1/13/14

Dear Family and Friends,                                                                   January 13, 2014

            Woke up at 3:30 am, couldn’t fall back asleep so I got up and read in the Old Testament. Started into 2 Kings this morning, got to the part about Naaman the leper. Went back to bed still couldn’t get back to sleep. So instead of looking at the ceiling and the wall, I’ll get up and start a family letter.

            Last Saturday we had the branch manly dinner. The Elders Quorum President didn’t like the term manly dinner, so he referred to it as Game Night. Not like a night of playing games but a night were by we bring food we had shot or acquired, and fixing it to eat. None of the sister or young ladies were invited, it was just a man thing. What a wonderful evening it turned out to be. The menu went like: Fried frog legs, fried alligator tail, fried rattle snake, buffalo roast, turtle, sword fish, deviled eggs made with potted meat, corn dogs made with little smokies, macaroni and cheese,  and baked red potatoes. I brought a jello salad made with shredded beets, crushed pineapple, chopped celery, mayonnaise, sour cream and raspberry jello. I had it on my first mission and loved it, so I found some recipes on the internet for it and made up my own concoction and named it Elder Hansen’s Manly Exotic Salad.  I skipped lunch so I would be good and hungry. And I didn’t waste my time with a baked potato or the macaroni and cheese. I had some of everything and then went back and had seconds of everything. What a wonderful meal and evening, some of the brethren wouldn’t try anything new and different, some only had a baked potato, some only had macaroni and cheese. It was just a good time eating and teasing each other, we had about 20 brethren in attendance. I’ll have to admit the next day I had what Evan refers to a “runny belly”, but it was well worth it, I would certainly do it again.

            It was announced at church yesterday that they are creating another new stake in Arkansas, right now we are part of the Memphis North Stake. The new Stake will be called, I believe, the Searcy Arkansas Stake. In two weeks we are to meet at Lonoke Arkansas for a special stake conference where the new stake will be created. I have a feeling we might lose some of our branch leaders as the new stake is organized. We have some really sharp men that have served a long time in their present positions. We love the branch here in Paragould, we love the full time Elder and Sister Missionaries, we have come to love the members and investigators, and just plain friends we have got to know that are not members or investigators. We love our apartment and our little branch building. However we miss home and miss family and friends, we miss grandchildren, we miss the farm, but we still don’t miss the cold weather in the winter time at home.

We have had just enough cold weather to remind us what it is like.

            Jill sent an email of a picture of the first and second grade class at the Sunnyside School 60 years ago. I only went to one year at Sunnyside, because we rented the house on the Roehl place. Second grade we moved back into town. I think Jill posted the picture on her website thing. If you see the picture I’ll tell you who I can remember from my one year there. Front Row: left to right Unknown Spanish girl, unknown boy, Lonnie Wheeler,  Neil Zaugg, Ronald Jacobs (all 3 my LDS friends), a Caine boy lived in the Wandery house. Nancy Sue Micheals (Ricky’s older sister and a second grader), unknown girl, unknown girl. Second Row: Denny Campbell (second grader, lived the other side of Stodards house  right where the runway is now), unknown girl, unknown boy, Brad Roberts, another Caine boy, Dee Peterson, Glenna Macomb (Both second graders) Yours Truly, Mike Carpenter, Steve Eisenbarth, unknown boy.  Third Row: Lynn Stone (Alan Stones oldest brother) , unknown girl, George Kyle (Jack Kyles little brother), Roger Anderson (second grader, LDS, lived on the Marc Anderson place, his father built the yellow house that was finally burnt down),  unknown girl, unknown boy, Karen Pennington (Darci Thompson mom & second grader), unknown girl, Arden Dunker (Diane Jurries’ high school lover), Raleen Jordon, Dale Irons. Our Teacher was Mrs. Cook I believe. I’m sure Brad knows every person in the picture, he has always been a people person, I was like Grant Eggli, just tooling around in my own little world. (I am the youngest one in the picture.)

Thanks for the picture Jill I never remember having that photo. I went and got some full page Photo Paper and with the help of Dan, printed up a nice sharp copy. Jill the second picture is Brad pulling the wagon and Sid is in the back of the wagon, but the other boy is not Spencer, it must be a friend or neighbor of Brad’s. The building behind the boys to the right which doesn’t exist any more, I still have dreams about that building even though I don’t ever remember that building being there. The picture lets me know the building in my dreams really did exist at one time.

