Hello all!!
I survived my first week in Durham. Which is an accomplishment to say the least!
Transfers are one of those things that you forget how hard they really are until you have to go through it again.
But you know everything is going to be okay if you can just make it to preparation day, and here we are.
Transfer meeting itself was actually really great. Sister Treu was training so she had to be at a meeting all day on Tuesday so me and some other sisters who I love got to hang around at the stake center all day and catch up on old times. It was lots of fun.
After the bittersweet meeting we came back to Durham, brought my stuff in from the car and an exchange was already there waiting for us. Off we were to teach! No unpacking, no meeting the new companion, no really even discussion of who we were seeing or what we were going to teach. We just show up. And somehow it all just works out. Amazing how the spirit can work that way. We were gone and didn't get home until 9 that night. I had a little time to unpack but I was so exhausted all I wanted to do was go to bed as soon as possible. After a few days though I can sat that I am officially all moved in. I love the new place we live. Its a nice little town-home and its probably my favorite place I have lived so far.
Oh my companion is Sister Turley. She is from Arizona. She has been out for 15 months. She is really sweet and so far we have gotten along great! She has been serving in the southern part of the mission and I have only been in the Northern part so we didn't really know each other until now. Sorry I dont have a picture of us together yet!
We have been busy this week and we have a lot of work to do! We have 3 investigators right now. I got to meet 2 this week. We are teaching a 17 year old girl named S. She goes to the NC School of Math and Science. Its this awesome high school that basically is a college. The kids come from all around the state to come to this school. They live at the school and have everything they need there. Its super hard to get into and its tons of work. Its a really neat campus and everything is free. Even all there meals. The trick is just getting in.. But anyways, S is really sweet. Her boyfriend is a member and that's how she found the church. She doesn't really know if God is real but she decided to give it one last shot and is meeting with us. I really hope and pray that she will find truth in the Gospel and mostly gain a knowledge that God is her loving Heavenly Father and that she is of infinite worth.
Our other investigator M is very sweet as well. She is an older woman who had some kind if accident and is now in a wheelchair. Let me give you the situation of a typical meeting as a missionary. We knock on the door and she forgot that we were coming but lets us in anyways. We walk into the apartment and her son is sitting at the table smoking a cigarette and drinking who knows what with the TV blasting. We walk in and try not to breathe. We start talking and after what feels like forever his cigarette is finally burned up. Sweet M apologizes and starts spraying Lysol all over. Now that we have a great mix of second hand smoke and cleaning chemicals in our lungs we are all ready to start the lesson. You got a good picture of that? And thats pretty low key compared to some of the places we walk into. Who is ready to put in their mission papers now? I promise, you wont regret it.
We share a car with the elders and this week we were on bikes. Holy cow, I think Durham takes the prize for most hilliest city in the mission. We biked a lot this week..and if you ask me we biked up way more hills that we got to go down. Thank goodness for the slightly cooler weather we have had!
In the span of one day we went to 3 different retirement homes to visit people. That was an exciting day. We had quite the miracle at one of them.
Something I love to do on my mission is serve. Yes, the whole 18 months is serving but I like to be involved in service opportunities to mix up the days a little bit. So I asked Sister Turley when I got here if there were any service opportunities in the community. She told me they hadn't been doing anything but that a member in the other stake owns or manages a retirement home and that they were looking for people to volunteer. Perfect I thought, we will go there. We go there one day and walk in and tell them why we were there. They called up the activities director to come speak with us. She was so excited we were there! She told us she had been feeling overwhelmed and asked God to send some help since they arent able to hire more people. She gave us a tour around the place and we went into an office where she explained things we could do and ways we could serve. She was very kind to us and so excited to start working with us. It was the perfect situation. After we got back into the car with the member we were with we totally started talking about how awesome that lady was and how she needs to be baptized! We left very excited to go back next week and volunteer. Later that night during our planning session Sister Turley grabs the ward directory. She then gets this super weird look on her face and points to a name. Its the same name of the lady that was the activity director at the place.. And the lady is from Finland, it wasnt just some ordinary name. We just look at each other in complete shock. She has already been baptized! We knew there was something special about her!! We then just start laughing because we couldnt believe it. Her and her husband and 2 kids have been less active for a while. God sure does work in mysterious ways! We are now even more excited to go back and serve there and hopefully we will be able to get there family coming back to church in no time!
I would love to receive letters from all of you. Especially since the 25th of September is coming quickly. I will let you figure out the significance of that day.
Well time is running out fast!
I hope you all have a great week and enjoy the rest of your Monday!
much love!
Sister Judd
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