Nov 10, 2013

 

Dear Family,                                                                                       Nov 10, 2013

            Here we are again, your weekly letter.  We have enjoyed all the pictures and letters from the grandchildren and especially the school pictures.  We have a wall dedicated to only drawn pictures and then another wall dedicated to photo’s.

     We have met more less actives and have gone all over so much that we are getting to be free of Gina.  I really don’t like trying to find an address in the dark especially if we have no real idea of where the people live and most addresses are not marked real well.  Going over a railroad track is a bone jarring experience, I don’t know why it can’t be smoother.

     Yesterday we went to Mr. John Miles cotton farm.  He had us go to a field and watch the picker up close, we watch them pour cotton into a machine that packed the cotton into huge bales.  He picked some cotton to show us the bolls and how it is formed.  He had a captive audience since we were in his pickup.  He even took us down to a soybean field to see if it was dry enough to combine.  He is the same age as Dad and I so it was very easy to talk and he and Dad really connected.  He wants to go out and eat as soon as his farm work is done.  We will be here long enough for that.

     We car pooled into North Little Rock to the Mission Presidents home.  There are two other couples that are serving in this area so there is no sense in taking all of our cars.  We met the Musick’s in Walnut Ridge and went down with them.  We had a great visit and best of all Dad could take a nap so he wasn’t so tired for the dinner, speakers, and interview.  There are a lot of Senior missionaries, we were surprised.  We have CES, Military relations, Service, Family history, and the Member, leadership strength which is most of us.  It was great to get together and visit and exchange ideas.  The Musick’s are leaving next week and the Browns will be headed home in Dec.

Dad here, When our mission President came out he had he had 97 missionaries, 8 of them were sisters. By next month there will be 92 Sister Missionaries, over 110 Elders and 14 Senior couples. I think “the Lord is hastening his work in its time”. We had Stake Conference today, We are part of the Memphis Tennessee Stake, which is over two hours away. Luckily they broadcast conference to 3 outlying areas. One of which was the Jonesboro AR., which is only 25 miles away. So today Grammy and I drove to Jonesboro and went to Stake Conference. The chapel was pretty full. Great meeting. Sitting behind us was a dad with two little girls and a little boy. As the meeting started the kids broke out the coloring books and crayons, they were busy all during conference, at the end of conference the dad told them to put up there books and crayons. The little boy said real load: “Yeah! we get to go home.”

            Our Branch President has 5 kids, the first three are girls, then he has two little boys. Last Sunday, their 3 year old boy was eating candy his teacher had given him. I commented, “You have some candy.” (he uses big words) He replied, “Yes. (then he paused and said) Well, ACTUALLY they are M&M’s. His dad said a while back the family was sitting around the dinner table and someone passed gas, and it got real quiet. The little boy blurted out “AWK-WARD”.

            Just so you know, We are busy. We are happy. We are healthy. We love the weather. We love the Branch. We love the members. We love the less active. We love non-members we have met. We love having our own car. We love our GPS. We love our nice apartment. We love having Walmart only a half mile down the road. We love having a nice chapel to meet in. We love having the sister missionaries next door.

Love Grammy and Papa.