Dear Family and Friends,
"January starts the year out fine, February you are my Valentine." So goes the song.
I like February because it is short and sweet. Short because of the 28 days, sweet because of Valentine's Day and lots of candy and cherry pie. I already got mom a Valentines present and a hand made card (made with someone else's hands). I was so excited I made her open them yesterday.
Today was P-day. So after working at the Seniors center, we drove down to an auto dealership to see about renting a van to take all the missionaries down to Searcy on Wednesday. There are 12 missionaries in the Paragould and Jonesboro Districts. Its over 100 miles down there. Usually the missionaries find rides from about 3-4 members to drive them down to Searcy then the members have to wait all day to bring them back in the afternoon. Thought it might be easier just to rent a van that holds 12 and drive everyone down together at one time. Well, the missionaries were all willing to give it a try. But when I called our insurance back home they wouldn't cover us because it wasn't a personal passenger vehicle with just Mom and I in it. The rental place here don't provide insurance because it cost too much. They suggested I try Enterprise in Jonesboro, they could provide the insurance for 62 more dollars. So with the rental, the sales taxes, the insurance and the gas it came to about $230.00, to go to Zone Conference. I guess its best just to have everyone find a ride. It wouldn't be bad if this was just a one time thing, but these zone meetings happen two to three times a month. So we let the whole thing go.
After that I went and got my haircut at Lois', she only charges $8 but they expect a tip so I pay $10. After that we stopped by the store for some milk and groceries. While mom did that I went over to the DollarTree and got two new solar dancers. One is a little cupid angel with a bow and arrow the other is a little devil with pitchforks in his hands. I thought if I attached one to each of my shoulders, it would make a good way to start a religious discussion but Mom would probably not like that.
Mom here: Mon.is always a busy day. We still have birthday cookies to deliver and I am not done with my cleaning. The missionaries don't really clean up their apartments unless they absolutely have to. I have already
heard how it was to clean up two apartments you would think that would be a good incentive to clean their own.....
Dear Family, Feb. 2, 2015
Not sure if this will all work. Dad started a letter but it took us too long to finish so aol closed down on us. We don’t want to retype everything all over and we are not very computer smart, so some how we will try to piece to letters together. It probably won’t work but we will try anyway.
Mondays are always busy, with cleaning the apartment and typing letters but I am almost done which is good since we have birthday cookies to deliver.
It is so hard to believe that we are already in the month of Feb. But I do understand why Evan thought that the month of Jan. would never end. He had a lot of waiting and that can make anything seem extra long. It seemed like Jan just started and then it ended. We now have 8weeks left of this mission. I do have to say that that does not seem very long before we will be packing up for good. I would like to leave things here but because I really don’t want to take things home that we don’t need. I guess I will just have to see if there is some body that can use the shower stuff and kettles. I could just pack it all in the boxes that the mission will pick up and hope that it will go to a senior couple.
We had such delightful weather the last week of Jan. Feb. started out with a big wind and rain storm.Today tho’ we are having lots of warm sunshine and mostly clear skies. It was cold this morning but no frost so that wasn’t too bad. Sometimes I think that I packed clothes that are to warm and then we will have a day like yesterday where it poured down rain and I think that I didn’t pack warm enough clothes. The church building is always cold. We can only bump up the heat to 71 and that doesn’t heat things up very well. So Dad and I came home very cold and even the apartment didn’t feel very warm. While we were getting ready for church yesterday the power went off. When I was taking a shower I had a premonition that the power was going to go off and that Dad needed to hurry up and take his shower. Well he took his shower in the dark and I was trying to get enough light so I could get my makeup on right. I decided that I would have to go with wet hair but even with all the rain that we were having it would be hard to get in to the car let alone the church parking lot with out wet hair. Of course the power came back on just before we left for church. We don’t know what happened, we will probably find in tomorrows paper.
We spent last week trying to make appointments and then going to visit people mostly to deliver the cookies. I’m not sure sometimes if they want the cookies or if they really want to visit. Maybe it is both. Sat we had an 8 year old Baptism that we attended. There was a birthday party after the baptism..Bro Lamb wanted to be sure
That Sister Taylor and I could eat something there so he went out of his way to provide hotdogs that were vegetarian, they are really gross. The Chips I could eat but after trying to find someplace to get rid of the hot dog which ended up in the garbage I was done. Sister Taylor was having a kidney stone attack so the Sisters didn’t come. Dad and the Elders gave her a blessing but even last night she still wasn’t feeling well.
Sat after the baptism we had to make visits to the upper country (now this is a funny we have everyone here calling Rector, Piggett and Corning the upper country). Some that we visitied was for birthday cookies but others were because Dad and I have a lady that we home teach and visit teach. So we were trying to get her before the end of Jan. For some reason the Branch leaders think that we are staying here for a very long time. Maybe we need to drop hints that we are leaving the end of March. We also visited our non-member friend. She was having a hard time because she went to her brother-in laws funeral he had serious cancer and no chance to overcome it. But Pat is distraught so we listened and she talked. It seems like we have been doing a lot of listening lately not only for Pat but others also in the Branch also. We have to go and see Judy so we can talk to someone who is normal. Judy has health problems but her attitude is so
refreshing and actually restful. After spending time with her, life doesn’t seem so bad There are so many here that have made some very bad choices in their lives and they can’t figure out how to get out of the mess that they find themselves in. It wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t go out and make more bad choice and then the cycle goes on and on. The jails are full to overflowing and it never seems to get better. If they would just listen to the missionaries they could have a better life but they seem to be reluctant to make the change that is needed. We have some new converts that are really struggling to make those needed changes. It is easier to go back to what they were doing before and so they have. We see people join the church then when the missionary leaves the new convert leaves also but not back to church. We spend a lot of time trying to invite new converts to come back to church. It is a lot easier to not come then actually have to make the effort to get up and go. I wish the Branch members were a lot more friendlier but that is a problem that we can’t really fix. Love Mom and Dad
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