Mom here  The jello salad that Dad (made) was really put together by me.  I don’t like every bowl and spoon is be used and then I have a lot of dirty dishes, so with one bowl and measuring cup and a spoon I made the salad.  I stayed home last Sat.night and worked on the lesson for Sunday School.  But I only had Lissette and Dad had Floyd and Tyrza so we combined the class.  It made Lissette a happy camper.  I don’t know what she will do if the General Authorities send them back to Jonesboro ward.

We are having a warming trend but that always means that we will have cold weather next.  The rain is something that I am used to but freezing rain not so much.

Tomorrow we go to Searcy for Specialized Training.  We take the Sisters to the meetings so they can save on miles except this week they are without a car so we will be going where they go as they will go with us.

We have a birthday visit to make today.  A Sister in the Branch offered to help me make the birthday cards but they are all sick today and I’m not keen on getting sick so we will wait until they are well.  Last night we had a dinner appointment that was next to impossible to find in the dark.  None of us had been to Sister Weston’s home so we finally had to text her to get better instructions on how to find her.  I think that we should some time try to find where we are suppose to go in the daylight so by the time it is dark we know where to go.

We visited with a Sister on Sat. that is a less active.  She has been in the temple and has her temple clothes hanging in her closet.  But now she is smoking and drinking coffee.  What a disappointment, she knows that she needs to come back to church.  The thought that popped into my head was that Christ didn’t necessarily  come to bless those  that were already righteous, but to help those who were the back sliders, and sinners.  So that is what I told her.  I know that her heart is being pricked if we can now take advantage of that and invite her to come back.

Well my dears I need to close.  Know that we love you and pray for you.

                          Love

                        Dad and Mom, Grammy and Papa and Elder and Sister Hansen

A Special Treat

You are going to thank me for this.  It will make you smile all day long from cuteness overload.  It's like walking into a room full of cute (and totally housebroken) baby animals.  The best part?  I'm pretty sure that some of those boys of yesterday are sporting haircuts that the men they are today still cling to.  (ahem, Dad) 

1/6/14

Dear Family and Friends                                                                    January 6, 2014

 

            Since Dad did not sleep well last night he has made a date with the pillow on the bed, just now.  I usually sleep through all of his wanderings in the night.  I irritated my scatia (don’t know how to spell it) nerve by sitting on the heels of my shoe while cutting out wrapping paper for my SS class visual aid.  I should have done the cutting on the table instead of thinking that I could cut the paper on the floor.  So now I don’t sleep well if in my sleep I try to turn I wake up to a very painful bottom and leg.   I know that it will go away but for right now it is very painful.

     We helped with the wedding of Lloyd and Judy Dunn.  We tried not to get so involved that we excluded their family.  So our job was to get the church cleaned up and get the Relief Society room cleaned and to rearrange the chairs.  I was putting things in closets I hope that when they want something that they can find it.  The Sisters helped with cleanup and putting things back but they didn’t know where things went either.  Dad wrenched his back because we were stacking chairs in the back hallway and we were also stacking tables that were not needed for the reception.  It was a nice reception even Pres La Vetter was duly impressed.  Judy’s sisters really came through with flowers, wedding bouquet, table clothes, and refreshments.  Then of course we had to put all the chairs back into the cultural hall.  The Elders were really good about helping with the clean up.   So all the missionaries, did the set up, the clean up, and giving support.  Since Judy has already committed to being baptized we now can set up a date to do that relatively soon I hope.  The Branch Mission Pres. is now asking people in the Branch to aid and support everyone that we have activated and now baptized.  All this will not work unless the members of the Branch extend a welcoming hand.  They have been so far really good about making Cowboy and others welcomed.  Because as the Mission President has just reminded us our time here is short. 

    We are over the hump for our mission.  We have met all but about 10 of the less actives.  Some of these are the hard cases as is the birthday visit today.  I’m pretty sure that she will take the cookies but won’t invite us in but at least she will know that we do care about her.  Anymore we have been increasing in attendance which is good.  There are so many youth that with the permission of the Branch President we split  the youths into an older class which I still teach and the younger class which Dad teaches.  I should have at least six that would be in my class but three come occasionally and that leaves me always teaching two.  I could go into Dad’s class but his lesson is for twelve and thirteen year olds and not for fifteen or sixteen year olds so they would be bored if we tried that.  I already know how that goes.

