Goodbyes, hospitals, and miracles

Bye Durham, it's been a wonderful ride! I'm getting transferred, to somewhere around Raleigh (unless that changes in the next 24 hours). Hey! My blog title might end up being accurate! So I'll still be in the northern part of the mission. All of my companions so far have been in the southern part until Durham, so maybe I'll be the opposite of them. I am sad to be leaving Durham but excited to go somewhere else and be where the Lord needs me. 

Miracle story from a less-active we are working with! She got baptized five years ago and went pretty much inactive soon after. We have been working with her for a few months and going over the lessons again. We taught her the Word of Wisdom a couple weeks ago and she committed to live it. She knew that it would be hard to give up coffee and tea, but she committed to it and told us she would pray for Heavenly Father's help in keeping His commandments. She had been drinking two cups of coffee a day and loved sweet tea. When we saw her on Saturday, she told us that she hasn't had coffee or tea in two weeks! She told us that it doesn't even taste good to her anymore. She had made a cup of coffee, took one sip, and then left it alone for the rest of the day because she didn't enjoy the taste. She isn't tired and actually has more energy than she did when she was drinking coffee. She also promised to tell her boss at work that she will not work on Sundayanymore! It is wonderful to see the Lord working in her life and helping her to come back to church. 

For a slow week numbers-wise, there was a lot that happened. We sat in the emergency room for three hours (not for me or my companion, more on that later), went apartment hunting, got caught in a couple thunderstorms, sat at a bus stop at a mall for an hour after just missing our bus, I packed, I also gave the instruction at our district meeting. Oh we also got a lot of bug bites. Thank you NC summer and people who talk to us outside. 

Okay, so the story of why we were in an emergency room for three hours. We had a lesson set up with Earnest and we were going to have it in a member's home. We went with the member to pick him up and he comes out and says he thinks he broke his collarbone. He still wants to have the lesson and just go to the hospital afterwards (awwww, what a sweetie!). We of course told him that was a bad idea and that we would take him to the hospital first. So we went with him into the emergency room and called the elders to come give him a blessing. While we waited for the elders to arrive and for Earnest to get looked at, we had a really good lesson/discussion where we talked about trials and how we can rely on the Lord to get us through hard things. The best part of that lesson was Earnest telling us he is ready to commit to a baptismal date, he will just have to look at his calendar to make sure it doesn't get scheduled for a day he is busy! He has had a baptismal date before, but this time he is completely ready. I am so excited for him to take this step to come closer to his Savior. 

Also, we went apartment hunting on Saturday. For an apartment that I will not be living in, although we didn't know that at the time. We have been wanting to move closer to the boundary between our two wards so that we can cover both more effectively. Our housing coordinator called us and said that our lease is almost up and we can possibly move in July/August. It was fun to go look at apartments. Except every single one kept telling us about their pool and their free wifi. Which would be great selling points if we weren't missionaries :)

Well, I still have to finish packing. That is possibly the worst part of transfers. Next week I will be in my new area and should have more to write about. 

Love y'all, 

Sister Pyper

Earnest makes me think of that Winnie the Pooh quote, 

“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying good-bye so hard.”

Once upon a time a few days ago, Sister Skalla and I went to get ice cream with our member after a lesson. In the middle of a huge thunderstorm. Nothing like torrential rain to make ice cream better :)