Dear Family and friends,
This week on our third try to locate a family in the branch we thought we lucked out since the mail delivery person was delivering mail in the trailer park so we asked her if she could tell us the address of the trailer park (she was putting mail in the rack of mail boxes). She said, “I don’t know, I’m just filling in today.” Humm???....Okay:\ So Sister Owens went to two people that were standing on their porch watching us to ask them. It turned out to be a member and her Mom (a non-member). She noticed our license plate and said she knows Idaho because her dad lives in Rexburg. She just came back here from South Carolina and nobody in the branch knew about her yet. Mom had a nice visit with her and she was able to give us the mailing address of the trailer park. The family we were looking for still wasn’t home and we still can’t decide what the space number is, but we will keep trying.
We went to District meeting in Tuscaloosa and arrived early. Since the door was locked we walked up the street to a mansion that was donated to the U of A. It used to be the governor’s mansion. We took a picture of the sisters standing in front of it. They serve in Demopolis with us. Sister Bond is the tall brunette from California and Sister Humphreys is the 98 pounder in the right corner from the Cache Valley area of Utah.
That is the home we wish we were living in instead of our garage.
We tried to visit the Merrills this week in Greensboro. They have an antebellum (built prior to the Civil War) home that they have restored. We missed them and they have moved back to Paris now for the summer (Paris, Idaho that is). This is Sister Owens in front of their home. She feels just like Scarlett O’Hara
We were invited with the sisters to have lunch with Miss Ollie Wilson on Thursday. We were going to have Chef Salad. A young black man that works for her was going to get everything ready while we visited a while out on the porch. We were going to help move a couple women in the afternoon and our branch mission leader’s wife was handling some emergency things for them when she got a call from the high school and had to turn around and go to the school to tend to a matter with one of her children. She called and asked if we could go and take care of the emergency for her. It was ten to one and Ross never came and told us that lunch was ready and we noticed that he was gone. We looked in the kitchen and noticed the salad on the table ready to eat (we don’t know how long it had been ready). We had to eat as quickly as we could and excuse ourselves. We had to miss our Book of Mormon study class in Greensboro because we spent the rest of that day moving the girl and her Mom that we had moved out of her Grandmother’s house the week before. They had to be out of the one bedroom apartment that they moved into with a friend by that night. We spent the next day with the sisters helping to clean the apartment that we moved them out of the day before (a little more of the local culture, I’m afraid).
Saturday was rooster day here in Demopolis. A celebration they have every year to commemorate the day the whole county came together and had a rooster auction to raise money for a bridge they needed to build in 1919. Woodrow Wilson donated a rooster for the auction and everybody wanted to bid on it. Helen Keller and Fatty Arbuckle also donated roosters. We went to the civic center and mingled with citizens and vendors of all sorts and passed out a few cards encouraging family history work. The county is publishing a book this summer on the history of Marengo county and they want submissions from all the locals regarding their history. We thought it would be a good opportunity but we actually stuck out like a sore thumb and felt extremely out of place. No one was really interested in talking to us and when they saw our badges they looked away and hurried by. Sister Owens did spend $25 on a basket that was hand made by a nice old black lady who learned the craft from her father. When Mom commented on how hard the work seemed to be she said, “The work is hard but it’s better than beggin or stealin.”
Here’s Sister Owens feeding the Rooster.
The celebration is held at the civic center which is located on White Bluff.
Demopolis was founded by the Bonapartist exiles. It means “City of the People.” It was originally established as a vine and olive colony, but the olives didn’t grow so well. The main industry here now is a huge paper mill outside of town. The counselor in the branch presidency is the middle of three generations in his family that have worked there.
The highlight of our week was meeting Sister Sherry Paterson this evening. We drove to Livingston (About 30 minutes) earlier this week and she wasn’t home. She is a returned missionary and hasn’t been active for several years. Her husband (second marriage) was a convert. His parents and children are not members. They have been attending the Methodist church for years because that was the only way they were allowed to see their grandchildren. Her husband died about eight months ago. She and Sister Owens felt an immediate bond and during our visit she promised us that she is going to be to church next week, and will probably bring her mother who is also less active. She is a very sweet lady and has a lot to offer this struggling branch. We don’t really mind going to Livingston twice. It is as pretty a drive and we have been on since we have been here.
We love y’all. Keep the commandments and read your Book of Mormon.
Elder and Sister Owens
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