Abish was a rock star member missionary!

Wow! It has been such a crazy awesome week! Can I just say...(I know you are surprised to hear this one, but)...I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!!!!!!! Santoria's baptism was sooooo amazing! We sang Love One Another with the duet part that I remembered from Achievement days--"These words of my Savior...". I really wish I had the music, but I just went from memory. It was pretty good. The whole Whitehurst clan was crying. It is one of Santoria's favorite primary songs, so it worked well. Then Brea's baptism was great as well! It was a huge relief to have her finally baptized and confirmed! She walked into Sacrament Meeting right as they announced her name...talk about giving the missionaries a heart attack! But her Step Grandpa confirmed her. It was quite possibly one of the most beautiful blessings I have ever heard! It was a choice experience to be present for that. I am attaching pictures of the baptisms. The small black girl is Santoria and the cute 12 year old is Brea! After Brea's baptism, a young woman from the ward introduced us to a friend of hers. She asked us for a Book of Mormon. We got a call from her yesterday wanting to set up an appointment to meet with us. Apparently she went home and told her mom that she wants to be baptized!! So we are teaching her in the Deaver's home on Thursday! We are pretty excited! :) We are also teaching a woman this Saturday who has come to church a couple times with a member. We are teaching her in his home! We are sooooooo excited!! It is amazing to see the blessings of missionary work when members are the finders and we are the teachers!

Sis. Moss, Bro. Umphlett (our ward mission leader), and I spoke on Sunday about the importance of members in the work! Sis. Moss pointed out that Abish (Alma 19), saw an opportunity to show everyone the hand of God and went house to house inviting all to come and see. Not all accepted, but many were converted. What would have happened if Abish didn't go find them? She didn't have to teach them...she just brought them to see the blessings of the gospel. We need members to be the finders. That is the Lord's way to do missionary work! In our district meeting last week, our district leader bore powerful testimony that we have been commanded to double baptisms and that the only way that can happen is through helping the members of the church invite their friends to be taught! So will you invite someone into your home to be taught by the missionaries? I know that if we want to help this work move forward we have to be helping Christ's children find Him!

Ok, I'm off my soap box...

Oh something else sooooo exciting happened this week! We have been teaching this man who we were having a hard time discerning if he was really interested. So we taught him baptism and confirmation and extended the VRM invitation to be baptized and he accepted! Now he is working towards being baptized on June 21!!! We are so excited for him! And we are excited because we are teaching him in a member's home this Friday night!

Stacy and Gabe are being baptized and confirmed next weekend too!! She keeps saying that it is a two for one special! She is sooooo funny! I love being a missionary!

Well, I have to run! Take care! I love you!

Love,
Sister Abbott

We found G.O.D.!!!

Hey Ya'll! I hope you enjoy the pics! The one where we found the G.O.D. truck was fun! It stands for Guaranteed On time Delivery! Only in the Bible Belt! Woo Hoo! The other pic was from my 9 month mark. In the effort to help us to be more dignified, the VRM missionaries no longer burn clothing to commemorate important dates. That means no prego picture either. It makes sense. So Sis.Moss and I went out to eat on April 11 and a member had given us these "peti furs" (mini cakes), so we put a 9 candle in it and celebrated. It was a good day! I had soft shelled crab! YUM! :) Oh and the other pic is of our totally awesome mini Preach My Gospel manuals!

So this week has been a bit crazy! Especially with Brea's baptism... she was supposed to be baptized on Sunday. But Sunday morning came and there were some pretty big family issues going on. So it was moved to this Thursday at 7! It will all work out, it just threw us for a loop.

