was pretty weird since everyone had appointments on when they were needed to account but we got it all worked out, it took more time then we would have liked but it all went well. In between the accounting we were able to go and meet with our investigator Lake, he is super cool. He is 18 and just moved here, he had read about 2 pages of the Book of Mormon, so we read some more with him and helped explain it more. It was a great lesson. We are just working on getting him to come to church with us now! Then that night what was really awesome was that Babbs and Ronnie, people that I had worked with in Leland live here in Wilmington. So we went and met with them, they are in a bit of a rough spot. It was good to see them and we started teaching Ronnie again who isn't a member. It was pretty great to see them and see if we can get Ronnie to a point where he can be baptized!

Wednesday- Well that night was interesting, I woke up twice only to find that my fever was breaking and both times i was really really sweaty which was gross, but i just went back to sleep. Then that morning I felt great.Then it was time for our exchange with the Shallotte Elders so we headed down to Shallotte for district meeting. It was a good meeting, this one older missionary couple took like half of the meeting which was really funny but it was good. Afterwards I stayed in Shallotte with Elder Lambert. It was a pretty great day. We had quite a few appointments that we went to. Then I got to do a baptismal interview for their investigator who is doing good but will need to be interviewed again. But it was all good, but let me tell you about the dinner that we had in that ward, we had ribs and they were so good. They gave us peach cobbler and it was so amazing!!

Thursday- Elder Rawlins and I were back together. Which was nice but we needed to go on another exchange with the Wilmington 2 elders. So I again left the area and went to the other ward. It was a great day as well, I was with elder Manu who is this big Samoan guy from washington! He was really funny. We got to go to this birthday thing where the investigators fed us some cake it was really good cake to! We taught this funny old black couple who were Jehovah witnesses. The whole time they had something to argue about but we taught a good lesson to them and they invited us to come back and teach again! So that was exciting! While out tracting we found this guy swinging this thing around, well come to find out he is a fire dancer guy and this is a new thing that he will be using. He was cool but not super interested in learning more at that time! The concluding lesson that night was so good, we taught this guy who came to church because he started talking to one of the members of the church at Walmart. Then after she told him he decided to come. So we taught him the restoration that night and he is super solid just really looking for truth and he said that if he came to know that this was all true that he would be baptized it was really cool!!

Friday- I am once again in my area and now this is for the rest of the week, and Elder Rawlins told me how everything had gone and what all had happened and how this ladies mom had a heart attack while they were teaching her it was crazy. That night we went and taught her, her name is Gwen. She is the nicest lady, we have taught her 3 times now and each time she is like okay I get it, she does have some memory issues from a stroke a few years back but she is doing really well!! Then most of the rest of our day was spent tracting or planning but it was a good day just not to busy or exciting! That night though at 2 am Elder Rawlins woke me up, a cockroach had been crawling on him while he slept and now he had to find it. It was back behind my bed, so I get my blow dart nerf gun and we pull the bed away and boom first shot got it even while it was trying to run away!! We disposed of the body and went back to bed!

Saturday- Was cool we went back into this area that was super rich and we found a few people who were interested. This one guy though had this pond connected to his house it was probably the craziest thing I had ever seen. His house foundation went into the pond... He was really well off! Then as we were walking out we found this turtle. It was a cute little turtle and you know us so we picked it up and took a few pictures with it, only a small photo shoot not to big or anything. I think a few people saw us but what the heck right! Then we visited this one less active member and it was a good chat with him, he makes these like metal sculptures and has all this army gear, quite cool. In the process of trying to spark some kindle of fire in him again he says well boys I'm not active and I feel like the terrestrial kingdom will be good enough for me... But we told him it wasn't and were going to keep trying to get him back to church! Then the rain came down it dumped for a bit it was pretty crazy, then we got a call from the 2nd sisters again asking us to go to another appointment. It was in this pretty rough part of town and we were both scared but the guy was really nice and we had a pretty good lesson. At the end he like told us that he believes that aliens are god... so we will see how this teaching process goes!

Sunday- Laura came again to church and she told us that next week she is going to be bringing like 3 of her friends. She keeps telling everyone at church that she is going to get baptized and become a member! Babbs came to church it was really good, I guess Ronnie was feeling sick so that was why he didn't come but we will get him there next week!! Then in the YSA ward we got asked to bless the sacrament, it was pretty crazy because this is my second time doing it in church. But it was fun! We were expecting more people to be at church with school starting but it seems like not to many people have popped up yet which is kinda scary since the YSA branch is tiny and there is like 5 active guys not including us... But they should be fine haha! The rest of the night was pretty busy with some tracting and appointments but nothing else exciting really happened!

That is about all of my week in a nut shell it is pretty great, really a fun week this week. Lots of driving and exchanges!!

Love Elder Dylan Hutchings