     Arkansas is having the coldest January since 20 years ago.  They are afraid that Feb. will be the same and that is the month that they plant potatoes.  Branch members tease that we missed the cold temperatures so much that we brought the frigid air with us.  We are glad for our coats, gloves and warm clothes.  The sun is warm but the air outside is freezey cold and it isn’t warm enough to melt anything.  We were suppose to have snow yesterday, everyone at church were in a dither about snow.  When we went to church it was 49 a little warm for snow but three hours later the cold wind dropped the temps to 32.  It was still raining but is was also quickly turning to ice.  The rain stopped so no snow or freezing rain just plain cold.  We were on the far east of that storm so we didn’t get the full brunt of the storm.  I was just getting ready to start dumping  the water I have been saving  in case that we have a power outage I think that I will save it a little longer.

          Dad here, Just finished a few minutes ago the Book of Judges in the Old Testament. Started reading the Old Testament 2 weeks ago, hopefully I can finish it by the end of the month. Last Friday the sisters missionaries received a revelation, while out visiting branch members, of how we can better do missionary work in the branch. The sisters called the Elders and us and we all met at the branch mission leader’s home for a late meeting. They explained their revelation, which is what has already been outlined by the brethren, but to them it was a new revelation. So we dutifully got excited with them and we now have a new impetus to drive the missionary work forward in this branch. We really have a fun branch here in Paragould the branch leaders really back the missionaries and often express their gratitude. The Sisters are so darn cute about the way they go about their work. We just got a brand new Elder from Amalga, Utah this past week, which brings new excitement to the work. We have the Elders Quorum Game Meat Night this Saturday, which hopefully brings out the men in the branch.

            Sunday, we had six new kids coming out of primary into Sunday School. So far in the Sunday School there has only been one class for all the youth. But because of the new influx, the youth SS now has two classes. Some young people have resisted the change, because it has never been done that way. I think in the long run it will be for the best. Our lessons for January are on the Godhead, and since there is going to be a youth temple trip on the 25^th of January, we are slanting our lessons to help prepare them for the temple and know the Godhead better through temple worship.

            So very, very sad to hear about Clayton Beesley. He has been a faithful Home Teacher for many years. We got a Christmas letter from him two weeks ago. He said it was the first letter he had written in 30 years. When mom and I moved back to Weiser from college, mom’s first calling was to teach the 12 years old in Sunday School. Clayton was one of the kids in her class, he has been dear to us ever since.

            Tomorrow is a zone meeting in Searcy, Arkansas. I really dislike those 2 hour drives to Searcy, 2hrs down, 2hrs of meeting, 2hrs back. Shoots the whole day. And there is really nothing for the senior missionaries, except furnish missionaries with a ride down. It is nice to visit with the missionaries, which makes it kind of redemptive. 

            Got down to 10 degrees this morning, kind of chilly, our car seemed to say: “What are you trying to do to me? What did I do to deserve this? Where’s my nice warm garage?”

            Well bye for now. Love you all. Elder and Sister Hansen.

12/29/13

Dear Family and Friends

            We just got back to our apartment after having Sun dinner with one of the families in the Branch.  Actually they probably have us for dinner more then anyone else.  We had make your own pizza.  I think that we go there so often is that we have a lot in common with them and they seem to enjoy having us come for dinner.

            We have three more chapters to read to Judy and we will complete 2^nd Nephi.  I really wish that we could find a large print Book Of Mormon for her but since the church is not printing any more for a while I guess we will continue to read until we have to leave to go home.  She and Lloyd will be getting married next Sat. afternoon.  Bro. Dunn wanted her in a wedding dress, but Judy was resisting and wanted to wear a pants suit so I’m hoping that her sisters found either a dress or a skirt and blouse for her to wear and everyone is happy.  They were starting to depend on us to take care of things so we went to the family and asked for help.  We are trying to take a step back and be supportive but not the ones in charge.  We still need to give her the rest of the lessons and then she can be baptized.

            We have had really warm days that always takes me by surprise that it can be almost 70 and it is Dec. and then dip down to 38 for a daytime high.  But since the last rainfall it has been clear most of the time and no rain even in the forecast.  I noticed that there is rain off the coast of Florida so I’m sure that it will eventually make it’s way up here.

