Dear Family and Friends,
The week started out on a high note with a special trip to the Birmingham Temple just for the Alabama missionaries. The temple was closed, but they opened for two sessions on Tuesday and two sessions on Wednesday and the workers all volunteered to come in to run the temple just for us. We got to go to the two sessions on Tuesday. A couple is going home in about a week and they were the witness couple for the first session and President Sainsbury asked us if we would be the witnesses for the second session. The young missionaries only got to attend one session but they needed four couples to attend both sessions so we could provide participants for the prayer circle. They don’t have the elders and sisters stand in the prayer circle. The temple is beautiful and it was a really special experience. That was the Celestial (attachment #1). The Telestial part (attachment #3 President James in the red ball cap and Brother Smith, the branch mission leader, in the green and blue T-shirt) (Attachment #4, Sister James in straw hat) came on Saturday when we had a branch service project out in the remote forest (we drove for 40 minutes to get to the members home right down on the river). We spent the morning clearing the forest away around their house with weed whackers, lawn mowers, pruners, etc. They put 3 rounds from a .22 pistol into a four foot long cottonmouth before it finally died. Sorry, no pictures. It got back into the water after the first two shots before I got there. The kill shot was to the head when it raised up out of the water. I was just a little undone when I realized they killed it right where I was whacking weeds by the river about 30 minutes earlier. The sisters from the branch brought a cooler full of warm hot dogs and hamburgers for everybody for lunch when we finished.
On Wednesday we spent several hours alone at the Family History Library again, but we’re working on it. Thursday we had a great study class in Greensboro (Attachment #2). The gentleman in the foreground on the right in the picture is Brother White (the clean up man). Brother Borden (the one sitting next to Brother White) brought BBQ chicken for everybody and we didn’t bring dessert. We did last week but they didn’t have anything else to eat that week, and we didn’t know they were going to have chicken this week. Brother Borden said, “Dats OK, dats OK.”
We are getting accustomed to being disappointed on Sunday when people don’t show up at church that told is they were coming. It has been a month since we saw the golden family the sisters are teaching, and the return missionary sister and her mom that we visited again this week promised they were coming today and sent a text this morning telling us she was sorry but she slept in. At least we didn’t have to worry about overwhelming investigators in church when we spoke today about family history and the importance of saving ordinances.
Sister Owens was sustained today in her calling as Branch Relief Society President. She kept the same first councilor and the previous president is going to be her secretary, and lead the music in Sacrament meeting, and teach the gospel doctrine class in Sunday School. Brother Smith was released today as the Branch Mission Leader. Now he is just the Elders Quorum President and my assistant Clerk. We just love small branches.
After the service project yesterday we drove 2 hours to attend a BBQ with the senior couples in the mission. They toured a monastery in the morning but we had to skip that for the service project. While we were there we received orientation from the mission housing coordinator for our new temporary (maybe) assignment. We are going to be inspecting 12 of the missionary apartments between here and Tuscaloosa once every six weeks.
We went with the Sisters tonight to visit with a sister in the ward. She married a Methodist minister several years ago and was baptized into the Methodist church. Her husband died three years ago and now she has come back to the church. She says it has always been her church. Her name is no longer on the church records because she joined another church and she is having kind of a hard time dealing with that. She comes from a family with eighteen children, all from the same parents. Her mother died from breast cancer at age 56 when she was 12 years old.
We are so excited that McKay is being baptized this next Saturday. We are very proud of him.
Keep the commandments and read your Book of Mormon.
We love y’all!
Elder and Sister Owens
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