LDS Mission- Edenton, NC

My LDS Mission

Edenton, North Carolina

June 1987-September 1987

After arriving in Virginia I spent a couple days in Roanoke getting some direction from the Mission President and then I was off to Edenton, North Carolina. I was assigned to work with Sister Evans. She would be training me. The two of us boarded a bus in Roanoke headed to Norfolk. As we reached the Norfolk area our bus driver some how got lost and didn't know how to find the bus station. We eventually found the station where an LDS member from Edenton was waiting to give us a ride from there.

We replaced a set of Elders who had been serving there for some time. Since neither one of us knew the area at all we had to spend some time just learning the area and looking at a lot of maps. We also had the help of the local LDS membership.

One of the challenges we faced was the great distances the area covered. In the middle of this area was a great big body of water called the Albemarle Sound. To get to Church each week we had to travel three miles each way just to reach the other side. The bridge that spanned a narrow section of the Sound was a bit rickety. To the side of it was a new bridge being built to replace the old.

We were in Edenton for the 4th of July. Another set of Sister missionaries joined us as we walked to the park near Edenton Bay (an arm off the Albemarle Sound) to watch the fireworks display put on by the city.

Right after we arrived in Edenton a local LDS member asked if we could teach a friend of his and the friend's family. His friend was a migrant worker in the fields of Creswell County, North Carolina. The children in this family were very interested in what we were saying. Before we started teaching them one of the daughters had been listening to a tape put out by the LDS Church called Our Heavenly Father's Plan. There is a song on that tape entitled My Heavenly Father Loves Me. Those girls had listened, learned the song and sang it around the house.

Whenever I hear the song of a bird
Or look at the blue blue sky.
Whenever I feel the rain on my face
Or the wind as it rushes by,
Whenever I touch a velvet rose
Or walk by a lilac tree.
I'm glad that I live in this beautiful world
Heavenly Father created for me.

He gave me my eyes that I might see
The color of butterfly wings.
He gave me my ears that I might hear
The magical sound of things.
He gave me my life, my mind, my heart;
I thank him rev'rently
For all his creations, of which I'm apart.
Yes, I know Heav'nly Father loves me.

Nellie Poorman

It was that song that opened the doors for us, so to speak, as the children longed to know more.

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