            We are still helping at the Senior center most days excepting for holidays.  That get us up and moving relatively early in the morning.   We can then start going to visit our less actives that are now active.  We also visit people who are not members but we are giving our friendship.  We have visited almost all of the less actives on our list.  We have only a few that we need to visit then we will have everyone at least visited once.  We continue to invite, invite and invite to come to back to church.  Each month we have an activity to reactivate people.  So for January we will have a manly man banquet of exotic meat like Alligator, Rattlesnake Crawdad’s and venison and etc.  The ladies are not invited and that is alright with me.  Elder Hansen would probably like to bow out but can not because we are here to be supportive.

            I reminded Pres LaVetter that he really needed to find some one else to teach the youth class.  Especially since I will have about six twelve year olds in the class and that is on top of six that I already have.  The classroom is not big enough and that is way more then I feel that I can teach at one time.  That means that I would be teaching twelve young adults from the ages of twelve through seventeen.  I am having a hard enough time as it is trying to teach 13 through 17 and make it interesting and a learning experience for all.  He promised to find another teacher to relieve the load but since he doesn’t have a huge pool of people to choose from and he just plains forgets or thinks that all is well I’m not sure which but it never gets done.   I’m not sure what his older daughter tells him and since she texts on her cell phone during class time I wonder if she is ever actually

listening to anything that I do say.  So I have been doing lessons that requires looking up scriptures and writing answers down on paper then telling why that scripture is either important or why they liked that particular scripture.

            It is hard to believe that we have been here for three months and only have three months more.  Already we have people telling us that we can’t go home we have to stay longer.  They already know that Elders and Sisters come and go but we are always here.  The Elders are not nearly as fun as the Sisters have been.  Now there seems to be a bug around that is making the Elders and Sisters very sick.  It is almost like food poisoning except there are a lot others that have it also.  Sister Cooke spoke today in Sacrament meeting, she has been so sick and so weak that she was holding on to the pulpit for dear life.  We do not want to get sick, we have been enjoying good health.

            We had a good Christmas and thanks to Sara with her box full of a bunch of wrapped presents it felt like Christmas at home.  We were invited to a members home for Christmas Eve and then Christmas night to another members home.  We got to talk to everyone or Skype it was great to see familiar faces.  It was great to talk with our loved ones.  I took all the Christmas decorations down and  packed them away and gave back the tree today.  I have two boxes that are full of letters, cards and clippings from the news paper that I will be sending home soon.    Just put them in our bedroom.

            Dad here, Last week when we went to Blytheville the other senior missionary couple took us out to eat at a nice steakhouse. On that days special they had listed alligator (something they fix when it is in season.) Anyway, I thought: “It’s now or never” and I ordered the alligator. Mom ordered chicken, Elder Locket ordered steak, and Sister Locket ordered Alfredo. Everyone enjoyed their meals, even me. However about 3:00 in the morning my stomach was really churning. I guess the alligator “was not loving me back”.

            A few weeks ago in our gospel principles class one of the full time elders started out the class by saying “Hello my name is Elder Duron, I am from Tucson, Arizona, and my favorite color is red”. It then went to his companion and all around the room, each on stating their name where they are from and what their favorite color is. Last week it was “Hello my name is Elder Duron, I am from Tucson Arizona and my favorite thing about Christmas is ……” This week it was “Hello my name is Elder Duron I am from Tucson Arizona and my new years resolutions is ……” It is so amazing how this activity sets such a good tone for the class. Our gospel principles class has a lot of new and different people each week and this activity just brings us together and makes everyone feel a part of what’s going on.

 It was wonderful to hear from all of you last week. Christmas is such a great time to have family around.

Love Mom and Dad,  Grammy and Papa, Elder and Sister Hansen

 

12/23/2013

Dear Family and Friends                                                                    December 23, 2013

            This last week was very warm, by Thursday it was up in the high sixties. That night it started to rain. The weathermen predicted a soaking rain. It was a soaking rain. It poured down buckets. Roads were flooded, water was everywhere. The car got really washed. It had been getting quite dirty from all the sand that they had spread on the ice the week before.

            We had an half mission Christmas Conference this past week over beyond Memphis, Tennessee. We had training, which was pretty good. Then the Relief Society there fed us a good lunch (the only thing Mom could eat was the white rice.) then they had a missionary talent show. It was an all round good day. All missionaries got a mission tee-shirt, and some small gifts. We were told that during the next six months all the missionaries will be given an electronic device, to use in our missionary work. The gap between us and the new generation widens.

