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| The front window of our apartment, with Fall decorations courtesy of the Acors! Thanks so much, loved the pictures you sent too. |
We did have a wonderful Mission Conference on Monday in Frederick, Maryland. Even though we had to get up at 4 am to be there on time, it was worth it. Elder Perkins & his wife, and our Mission President & his wife gave great talks and instruction. Very inspiring and encouraging. Some lovely Relief Society ladies served us a nice Taco Salad lunch. All the younger missionaries went home at 4 or 5, then the senior couple missionaries had dinner and a fireside with the Perkins and the Richards. Elder Perkins & his family lived in China for quite a while, he was a mission president in Taiwan, and now some of his responsibilities as a Seventy have to do with Asia. So he had many interesting stories. He also is on the church technology committee and had a lot to do with the new movie "Meet the Mormons" - more good stories. He changed my attitude toward meetings as he suggested (from Elder Bednar's 2010 Worldwide Training remarks) that we change the word "meeting" to "revelatory experience", and see what inspiration we can gain. I'm working on it. No more murmuring about too many "meetings"... And one wise young missionary said she likes to change the phrase "endure to the end" to "enjoy to the end", I'm definitely adopting that attitude.
So Tuesday was our Preparation Day, except for our usual nursing home service in the evening. Wednesday was our District Meeting, here in Petersburg. In the afternoon we visited our good friend Margarite, had a lesson with her and she gave us a bag of nice apples, so kind of her. We have been spoiled this week. The next day we went to Baxter and Sandy's for a wonderful dinner, yummy meatloaf. They are so nice and so good to us. Elder Bronson and Elder Briggs were invited also, so we spent the afternoon and evening with them making visits to Dave & Elaine, Johnnie Sue, Kathy, Denver & Pat, and Richard & Jeannie, as well as the dinner appointment. Fun. Friday our friends Janet and Johnny K. invited us to their home in Moorefield for lunch. Very good venison chili. A friend of their's, Alston, was there for lunch too and had questions about the prophet Joseph Smith - Wayne gave a good presentation to him and gave him some pamphlets to read. On the way home we visited Robin, Traci, and Eston. Then Wayne sang at the nursing home.
Saturday we helped all morning at a huge community food bank event, we've helped a few times before at similar activities. A big semi truck came down to the local fire station, volunteers unloaded pallets of food and boxed it up, I got the fun and easy job of handing out numbers to pre-approved individuals and families that started lining up at 8 am in 25 degree weather. Fortunately we had a large, warm room for them to wait in. The truck was late arriving and we didn't start giving out boxes until about 10:30. But it went well and we gave out almost 200 boxes of food. A real service. In the afternoon we again took Elder Bronson and Elder Briggs with us, this time made the 45-mile trip to Mt. Storm and Davis. They had a referral to take a Book of Mormon to someone who had requested one, then we looked for long-lost members living up there "on the mountain", far from our church, but within our ward boundaries. Found one home we were looking for, the member was not home, but we had a nice visit with his wife. Didn't find the other one, got lost a couple times, found ourselves in Maryland once or twice, saw a lot of deer, showed the Elders the Mt. Storm (Dominion) power plant and a coal mine. We also saw our first snow of the season up there, of course had to take a picture. At one point Wayne made kind of a sudden stop, I worried what was wrong - but he had just spotted yet another rusty truck, in a field by the road, and jumped out to take a picture. An added bonus of the afternoon was that our very intelligent missionaries showed us how to find the elevation on our GPS - Wayne is often curious about our elevation when we are travelling around and had talked about getting an altimeter for our van to satisfy his curiosity - but we have that feature built in to our van GPS, we just didn't know it! We learn such great things from these young guys! And I'm sure we provided them amusement at our ineptness. Anyway we eventually made our way back to Petersburg in time for the Elders to make it to their 6:30 pm appointment and for us old folks to have some dinner and rest.
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| Snow on the West Virginia ground, Mt. Storm, Nov 2014 |
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| Elder Briggs and Elder Bronson in front of Mt. Storm Lake & power plant |
Today (Sunday) we went to Ward Council at 8 am, then worshiped with our wonderful Petersburg Ward. Wayne and I both taught lessons and after church had dinner with our good friend Becky H. She made us a delicious spaghetti dinner as thanks for taking her to Winchester recently for an interview and for taking her to the temple. Really it was our privilege. But we did enjoy having dinner with her. Tonight Wayne is making another trip to Winchester, Virginia, this time for Stake Priesthood meeting. He is taking the four Elders, our friend Oscar, and I think picking up his High Priest group leader on the way. Full van. I'm sure it will be a great meeting (revelatory experience), and he will be tired and ready for a day off when he gets home, about 10 pm.
Hey, next week looks pretty calm and quiet. We'll see. We are so looking forward to our Sunday evening emails from our children and their families - we miss them so much and really look forward to updates from them. And from anyone else who remembers us... Please write. Thanks Angie and the Acor family for the letters and pictures. Looking forward to Skyping with the Thuesons tomorrow. Our Book of Mormon reading is going well, we are on schedule and loving it. I have Alma 29:9 memorized and truly it is my JOY! Missions are awesome! Happy Thirteenth Birthday to granddaughter Klora on Thursday.
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| According to someone - this is Beauty and Art! |
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