August Rush

Hey Family!

This is my first email as a 21-year-old!  As with every holiday on your mission, there wasn't much ado.  The highlight was going to the DMV for an hour and a half to get a NC driver's license since my Ohio one expired.

The exchanges gauntlet is starting.  From this past week until I'm done I have a companion exchange every week.  This past week I had one of the freshest of missionaries with me.  He's one of the 18-year-olds and he still has that new missionary smell.  His area has been struggling for a while and they're only teaching one person right now, so he got thrown in the deep end with our three lessons that we had scheduled.

We had a stake priesthood meeting this week to discuss the 'Hastening The Work' broadcast.  There's a young man named Hunter from the Southport Branch who's going to the Peru Chiclayo Mission, where James is.

Talk to y'all next week!

Love,

Elder Perryman

Bienvenidos!

Hey Family!

The transfer is underway and things are looking up for Wilmington. We just got our new Spanish elders, Elders Mora and Salinas (both from Mexico). It's got to be petty tough for them. They have to share meal calenders with three other companionships and our ward still has yet to feed them. Hopefully when members get to know them, things will pick up for the Spanish elders. With the extra set of elders it makes the administrative work that I have to do an even bigger headache. I feel glued to the phone answering questions, preparing meetings, and doing accounting sessions with the members of the district. Also, apart from the zone leaders, everyone in the district has been out for 7 months or less (two are being trained currently) so I feel like the District Father being so old.

Our ward had two children get baptized this week and while we were helping out with those one of the members came up to us and asked if we could teach her 9-year-old son so he could get baptized too.

Serving here in the summer time makes church interesting. Every week we seem to have a different congregation as people move into the ward and others just come to visit while on vacation. There's a family from the Greenville 1st ward that just moved down here this past week. We had the opportunity to sing "Come, Come, Ye Saints" as a part of a men's quartet and almost everyone was in tears. I think it's been a while since there's been any musical performances in the ward and Elder Packard and I have been trying to use our talents to bless the ward, so it was wonderful to see everything come to fruition on Sunday.

Well, I'm about out of time, talk to y'all next week!

Love,

Elder Perryman 1.0

Last Transfer... Finish Strong!

Hey Family!

This week was absolutely incredible. A LOT happened so I'll try and remember everything.

We started the week off with Zone Conference, where we got a thorough whipping from our leaders (The best kinds of meetings). I love finding ways to improve and there's nothing like getting paddled by President to get the Zone fired up. I found out that Elder Dewey is going to be training! To use our crazy missionary lingo, I'm going to be a grandfather! From there I went on exchange to Leland with Elder Hook. I was in Leland to give a baptismal interview to one of their investigators. He passed and I was also able to give some counsel to Elder Hook who has recently been called to train as well.

The ward has been catching fire ever since the "Hastening the Work" broadcast. We've found four new investigators this week and all of them came from the members. Three of them are a family where the daughter was dating one of the members of the ward and had been coming to church with him. Our first lesson with them was in those members' home and the accepted a baptismal date right there. They're already through the first two lessons! We found the other one on Sunday while going on a home teaching visit with one of the bishop's counselors. He said that in the past couple of years no missionaries had thought it worth their time to go on this visit with him. That was such a prepared family and the husband also accepted a baptismal date in the first lesson. We have a goal of five baptisms in August and so far we have four people preparing for the 24th.

Our new ward mission leader took us to the beach this morning for breakfast at Britt's donuts (seriously the best glazed doughnut that I've ever eaten). Elder Winger goes home on Wednesday so we decided to bring him along and make some 'sand temples.'

I am looking forward to this next transfer. I can't wait to hear from y'all again!

Love,

Elder Perryman

Happy America Day!

Hey Family!

We had a pretty hot week here. It's also been one of the weeks that Elder Packard and I have biked the most and done the most service.

So this past week has really seen an increase in missionary-mindedness in the ward. We've found a couple of families and have members inviting even more to be taught. We're seeing a wonderful shift in the work here. Rather than teaching individuals, we're starting to teach families. Instead of simple sharing a spiritual thought at meals we're ministering to their needs, building their faith, and inviting them to act. We're constantly seeking to help the ward council and offer service to members.

It's weird to see that this is Elder Winger's last week on his mission. We've got an exchange with them after Zone Conference this week because I have to go and do a baptismal interview for them. It was really weird to see my itinerary... It still doesn't feel real, or like it's happening at all. Elder Packard and I are trying to work as hard and as smart as we know how so that it will be a surprise for me when that time comes.

Well, that's about it for this week, it was great hearing from James. Talk to y'all next week!

Love,

Elder Perryman

Open The Windows of Heaven...

Hey Family!

It's been really rainy here. All last week we got rain and it's looking like we're getting rain all next week. Fortunately, we had a long enough break on Monday to be able to have a fun time on the Battleship North Carolina. The Leland elders picked us up and we got to tour this historic WWII ship. We had a really fun time, especially when we ran into a group of members from Charlotte. Their kids saw our name tags and asked "Are those missionaries?" I got to show off my nautical knowledge (what little I have) from the Coast Guard Academy. Afterwards I beat everyone in bowling, scoring my highest score yet (although a 136 isn't much to brag about). Also, we found out this week that we're going to be getting a set of Spanish-speaking elders in Wilmington on the 16th, boosting the number of missionaries in our district to 11.

I've really started to get the hang of budgeting that $115 we get a month. Elder Packard was just about out of his money at the end of the month and I remember the days when I was in that predicament. Now I typically end each month with about $20 left in case of emergency. Hopefully I'll be able to keep it up. I never realized how much I would need to become financially savvy on my mission, but that really prevents some stress.

On Wednesday I conducted the last district meeting of the transfer, which is kind of a weird thought since we still have two weeks left. This week is Zone Leader Training Meeting and next is Zone Conference so I've just got to prepare lessons, rather than the entire meeting. It's always a relief to have Zone Meetings because I like teaching, but the planning can be stressful.

Well, that's about it for this week, I'm looking forward to hearing back from y'all next week!

Love,

Elder Perryman (the original)