            The sister missionaries rode down with us. Now instead of having just mom screaming in my ear when I make a bad driving error, I have three ladies screaming. Actually it is more like three guardian angels, helping me get to where I need to go, safely. We told the sisters about little Douggie playing with miniature car and going “EEERCH   D-A-V-I-D,  EEERCH D-A-V-I-D” so now when I miss a turn or turn the wrong way the sisters say: “EEERCH D-A-V-I-D” When we got back from Memphis, the sisters which live next door moved out to the branch mission leaders home and the next day the elders from Piggott moved in. So now we have elders next door. On January 1^st the sister will move into another apartment complex.

            Yesterday we had wonderful branch meetings. We had over 85 people in attendance, and considering some families were gone for Christmas that was pretty good. We had members talk about Christmas in their families and that carried over into gospel principles class and we went around with each person telling something about what mean a lot to them about Christmas. After Church a girl that had been a foster child in a family had her adoption finalized last week so she was baptized and confirmed. Baptisms are usually a very spiritual meeting, and this one certainly was.

            We had the elders over for supper last night along with a single member, mom made turkey enchilada’s they were good like always. Then with the missionaries we delivered Christmas present to needy families in the branch, that the members had purchased.

            This afternoon we plan on driving over to Blytheville, AR to see the “Lights of the  Delta” display. It is suppose to be the biggest Christmas Light Show in the South, I guess it covers 40 acres of lights display. It cost $10 a car to drive through it. We invited another senior missionary couple to go through with us. They are new to the mission field and could use a little companionship I think.

            This is now Mom.  Dad needed his morning nap.  He hasn’t been feeling very well but could be that we are in several peoples homes and children going to school always bring home everything that is going around.  We have already been in a home where the youngest daughter was running a temp and then at the dinner table started to upchuck not a pretty sight.  I thought that the Sisters were going to join her at first but we decided that we did not want that so we left relatively soon after the dinner.

     This week the Sisters are without a car so we are their transportation.  Next week it will be the Elders.  Because Elder and Sister Hansen have a car that no one gets to use we become the taxi service.  I usually don’t mind when they have a set appointment but when they don’t we are driving around so they can try to think of someone to visit and it is after dark it is a little irritating.  It gets dark very early and then it is almost impossible to find addresses.

     We are teaching and reading the Book of Mormon to a lady who is a live in companion to an older less active man.  Bro. Dunn wants to marry Judy legally and they have plans to do so on Jan. 4^th.  If she doesn’t chicken out, when we were there Sat. she said that she was getting cold feet and wasn’t sure that this was really something that she wants to do.  Right now she is his common law wife but she cannot be baptized until they are married.  She has been taught by the missionaries but when she wouldn’t commit to be baptized they left.  So we arrived at the right time because now she is getting ready to be married and then a little later she will be baptized.  She told us that she now wants to be baptized.  She has a hard time reading the small print of the Book of Mormon so we read it to her about 6 chapters at a time.

     With Elders in Paragould it is getting a little harder to separate out the area that each of us work in.  Because we go all over the city and surrounding towns we cross over even the Sisters at times.  The Sisters want separate areas that we work in but that is not our calling so right now it is more difficult but I’m sure when we leave in three months that will all smooth out.

     We sleep missionary, we eat missionary, we think missionary, we work missionary so at times thinking anything else is hard to do.  I’m thinking that when we come home we will still be in the missionary thought pattern for awhile.

     Well we need to close and I need to do more house cleaning before we leave for Blytheville. So my dears have a wonderful Christmas and remember that Christ is the reason.  Enjoy your New Year as you think of changes or anything else because you can now have a new beginning.

                                                         LOVE

                                                Mom and Dad

                                               Grammy and Papa

                                               Elder and Sister Hansen   

12/16/13

Dear Family and friends,                                                                    December 16, 2013

 

