So crazy the last few days! I have never seen anything like this before and it wasn't even that bad compared to Japan or Haiti or Chile.

So, at Zone Conference, President asked us how we liked our new apartment. He said that the lady who worked at the Front desk wanted to give us a crappy one, but he saw on the white board that a few more were open, and asked her about them and she was kind of in a corner and so she showed them to him and they were alot nicer so we got the nicer one and he told us to go check out apartment 11 and 12 those were the ones she wanted to give us.

So this week has been a tough week we were supposed to have a baptism, that fell through, but it is rescheduled for this coming Saturday. Appointments all week long kept canceling. I am having a hard time seeing eye to eye with my companion and feel he is super lazy and is just wanting to sleep until the day he goes home. It has been a tough week. We went and contacted a referral named Alex, we set a return appointment with him and then asked him for a referral and he gave us his neighbor, who we taught right on the spot and had an incredible lesson, and we felt she was so prepared and then she called us the next day and was like, I was able to talk to my parents about it and I will never become a Mormon.

A couple of part-member families we were banking on moved. We had this great big dinner planned with members and investigators and they canceled. It was just tough.

So, Saturday we were on post riding our bikes and the pollen is really bad here and it is super windy and just crazy weather, but of course as missionaries we know nothing, (as far as listening to news) so we are just chugging along. We go to visit a part-member family and this crazy woman who keeps telling us to come over when her husband is deployed, is like Elders, I have been thinking about you and there is a tornado warning and it is really bad, like what are you going to do. We were like yeah right, southerners freak out at the slightest sound of bad weather, there will be no tornado. We went in and taught a part member and they were like yeah there has been so many killed already, and it is moving its way here. Then they kind of kicked us out of there house and we left, by this time it was really windy so we pedaled our hearts out to the mini mall, where we met Moses and Johnny, two guys from the singles branch.

We got in their car and went to a couple of places, and we couldn't get around, we went to our apartment and it was fine, but we live right by the Riley Farmers Market and there was flowers and fruit everywhere. So, we were at our apartment, and then we left and all the power was out, all these streets were shut down it was just chaos! So we went back onto post because we had some appointments, it took us forever because all the streets were closed, so only one gate was open. We got onto post, all of our appointments were canceled. We visited some others and a member feeds us and then we get ready to head home. (While we were at our apartment a lady ran up and said, we have to leave, there are 2 more tornado's coming right for us again.) We were getting ready to head home and all these gates were locked and they weren't letting people off post. The power is out everywhere, it is just really bad. A member from the 3rd ward calls and says, Elders I was just at your apartment and he inspected it for housing and was like your roof is gone, you need to stay on post it is crazy off post you can't get to your home because of a gas leak and you have no roof, there are 100 people at the church right now that we are giving aid to and alot of the 3rd wards members homes are gone. So we were just like, crap! All our stuff is gone, our journals is what we were most worried about, Bro Burbank called us and was like, Hey Elders, come stay with me. So we called President and it is now like 11 o'clock pm, President is out of town at a mission presidents seminar in Atlanta and it is just nuts, he says we can stay but with a member that has no children, well there are none in the Fort Bragg ward. So he talks to Bro Burbank and we stayed there, they had no power. It was neat there home was truly a place of refuge from the things of the world. Then we woke up and went and checked out our apartment and we could only get in on foot and it was fine, literally everything around it is fine the brother who inspected our apartment, inspected 11 and 12 and didn't know we were in the back, but everything around us, a complete circle is damaged badly but we are fine. I don't have much to say just that the Lord loves his Elders and that it was funny, because Elder Smart and I were talking about how it would be cool if a natural disaster happened and all we could do was do service for awhile. I love you guys, have a great week. WE get to go to the temple on Wednesday, I was supposed to email you then but, President asked us to email you all today so you would know we are okay!


Love ya,


Elder Taylor Blaine Petersen
North Carolina Raleigh Mission
6508 Falls of Neuse, Ste 100
Raleigh, NC 27615-6845