Other than that, our investigators are progressing. Tonight is Santoria Whitehurst's baptism! We are soooo excited. Her family was all baptized in December, and today is her 8th birthday. It is very strange because she is not a convert baptism, but she was taught all the lessons with her family. She is pretty excited! And her dad has been meeting with us as well. Agency willing, I would say that their whole family will be prepared to go to the temple to be sealed by next summer! It is really awesome because the three oldest kids (Justin, Da'Kasia, and William) have all started saving for their missions already! Anyway...the baptism tonight should be great! Sis. Hummel and her comp have 2 investigators coming which is good because SIs. Hummel is giving the opening prayer and Sis. Sowards and I are singing. Sis. moss is giving the closing prayer. We are all pretty excited about this baptism!

I am excited for the coming week! It will be so grand! I get to do a training at our District Meeting tomorrow. Normally I'm not very excited, but this is really something I need to work on, so I am grateful I get to study it for the next couple of days!

Something really cool happened yesterday... every so often we get a list of referrals needing attention...which is basically people who have ordered things from the church that we don't know if they ever got it. Well, normally we call the people and talk to them about it, but Sis. moss and I decided to invest our finding time yesterday in tracking them down. Most of it didn't yield much success, but then we went to the home of a girl who ordered a Book of Mormon in January of 2007. They invited us in and as it turned out, the Elders had delivered the Book of Mormon, but they didn't tell the woman anything about it. So we had a pretty lengthy discussion about the Book of Mormon and the Restoration. They are coming to church on Sunday and are excited about reading the Book of Mormon. It was so amazing! What is even crazier is that just 2 weeks ago, her brother lost his arm in a work accident, so their family has been wanting to go back to a church. I am so grateful for the opportunity we had to meet them and that we will be able to teach them! In the house they live in, it is the girl (22ish), her baby, her mom, and her brothers!

Well, I better go. Things are going really well here! This morning, I actually got a call from Sis. Jessica Millburn! It was good to talk to her. She said she misses AZ! It was so funny to realize that it has been almost a year since we met! Crazy!

I love you all! Keep finding people for the Full time missionaries to teach!! We need it!!

Love,
Sis. Abbott

*There weren't actually any pics included to post, sorry for getting your hopes up- Jessie*

I hit my 9 month mark!!!

I am not really sure what to write about today... the miracles are abounding! I love this work!

This week we started teaching William Whitehurst (the father of the family who got baptized in December)! Something has changed! He is excited to meet with us! It is moving slowly, but he is progressing! I feel overwhelmed by the love of the Lord and that He has allowed me to stay in Elizabeth City long enough to witness this!

Brea should be getting baptized this weekend. We will see though. We haven't been able to teach her in 2 weeks because of her family's schedule. We are meeting with her tonight to hammer out the details.

People have been serving us some amazing southern meals! In the last week or so we have been served home made fried chicken twice! It is sooo amazing. I'll never go back to KFC again!

I am sorry to make this so short, but I have to run. We have to get our oil changed today!

I love you all!

Love,
Sister Abbott

The Blessings are abounding!!!!!

Hello Ya'll!!!!!

Well this last week was quite possibly the best in the mission!!!! Last Thursday we had a baptism and confirmation (Jordan Sawyer-18). After the baptism, we had a lesson with a man who was referred by a member. They cooked us the most amazing dinner of my life! We each had a t-bone stake, baked potato, salad, carrots, and shrimp!!! :) Then on Friday, we had district meeting. I got to do a training on setting goals and making plans. I learned a lot, I hope they did. After the meeting we got to go on exchanges with Sis. Hummel and Sis. Sowards! It was amazing! I am so jealous that the elders get to go all the time! I was with Sis. Sowards and she is an AMAZING missionary!! Anyway, then on Saturday we had Sabrina Bonneau's baptism and confirmation! And then conference!!!! Conference was sooooo amazing! Stacy and Gabe came to the baptism and the first session of conference! Stacy who has had some concerns the last few weeks, was so glad she came. After conference, she turned to us and asked, "which one of you called them and told them what they needed to speak on?" She had concerns answered that we weren't even aware of! I know that the Lord leads and guides this church! No one else could perform the miracles I see daily! Sunday was amazing as well! We had conference and a few appointments! I love being a missionary!!!!