            Time just keeps moving on rather I am ready or not. Wendell Walker thinks time is speeding up, I really think it has more to do with myself getting a lot slower. Mom and I celebrated our 45^th wedding anniversary by driving to Searcy, Arkansas, over two hours away for a zone conference, with the sister missionaries. The roads were still very icy and we had to drive with much care. Sometimes I’m glad we don’t have a big van or we would have to drive the whole district places. Scot knows how much I hate driving and it is about all I do. Mom hasn’t drove since we left home. We have to fill up the car every week with gas, but I haven’t had to spend over $3.00 a gallon in the last two months, which is a good thing. On our way home from zone conference we stopped at IHOP and had an anniversary dinner with the sisters. They might be small but they still can eat like missionaries, they ate more than Dad and I. We had a birthday card and cookies we had to drop off on the way home. He lives about 15 miles south of Paragould, so we plugged his address into our GPS and let her guide us on the way back. The sisters are determined that Gina is trying to kill us. We did arrive at the member’s home alright. I think we were the only ones that remembered him on his birthday and stopped by for a visit. He and his wife are divorced and he lives alone. He has a beautiful home he built himself. He likes to hunt and he has four stuffed deer heads on his walls. The week before he had killed a large bobcat, that he put in the freezer and plans on having it mounted sometime in the future. Nice guy used to be in the branch presidency.

            We did take time to go to the Greene County  Technical High Schools play production of “Catch Me if You Can”. For a week without practice because of the ice storm the kid’s did a real good job. The ending turned out different than we had expected. That was on Thursday night. On Friday night we went to a Christmas Musical called “Santa Conquers the Martians” that the community put on. It was a bit cheesy, but considering that a local person wrote all the music for it, and played the piano for all of it, it was okay and a lot of fun.

Yesterday at church the branch had the Christmas Program. A sister in the branch planned it all out and it turned out to be a very good Sacrament Meeting. We didn’t have church last week due to the storm. This week we had almost 100 people in attendance. A branch record I am sure. After the meetings they had a branch potluck meal. I was sure that there wasn’t going to be enough food for everyone, so we held back, but there was enough food to go around with plenty leftovers.   We went to a cookie exchange Sat afternoon.  There were trays and trays of cookies.  I was only going to take 12 in exchange for what I brought but she started loading me up.  So we had two persons in the Branch that had birthdays yesterday and I already had plenty of cookies to share around.  We do have to travel sometimes several miles to take the cookies but not one has turned down the treats and I know that that might be the only celebration that they will have.  For the birthday today he will get muffins that are low in sugar.

    We went to Mid South West Farm Credit to pick up the year calendar, I stayed in the car.  Dad came out and told me that the manager really wanted to meet us, his secretary had told him about us so he was so excited when we came in.  He had had a LDS secretary who had just retired so he knew about the church and the whole office was okay with it.  He was primed with magazines, maps, and articles about Idaho and Utah.  He wanted to know about all kinds of things.  He was interested that we were missionaries for the church and wanted to know what we did. Then as we were leaving he made us promise that we would be back to visit more.   Then today at the Senior center that we do service at a elderly gentleman came over and asked Dad if he liked ties.  He has about 50 ties that he used when he worked at a Funeral home, so we will go and visit and look at ties.  There is also a lady that has asked us to come and visit her several times so we really need to do that.   This is all friendshiping, I don’t  know if the gospel will even be mentioned but at least they know who we are and what we represent.

     Yes we got through the storm and most of the snow around here has melted as has the ice.  I am very glad that there is no ice to speak of.  The temperatures have really started back up this morning at 9:30 it was 42 and now it feels like it is in the high 50’s.  That sun can be hot even when it is suppose to be winter.

        Need to close Have a merry Christmas remember that Christ is the reason and don’t forget your birthday gift to Christ.

                                           Love you all

                                         Mom, Dad, Sister and Elder Hansen, Grammy and Papa

12/1/13

Dear Family and Friends,                                                                   November 30, 2013

