Country Hoedown

Fun but tiring week for us old folks.  Long days.  But good.  Lots of pictures I want to share, and we will get

to the Hoedown in a bit.  First of all - I saw a bright red Cardinal in a tree by our laundry room last week.  I hope it's a sign that Spring is near.  Our snow piles are almost all gone, the ground is pretty soggy, and we notice swollen, muddy creeks as we go driving.  We have had daytime temperatures in the 60's, but cooler temps and maybe even more snow is predicted for next week...

I usually guard my Monday Preparation Days pretty carefully, but since we had loafed around on a few snow days recently I was able to give up last Monday for more important commitments.  A friend and neighbor, Becky Hovatter, asked me to take her up to the hospital early Monday morning for some blood tests, okay.  Then my visiting teaching companion, Janet, said she was leaving town later in the week and wondered if we could do our visiting (that takes half a day) on Monday?  Okay.  Since we go quite a ways and one couple we see rarely has home teaching visits, Wayne thought it would be a good idea if he and my partner's husband, Johnny, went along and made some

visits too.  When we came here, Johnny was less active.  He really likes Wayne and they visit and sing together occasionally, and he usually comes to church now too.  So going home teaching was good for him.  We had a really nice afternoon,  good weather, nice drive, and fun visits.  We all enjoyed it. It's about 50 miles from Petersburg to one of the
couples we visited - through Moorefield, Baker, Lost City, and Mathias.  We stopped to take a picture of the cute little post office in Lost City and Wayne took a beautiful shot of a cemetery and church - love seeing so many old churches around here.  Johnny also showed us a lake where he wants to take Wayne fishing this summer.

Tuesday we left early for Berryville, outside of Winchester, where we had a Zone Conference, from 8 am to 4 pm.  It was very good, lots of training and instruction, and good speakers.  The Elders enjoyed seeing their fellow missionary friends,  we enjoyed visiting with our Mission President and his wife, and the other senior couple in our zone, the Kunz'.  We don't enjoy the part of our training that involves role playing - but we have learned to grab the other senior couple as our partners and just visit while we are supposed to be acting out different situations...  We got back just in time for our assignment at the nursing home. More meetings on

Wednesday when we traveled up to Romney for our District Meeting.  There was a big snow pile on the edge of the parking lot at their church, and of course our very mature Elders, Zone Leaders, and new Sister missionaries assigned to Romney had to climb up and pose for a picture!  I am happy to have Sister Missionaries in our District, now I am not quite so out-numbered.  And one of them, Sister Hendrix, knows our own grand-niece (?) Kami Orton, who was her trainer.  After the meeting we had a quick lunch at Burger King, then headed back home,  changed clothes and drove way out to the

Burr's home - they have had health struggles and we wanted to see if we could help out a bit.  Just had to take a picture of the pig in the road - that's West Virginia for you.  Genealogy in the evening.

Thursday we went to an appointment with the Elders, then Wayne had a long practice session with his group, preparing for the ward activity.  I worked with one of the wives in the family history library,  we had a very interesting time, getting her registered on Family Search, building her family tree, then preparing paperwork for the temple sealing of a deceased child.  It was a special experience.  Friday we visited a friend out in the country, Margarite

Country Road in West Virginia - who knows what
you'll come across.

Kindrick.  She has been less active for several years since her husband passed away,  we try to see her every couple of weeks.  Wayne borrows western DVDs from her late husband's large collection - then we have to go back and exchange them for more.  We told her about the ward activity and she found Wayne a western scarf/tie and ring, and some fancy collar tabs from her husband's stuff.  She seemed very happy to share them.  Then we met the Elders in Moorefield and took them out to visit our friend Jane,  then on to Joy and Forrest Whetzel's home for dinner.  Good and generous people, but a remote little home.  Back to Petersburg in time for Wayne to sing at the nursing home.

Saturday was the long-awaited ward activity.  The Petersburg Ward has a tradition of two ward activities per year - a Christmas Dinner and a summer picnic.  We think more activities would help in our activation and missionary work, so Wayne "encouraged" the High Priests to put on this Country Hoedown, originally scheduled for Valentine's Day, but postponed because of snow.  A wonderful man in the ward fixed a great dinner of ham, fried potatoes, beans, and corn bread.  Everyone coming was to bring a dessert.  Baxter Borror and his wife Sandy, called a little square dancing,  then Wayne got a little group together to sing and play country/blue grass music.  John and Audrey Parks recently moved

Audrey and Sonja

in the ward,  he had been inactive, she is not a member but is taking the lessons.  Johnny was not coming much.  Baxter is quiet, but hard working and faithful.  They all had fun getting together and practicing,  good fellowship.  I think they will continue.  The ward really enjoyed the evening, I think there were about 80 people in attendance.  (All our investigators were there,  I think we had 9 non-members and 12 less actives attend)  Margarite was there, enjoyed telling people about Wayne's "decorations", and she came to church this morning too.  We are very excited about that.  Audrey Parks has set a baptism date and I think Sonja is close,  we went to another lesson at her home this afternoon - she also attended the activity last night and church this morning.  Her 14-year-old son

came to both as well.  I still have trouble getting used to the idea that our chapel is also our multi-purpose room,  so we ate and danced and sang last night in what became our chapel this morning!  They hope for a bigger building some day.

So that is way more than you wanted to hear about our week,  and there is more I could share but won't. We are keeping busy and having good experiences.  Looking forward to taking our four Elders to the temple next week.  We are enjoying Angie's facebook entries as her family travels to Disneyland.  Have a great time!  We love you.   Love hearing from you too.

Our Bishop Jeff Kimble and his wife Lucy.

Our good friend Sonja and her two missionaries.

Banjo pickin' Baxter Borror.