Called to Serve: Busy, busy, busy...

We old folks have really tired ourselves out this week. Been very busy, every day. But it's been good busy therefore it's been a good week. I won't bore you with all the details, and I do have some good pictures, so just the highlights.

Monday Wayne got up early and went fishing, I walked downtown to the dentist. Now this was really not fair -- Wayne likes to go fishing and I hate to go to the dentist! I just went in for a cleaning, but the dentist is our bishop and he somehow coerced me into x-rays and a check-up as well. I know it was a good thing, because I do have bad teeth. Nice to know all is well. In the afternoon we worked at the local food pantry. Our ward takes a turn for a week every seven weeks and the week we are assigned we work Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons. It's a good service opportunity. Monday we worked with three people from another church, Wed. with another couple from our ward, and Friday with our four Elders. As an added bonus, on one day we met an inactive member of our ward who was happy to give us her current address and phone number -- we had been searching for her since we got here and couldn't find her. So we have already been to her house and met her husband and since she works at Subway we just happened to pick up sandwiches there Friday and had another good visit. How did our paths just "happen" to cross?

Tuesday we got up early, picked the Elders up at 6:30 am, and drove to Berryville (1 1/2 hours) for Zone Conference. It was great, but long, 8 am to 4 pm. Good instruction from the Mission President, our Stake President, the Stake Family History Director, and the AP's. We left right when it was over to drive home in time for our service commitment at the nursing home.

Wednesday we had Zone Meeting in the morning, worked at the Food Pantry, and taught two lessons in the afternoon - one with Traci, one with the Parks. Then I went to the church to do indexing and give genealogy help while Wayne made a visit with a couple of the Elders.

Thursday was an awesome day. We picked up our friends Johnny and Janet K. about noon and they helped us with visiting teaching and home teaching all afternoon. We drove clear to Wardensville to visit Deb F., back to Mathias to see the Lists (furthest out home in the ward), on the way back to Baker we stopped in at Kelly K's (our Elders Quorum President) to check on him as he has been having back problems (it's his week to clean the church and we told him not to worry about it, that the missionaries would take care of it). Then we visited Woneda at the nursing home, and drove up in the hills to see Carol L. (so hard to pin her down to an appointment time, we were very happy to make connections there). Carol is not in the best of health and was concerned about getting a mountain of mulch spread around in her flower beds so we asked if we could bring the Elders out on Saturday to help her. She was very appreciative of the offer and agreed. Whew! We delivered Janet and Johnny back home, they had a fun day with us. We drove back to Petersburg, had a quick dinner, then made one more visit, delivering a large print Bible & Book of Mormon to a less-active member who is having vision problems and had requested them. Another long day. But very productive.

Friday morning we cleaned the church with the Elders, worked at the Food Pantry, made a couple of visits, then prepared for the First Annual Petersburg Ward Campout! We picked up a couple of Subway sandwiches, picked up a couple of passengers, then drove out past the community of Arthur to some beautiful property our bishop owns, for a lovely evening. We enjoyed visiting, playing Corn Hole, tossing a football, eating, roasting marshmallows, hiking, listening to live music, and having a spiritual thought and ward prayer around the campfire. We didn't stay the night, but we did go back up Saturday morning for breakfast before taking the Elders to their service project. We had a good time helping Carol with her yard work. The Elders enjoyed getting dirty and working hard. Her home and yard are beautiful, we love it there. She prepared a nice lunch for us too and was so appreciative of the help and the company. (and she came to church today!!) We were tired afterward, came home and rested, then picked up a few groceries and prepared for Sunday dinner with friends (who ended up not coming). Wonderful church today, we taught the temple prep class and Wayne taught the High Priests. In the afternoon we took the Elders out to the nursing home in Baker to visit Woneda, then to check up on some people that didn't come to church. Now we are relaxing and looking forward to our day off tomorrow - but we are going to some friends' home for a barbecue with several ward families (I think there was talk of paint balling there too, the Elders are pretty excited about that...) Wayne is hoping for a little fishing time, I am hoping to get a little housework done and then just doing nothing for a little while...

Pictures to follow. It's been a fun, busy week. We like keeping busy and have felt useful and productive. We've put a lot of miles on our poor van. Our little garden is growing. And so is our love for the wonderful people here and for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. What an awesome experience we are having. Much love to our children, their spouses, and our grandchildren - we miss you so much.