HAPPY FATHER'S DAY! Our love goes out to our wonderful sons and sons-in-law, who are just the greatest dads there could be. Wayne and I were each blessed with good, honest, hard-working fathers, who loved and served their families all their lives. I was fortunate enough to marry a kind, patient, honorable man who turned in to a pretty amazing father himself. To honor him, we had grilled steak and corn-on-the-cob for lunch today, with key lime pie for dessert - and then he got to take a nap! What a nice day.
We have had a great week! I'll begin back at Monday, our P-Day. We headed out early in the morning
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| Mt. Storm Lake and Power Station |
to explore a place we had been wanting to visit - Blackwater Falls. It's about 45 miles northwest of Petersburg. We drove past Mt. Storm Lake to get there, which is very interesting. Mt. Storm Lake is a man-made 1200 acre lake in the Allegheny Mountains. The water is used to circulate through and cool the large, coal-powered Mt. Storm Power Station, which produces electricity for Washington, DC. The water temperature in the lake seldom drops below 60 degrees and the lake is a popular recreation area for boaters, swimmers, and scuba divers! The power plant is huge and uses about 15,000 tons of coal per day, I believe. We also drove by one of the coal mines in the area, the Mountain View Mine, owned by Mettiki Coal. There is a wind farm in this area too, with 132 wind turbines. I think they are beautiful.
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| Mt. Storm Lake |
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| Coal Mining |
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| Wind turbines |
Then we got up to the Blackwater Falls area. There is a nice wooden walkway down to the falls - it was fun going down, but coming back up was a little more difficult. There were lots of walking paths in the surrounding area and other smaller falls that were pretty too. We saw several deer, a large lodge and many cabins and camp sites, interesting birds, and lots of lush forests. It was very beautiful and pretty quiet since it was a Monday. We had lunch in the nearby tiny town of Davis, at a small deli. Fun experience.
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| Blackwater Falls |
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| View out the car window on our drive home |
When we got home I did some chores, one was vacuuming out the van. Then Wayne took our four Elders out to a service project of helping clean up an old house for a member's son who is coming home from the service. They all worked hard, then were fed Kentucky Fried Chicken, then piled in the van to come home and got it very dirty...
Tuesday we had Zone Training in Woodstock, Virginia, about 90 miles from here. Part of the training
involved "real play" of contacting people on the street and striking up a conversation. Several of us got to be the "real" people on the street. Wayne and I were grumpy old folks, Wayne pretending to be a minister of another faith. We do grumpy well evidently, guess we've been practicing for that one. One of the missionaries really got into the moment, pretending to be a redneck fixing his car, even had sound effects ... Hopefully it helped the missionaries develop their conversational skills. Real play is usually not our favorite thing to do, but this made it fun.
Wednesday we picked up the Elders early again and drove to Wardensville, a small town about 45 miles east of Petersburg, to help our friend Will and his family load up a moving truck. They are moving to Baltimore. Will is a large black man who recently played football for the Baltimore Ravens. When he stood by Wayne for a picture, Wayne said Will's arm on his shoulder felt like it weighed 50 pounds! Will and his wife Jennifer have two very cute children, Roman and Clarissa. We love them. Will's mother, Sheila, also lives with them. Sheila has been a member of our church for about 20 years. Will and Jennifer joined about a year-and-a-half ago in Front Royal, just before they moved to Wardensville and into the Petersburg Ward. Because of distance, lack of gas money, health problems of
little Clarissa, etc. they have only been to our ward a few times. But we found them and visited them regularly, and helped them out when we could with transportation to appointments and once to the hospital with Clarissa. We really like them and will miss them, but we hope the move is a good one for them. Jennifer already has found a good job and they will be very close to a church building.
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| Will, Jennifer, Sheila, Roman, & Clarissa |
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| Clarissa |
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Our work is done and two Elders try to get into
the same seat in the air conditioned Orton van... |
When we got home from Wardensville we cleaned up and made a couple visits, then I went to the Family History Center and helped a couple with FamilySearch and Indexing. Very fun two hours. Wayne drove out in the country to visit a man who is not attending church because of hurt feelings many years ago. Wayne visits him occasionally and just is a friend and listener. (I encourage Wayne to go by himself when I am working on genealogy, because the one time I did go with him, he and Tim talked for two hours about hunting, fishing, motorcycles, and music....)
The rest of the week was normal. Visits, lessons to prepare, errands to run, chores to do. It would be hot and humid one minute, then pouring down rain the next. We are grateful for good air-conditioning in our apartment and also for good umbrellas, which we don't always have with us at the right moment... One highlight of the week for me was seeing fireflies (or lightening bugs) for the first time. As we were driving home from a late appointment Thursday night the trees and bushes to the side of the road just sparkled - it was magical! Last night we drove up to the park on the hill near us and just watched them in amazement. Don't know why we don't have them "out West".
I'll just say again - I don't know where the time is going! How can it be the middle of June already? We are keeping very busy and trying to do some good. We are having fun, and I think we are growing younger instead of older.... Our love to you.
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