            Sometimes things happen in our lives that are unplanned and we are really unprepared for. Yesterday was such a day. Yesterday we had the birthday of a forty six year old inactive male on our list that lives in Piggott, Arkansas. Problem #1 Piggott is 34 miles to the north. The Elders live in Piggott, that’s their jurisdiction. Problem #2 the Sister Missionaries are without a car this week and we have to take them with us where ever we go. Problem #3 this guy might not even live there and there will be a slim chance of catching him home, during the day. Never the less we piled into the car and headed for the Elders in Piggott. We had called them earlier to see if it was okay to take this birthday guy some cookies. They had never met him and said that it would be fine, in fact they had met an older gentleman up there that had joined the church years ago, that they wanted us to meet. We arrived at the Elders apartment, they had an appointment they needed to go to. We plugged in the address of the birthday guy into the GPS. No results. Oh. Boy. The Elders plugged it into their GPS and got a hit. They lent us their GPS and we took the Sisters and headed up the highway. We drove over 5 miles to the north and came to a small town called St Francis, didn’t even know it existed. The man actually lives in St Francis and not Piggott, that’s why our GPS couldn’t find him. He was at home, but very busy and couldn’t take time to talk, so we gave him the card and cookies and wished him Happy Birthday. We headed back to Piggott, just as we were leaving St Francis we saw a Marker Sign that read “Chalk Bluff Battle Park.” We asked the sisters if they wanted to go, they said yes so I turned off the road, we read another sign that read 5 miles. We turn back onto the highway, not wanting to drive that far. Then something seemed to say: “you really need to go”. So we turned back around and followed small country roads until we got to the park. The State has built a nice park with picnic tables, cook sites and a small covered area and restrooms. There is a trail that leads out through this wooded area. Along the trail were markers that tell the story of what happened there during the Civil War. As we walked and read we became aware that this really was a special place. Many men both on the South and the North had fought and died in this area, many more were severely wounded. We walked until we got to the St Francis River. Across the River was Missouri. Before the Civil War this was the place where most people going from Missouri to Arkansas crossed the River. A ferry boat had been built to take the people across. The major road from the north came here and the road going south into Arkansas started here. The town of Chalk Bluff was built on this spot, with stores, supplies buildings, and homes. It was here that the Confederate Army crossed and fought the Union Army in Missouri, beating them. It was here that later the Union Army crossed and fought the Confederate Army beating them and burning the ferry and Chalk Bluff to the ground.  Nothing remains, except this park to tell the story. And an old yellow dog that must live in the area, he comes down to the park each day and escorts people through the park. He didn’t take us because there was another couple that got there before us and he showed them all around. When they left, he talked to us for a while, as we left he went over and sat on the grass waiting for the next people to come so he could show them around.

(These are pictures that Dad just sent.  They are of their trip to Chalk Bluff Battle Park.  The top picture is the Sisters, of course.  The bottom picture is Dad trying to get to a good place to take the top picture.  Mom said it was a very precarious perch and they were all afraid he would fall into the river.)

            We then drove to Greenway , a town about 4 miles south of Piggott and met the Elders at the Lemmond home. Brother Lemmond joined the church years ago along with his children. He is now 82 and he and his wife live alone, but he still has a testimony and remembers the Elders that brought him into the church. They fed us all an after Thanksgiving Dinner, and we had an enjoyable visit.

            Today was a typical missionary day. Drove lots of miles finding people either not home, or not interested, or not living at that address anymore. I find days like today a lot more tiring than days like yesterday, where we were busy all day long, going and doing and seeing wonderful places and people. Tonight we taught Judy Chesterfield a 2^nd discussion with the sister missionaries. Seemed to go well. Went to visit the Layton Family. They are less active but invited Sister Hansen and the Sisters back on Dec. 14^th to make Christmas cookies.

            Today is Fast Sunday. Good meetings. Love the branch here and the way they take care of us.  We ate at the Edler’s today since Bro. Edler will be out of town this week and Sister Edler doesn’t want to feed us on Tues., which is the day we usually eat there.  My Sunday School class went pretty well considering that I usually have only about three, today was different we had a young man who really didn’t want to be there and although he somewhat participated , he is a very poor reader so I won’t ask him to read again.   We had a birthday for someone again that I have never seen or knew and the Sisters didn’t know who she was either.  I called the visiting teacher and had her introduce us all.  Of course we don’t usually know who we are going to see when we take the birthday cookies.  Dec. is a full month of birthdays.

     The back end of the car is making a terrible noise, bad enough that even Dad is bothered.  There is man in the Branch that has a car lift and he has agreed to look and try to figure out what the terrible noise is.  We also have a slow leak in one of the tires and that will have to be fixed.  It is the bad news gravel roads that we sometimes have to travel on that probably caused the problem with the tire.  The Sisters are afraid that the whole back end is going to fall off so they are uncomfortable going any place with us .  Their problem is that they don’t have a choice since this week is their week without a car.  They only have three cars that has to be shared with other missionaries in the District so that usually means three weeks with a car and one week without a car.  Since there are no shoulders along the roads and no bike paths, it is dangerous to have the Sisters on bikes going to appointments all over this spread out city.

            As you may have noticed, sometimes dad is writing sometimes mom is writing, I guess it is up to you to figure out who, and if you can’t figure out I guess it really doesn’t matter. After all just like Jesus said: “and they twain shall be one flesh, wherefore they are no more twain, but one.”