Called to Serve: Beautiful West Virginia Spring, Fun Train Ride, Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to Sister Orton today! (Thanks for the flowers, Dylan & Sara)

Our grandson, Dallin, on his mission in Mozambique, Africa, begins nearly every letter: "I've had an awesome week, the best week of my mission so far! I love my mission!" Well, we love our mission too. It's not nearly as exciting as his, and we are relieved at that. We,too, have had an awesome week.

On Monday, after our household chores we went to the Moorefield Wal-Mart for some groceries. First

Berlin's catch

thing we ran into Belinda and Pam, less-active ward members who live in a little cabin in the Smoke Hole hills. They were very excited to show us a picture on their phone of Belinda's husband Berlin's fishing catch from the previous day. A real prize at 21 1/2 inches! They emailed the picture to us and Wayne made a nice copy of it on our printer, framed it, and we took it up to them Friday. They were pleased. We have worked hard at gaining their trust and becoming friends. They are such nice folks.

Lovely Smoke Hole scenery

Monday evening we had a nice dinner at Janet and Johnny's, then watched the DVD "Meet the Mormons", with a couple other families plus Sonja. I think there were 18 of us in their single wide trailer, cozy but fun. Janet grilled trout that Johnny had just caught for our dinner, so good. And she made popcorn for all to munch on while we watched the movie. So nice. When we got there we found a hen with chicks in their front yard. Near the trailer they live in is an old trailer - Wayne said to tell you all that that was where we live! But I'm sure you wouldn't believe it. There are so many old discarded trailers, cars, and trucks around here in the otherwise beautiful countryside.

Wayne's Thursday catch

The rest of the week was visits, service at the nursing home, genealogy, meetings, etc. Usual stuff. Thursday morning Wayne went fishing with Johnny and caught a couple nice trout. They didn't stay very long though, because it started pouring down rain, and rained most of the day. I worked on genealogy at the church then we stayed in until time to help out at the nursing home.

Friday we had an interesting experience. We went to a breakfast at the Lutheran Church, followed by a meeting of the Church Women United. This is a local chapter of a national organization of Christian women of various faiths. They were honoring one our our ward members, Karnsy K. as their Young Woman of the Year, and she had asked us to come and support her. There was a nice write-up in our local newspaper, mentioning her work in the community with the Food Pantry and other projects, but also telling about her service recently as our Relief Society president - even mentioning the motto "Charity Never Faileth". It was a very positive article and lovely presentation. Upon accepting the award she basically bore her testimony about her belief in and love for Jesus Christ and her desire to be like him and serve others. We were very proud of her. She was Relief Society president when we got here, she helped us move in and get settled. We also enjoyed the event because we got to see several people that we have made friends with in the community here, through the Food Pantry, the Blood Drive, and volunteering at the nursing home. We are acquainted with the pastor of the Lutheran Church and he gave us a tour of his church, he seemed pleased that we were interested. His wife and I plan to have lunch together soon. These are good steps in building good relationships with the community and being accepted as a Christian church.

Saturday we had an activity for the senior couples in the mission (and we are the senior-ist!). We all met in Cumberland, Maryland - find that on your maps, Maryland has a jagged section between Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and the Alleghany Mountains, that's where Cumberland is, about 60 miles north of Petersburg. There were 18 of us in our group, we rode the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad up to the town of Frostburg. We looked around up there, toured a very interesting carriage museum, and rode the train back to Cumberland where we had a delicious meal at a cute restaurant called The Crabby Pig. I had delicious cream of crab soup, plus broiled shrimp and scallops. Wonderful! Fun day, beautiful scenery, good company, and perfect weather. More scenic sight-seeing tomorrow as we plan to travel the Shenandoah Skyline Drive - my choice for P-Day. We are sure in a beautiful place, having our own little adventures, meeting such good people, enjoying being together, working full-time for the Lord (except when we are playing). He is constantly blessing us and our family. How we love Him!