Hello!! Happy almost October! Can you believe it?!
First off, thank you all for the birthday wishes! I had a great birthday!
To be honest I wasnt really looking forward to my birthday this year. I am new here to the area, no one really knows me yet or knew that it was my birthday, and nothing really special was happening on the day. I wanted to just kind of forget it was my birthday so I wasnt let down with the normal missionary routine. Lame thinking of me, I know. But luckily it turned out to be just wonderful!
We woke up and did normal routine. Then after our studies we decided to go on an adventure and take a ride on the city buses! If I wasnt a missionary you couldn't pay me money to ride the Durham public transportation but things like that make missionary work and your birthday just that much more fun! We got on at the stop right outside our neighborhood. I walked on and tried to strategically place myself on the correct seat. I sat in front of a very nice lady. I began talking with her and she had just gotten off work. She is a single mother of 7 kids. We talked for a little while and then he was off on her way. Then another man got on the bus and sat in front of my companion. I saw him looking at her name tag, knowing anything could come out of his mouth at this point. But we were surprised! He looks at us and says "My finace is a member of that church". We began talking with him and were even able to invite him to church! We then rang the string and we got off at our designated stop, Downtown Durham. We are the northern part of Durham and we cover just the northern part of Downtown, right above Duke campus. It is such a beautiful place. So old and historic, lots of trees and the houses are so cute! The weather was perfect and it was the best tracting time ever. Sister Turley and I dont call it tracting. We call it "Walking the walk, and talking the talk". So off we were to walk the walk and talk the talk. It was still pretty early in the morning so we didn't want to knock on anyone's doors. We were just going to talk to anyone we saw outside. After walking a little ways we came upon a woman working in her yard. We stopped to talk to her and offer if she needed any help. She was very friendly and asked us who we were. We told her and then she exclaimed "Oh! I have always wanted to read the Book of Mormon!" Say what?! This is music to our ears! We talked with her for quite some time and she gave us a tour around her garden and house. We then let her get back to work but we will be heading back there this week! So far birthday is going off very well! I knew this was Heavenly Fathers gift to me. We then needed to get back so we walked to the nearest bus stop and were on our way. Later in the day we went out to go more people. We went to visit a member in the ward who lives in an assisted living place. We had a great visit with her. As we were in there the lady that lives next door came in crying. We offered her a place to sit and asked what was wrong. She stated that she was very scared because the next day she was headed to the hospital to have surgery because she has breast cancer. This broke our hearts and we just talked with her and tried to comfort her. We asked if she believed in God and if she would like us to say a prayer for her. She was very excited to hear that and said yes please. I offered a prayer for this woman. It was amazing to see the difference that made for her. I am so grateful for the power of prayer and knowing that we have a Heavenly Father who loves us so much.
We had dinner with a sweet family later that day who made cupcakes and sang to me. We then had some planning to do and then the day was over!
I don't know why I was so worried about no having a good birthday. Any day spent doing the work of the Lord is a good day! I am grateful for each and every one of my birthday and this wonderful life Heavenly Father has given me!
The rest of the week was good as well! The day after my birthday we had a leadership meeting. It was so much fun because so many of my close sister friends were also there. We were able to catch up on old times and have so many good laughs. There is nothing better than being surrounded by missionaries! But it was very sad because we are all coming to the end of our missions. Sister Fullmer, my wonderful trainer bore her testimony because she goes home in less than a month! And then right behind her are many more sisters. Tiem is going bby way too fast!
We found out at our leadership meeting that we will be able to see Meet the Mormons!! Have you heard about this great movie?! If you havent go to meetthemormons.com now and then go watch the movie at a theater near you on October 10th! We were told that we are not to go in or anywhere near the movie theater but that our mission was being sent a DVD copy of the movie and we will be watching it at our Zone conference next week! We are very excited!
Well running out of time but thanks again for all the birthday love! I appreciate you all!
Love,
Sister Judd
