april 19th

haha so hello again everyone I'll reply to everyone individually as well but just a little update on what's going on here.

This last week was a doozy. Every month we do whats called a "Car fast" where we don't use the car between 10 and 5. I guess it saves miles? (not when you cover 5,000 square miles...) So on wednesday we were doing our car fast. We had been walking most of the day when we got a call from one of the members of the branch here, telling us that one of our investigators (who was on track to be baptized on wednesday [tomorrow] this week) had had some kind of stroke or something and was on her way to the hospital. Thankfully we were in Edenton and started booking it to the hospital in town. On our way there we passed the street that that particular investigator lived on, and noticed that the ambulance was still there. But as we kept running, we heard the sirens and the ambulance passed in front of us. It was kind of surreal...knowing that that person we care so much about is in that ambulance. It was definitely nothing like anything I've experienced before. So we run to the car and get heading over to the hospital. It's pretty close, so we show up probably two minutes after the ambulance gets there and then proceeds the waiting. After close to an hour, (or so it felt like) we finally are allowed to go in and see her and give her a blessing. As we go in, they told us she was still heavily sedated. Elder Bobo (another elder with me) gave her a blessing and she was conscience enough to send grab each one of our hands and then we were told to leave so they could move her. And apparently she stopped being responsive after that. As we went out we were told tat she was goin to be life flighted to Greenville, NC. They changed that Norfolk General, and then Sentura hospital in VA Beach. Soon the helicopter was here and they flew her away. Shes still in the hospital right now and we are all praying for her. Satan definitely does not want this women to be baptized. But things are going to turn out alright.

The rest of the week went pretty smooth. Sorta.

We are about an hour and a half from the stake center up in Chesapeake, and we were struggling to find rides. We had thought the ride was taken care of, but at the last minute our ride cancelled. So we called and called and called and FINALLY, at 8 o'clock we got someone to take us up that night. So we ride up and realize we have no idea where we are staying. So we call our Zone leaders expecting to stay with them, but are quickly told they have no room to transport us. So the have us call the Bennet's Creek elders and we twist some arms and they let us stay with them. And I swear, when we left that house we left our whole life there. Especially our phone charger which we won't get till wednesday apparently. haha.

So we finally make it home Saturday morning and everyone has been warning us that there is going to be some severe weather coming in later that night. I admit it was kinda windy in the morning, but nothing prepared me for what happened that night. We had people telling us all day to get inside because this same system that was going to hit us had been ripping up Raleigh for a couple of hours. Torn up a Lowes and killed a few people. Around 7 o clock the storm really hit us hard. I'm used to storms, but when you couple it with the wind we had it gets really scary. Nothing nearby got hit, but we found out later that at least 68 tornadoes had been registered in the surrounding area, and just over the river into a town called coalrain (or at least sounds like that haha) there were at least 20 people killed and house torn up. There were some members of the church in the Ahoskie branch who lost there homes. I've never been around storms like that. I did learn one thing about storms in NC...if it's windy, raining and lightening, and it starts to hail, you better run for cover. Because that almost always precedes a tornadoe. So I had fun experiencing that! haha.

But it's not all bad/scary news. I think I told y'all about the investigator we were teaching from Cuba, but we invited him to be baptized on may 1st and he is shooting for it. Those moments definitely make it all worth it. The work is good, although it is slow at times, the sucess make it all worth the while.

I hope I've told enough...have any questions, let me know! haha.

Love y'all, have a sweet week!