We also had a bomb digity transfer call last night! Going against popular belief....I AM STAYING IN ELIZABETH CITY!!!!!!! I think the only one who thought it would happen was Sis. Moss! I am soooooooo excited!! We just had 2 baptisms and confirmations and within the next transfer, we will be having 4 more!! The blessings are everywhere!!! I love it! I am so excited to stay with Sis. Moss! She is amazing and I am glad I get to finish training her! It has been fun to counsel together now that she has her footing! She is a great missionary and I am learning so much from her.

So with conference...what did ya'll think of Elder Bednar's talk?! Wasn't it AMAZING?! So here's the question... who are you going to invite to be taught in our home? Elder Bluemel pointed out to us a while ago that we were not set apart as door knockers! I love that concept! I am so grateful for the inspired words of an Apostle that validates what we have been working towards out here!

Well, I just got an e-mail from mom, so I will go write to her! I love you all! Enjoy the pics! :)

Love,
Sister Abbott

Reinjured foot :(

Well, this week was going really well until I reinjured my foot. I have to go to up to Chesapeake to have it x-rayed and cast. President wants me to pray about what would be best for the work. As much as I do NOT want to leave, I don't know how I am going to tract with a cast...
Psych! April Fools!

I figured I would start off with an April fools so that when I told you about the amazing miracles that have happened, you would believe it!

Well, Brea didn't get baptized last week like we were hoping, but it is all working out for the best and with the new date, it will help bring her whole family closer to the gospel! So she will be getting baptized on April 19!

We talked to our district leader and he told us to still have her interviewed last Wednesday like we planned. As we were praying about that, I kept thinking of Jordan. She is prepared for baptism, but was waiting on a couple factors to set her date. We called her Tuesday night and asked if she would be interviewed on Wednesday while the DL was down. We explained that it would make it easier for her to set her date if she had already been interviewed. We were anticipating that she would be baptized in May. Well, that night after she was interviewed, she called us and told us that she wanted to be baptized next week!!! So she will be getting baptized on Thursday April 3!!! We are so excited and Sabrina will be getting baptized on April 5! How cool is that?! Two baptisms and confirmations the week of conference?!?!?! We are a LITTLE excited! I am so excited that I for sure get to be here for that!Next week is transfers, so we will see what happens. I am hoping to stay, but I am keeping my prayers open to the Lord's will. I can't really tell what is going to happen. Either leaving or staying would make sense. So we will see! I am hoping to get to stay with Sis. Moss. We are really starting to get into a good swing.

I hope you enjoy the pics! We went to Kill Devil Hills last P-Day! Even though the wind was penetratingly cold, it was still a temptation to run into the water. But I held fast to my little white handbook and just took pics. It was very fun! We went to the Wright Brothers Memorial. It was very inspiring! I was in awe! It is definately something I want to go back and visit when we are not in a hurry!

It was good to hang out with Sis. Hummel and Sis. Sowards as well. They are seeing such miracles in Nags Head! They had a baptism last week and are having another one this Saturday as well. Our District Leader says if he wasn't leaving he would want to join the firesquad down in NC! I love being a missionary! I love seeing people's lives change because of a message that we have been asked to carry to them!

Simone Whitehurst bore her testimony for the first time on Sunday. I couldn't hold back the tears (surprise surprise). But seriously... as I looked at that woman so full of faith my heart swelled with gratitude for the privelege I had to introduce her to the gospel. How humbling to realize that all I did was walk up to her at the gas station, and the Lord magnified my efforts and now generations will be affected! What a marvelous work! I love this work with all my heart!

Well, I better run! I love you all and hope you have a wonderful conference this weekend. I know that I won't be getting coffee cake, but I'll look at the pics from last conference! :)

Love and purple tulips!
Sister Abbott