Week 26: Our first Antebellum Mansion Tour and my second professional haircut

Dear Family and Friends,

We took the sacrament out to Brother White last Sunday after church because out of all the people that he has brought to church for so many weeks, none of them would help him load his wheelchair into his own car so he could come to church.  His doctors told him he should stay in the wheelchair for a while until he builds up his strength.  He decided he was coming to church and asked two or three men in the apartment complex, in advance, if they would help him Sunday morning with the chair so he could go to church.  After saying they would help, Sunday morning none of then answered their door when he knocked.  This week he got commitments again for help and again no one was around to help him.  So he loaded the chair in his car by himself and drove 30 minutes to church by himself.  He was late and everyone was in the meeting when he arrived so he got the chair out of the car by himself and sat in it and came into the meeting.  Everyone was really excited to see him come in the door of the chapel.  He has missed six weeks of church since his surgery and was so happy to be there again.  Since he was late we took him into the Branch President's office after Sacrament meeting and administered the sacrament to him.  It was a special day today, having Brother White back and a couple that the sisters have been meeting with came to church for the first time.  Her best friend is a member of the church and she came to the weekday Relief Society meeting last month and enjoyed meeting the sisters in the branch.  They have been in Tuscaloosa for about six weeks with his brother who had open heart surgery.  Her husband is the one that wanted Brother Smith and I to come and give him a blessing several weeks ago when the sisters first started meeting with them.  He has never participated much and claimed he wasn't interested.  He said he learned a lot about the church when he was younger and doesn't really agree with their teachings.  They stayed for the whole block today and he participated in our discussion in Priesthood meeting.  He told us he enjoyed being their and we invited him back.  They were both positive in their response.  The sisters went out to help them fix supper this evening.  They will probably start meeting with them again now that they are back home.

We were a little surprised when a couple from the branch came in to Sacrament Meeting.  They didn't stay for the rest of the block.  It was a couple that we tried for several weeks after we arrived here to see, but were never able to catch them home.  They only live here during the winter and then go to Paris, Idaho to spend the summer.  I talked to him for a while on the phone after they returned to Paris and got his address to forward his record.  He was a little surprised that I wanted to do that.  He said they never really did that before.  I told him since they moved there we would go ahead and forward their records.  The records showed up in the branch a couple weeks ago and we finally caught them at home Monday of this week.  We had a very lengthy visit with them and a tour of their antebellum home (built before the civil war).  It was packed full of antiques and old furniture and carpet and items that came across the plains with the pioneers.  He had several furnishings that they bought when other antebellum mansions were remodeled.  He took us through room after room that were each so full of memorabilia that we barely had room to walk through the room.  China cupboards that were stuffed full of different styles of china.  They had a very impressive silver tea set on displayed in their formal dining room.  They said people are usually quite surprised when they ask where they got it and they tell them Kmart.  They attended a grand opening where they had the high end silver set on sale and they picked it up a couple weeks later when the price was drastically reduced. He is descended from one of the original twelve apostles after the restoration and informed us that they have held about every calling in the church and they are retired now and they don't really have time to hold any callings.  They are very involved in the community and travel to see their children and grandchildren.  He told us the Stake President came last year and "begged" him to be the Branch President but he told him he just couldn't because they are only here part of the year.  He told us they are just "back row members" now when they have time to come, and don't really participate.  It really makes me worry how a person comes to the point where they think that is an acceptable way to live the gospel after being so involved throughout their life.

Sister Owens had the weekday Relief Society meeting this Wednesday for this month.  It turned out to be a bit of a logistics nightmare.  Brother White and I both had doctor appointments in Tuscaloosa and mine was so early that we couldn't do the extra runs to Greensboro to transport ladies to the RS meeting like we did last month. One thing that really has a negative effect on this branch is to have one of the five available vehicles unavailable.  We think everyone that wanted to be there got there and it turned out to be a good meeting.  There were about eleven sisters there this time.  Brother White needs an eight week follow up visit, but we were smart enough to schedule it on a Monday instead of Wednesday.  When I got home and checked, I saw that we scheduled his appointment for exactly the same day and time as my next appointment.  So that one will be a challenge.  At least this time mine was in the morning and his was in the afternoon.

I got my second professional haircut this week.  The barber is a sweet old black lady.  It was almost eight weeks since I was there for the first time.  When I sat in the chair she said, "Same as last time?"  Sister Owens was quite surprised and asked her if she remembered.  She said, "Sure."  I told her to do it the same as last time, but I think she wised up and made it about half an inch longer everywhere so I will probably need to go back again in about a month.  I really can't complain when it is only five dollars for the haircut.  And she does do a great job.

Friday the sisters made lemonade and set up a lemonade stand at the church (on the main highway through town).  They didn't charge for the lemonade but gave everyone a card with a scripture on it with the cup of lemonade.  They were open for three hours and only gave a lemonade to a sister in the branch.  I guess it wasn't really a great success as far as finding goes.  After that they went with the youth from the branch to a roller skating rink in Linden that everyone was supposed to invite their non-member friends to.  I guess that was a little more successful.  The Kirks were there with their girls.  So that was good for them to get to know the youth in the branch a little better. Sister Owens made a batch of peanut butter popcorn and asked the sisters if they wanted to take it with them to the roller skating activity, which they did.  We heard at church today that it was quite a big hit.  She is giving me some real competition now with my cookies.

Finding addresses where there are no houses or houses where the people we are looking for haven't lived for two or three years is still keeping us busy when we can devote time to looking.  And the people we do find are still telling us just what we want to hear but never actually do what they say they will do.  But that seems to be life here in the south.  We have to keep looking though,  that is exactly what we were doing when we found Tasha Kirk.  She was baptized in 2004 and was only active for a few months before she moved.  The address on her record was incorrect but we were able to find her.  Now her husband has been baptized, the sisters are teaching her children, and we are taking them to the temple this Friday to do baptisms for the dead.  The gospel is true and it blesses people's lives when they are willing to live it.

Two weeks until conference.  We are so excited.

Keep the commandments and read your Book of Mormon

And Listen to the Prophets at conference.

We Love y'all,

Elder and Sister Owens

Week 25: We have windows, wait a minute; I've lost my wife!

Dear Family and Friends,

Here we sit writing this email more than twenty feet from our kitchen table (in a whole different room, attachment

#2).  We couldn't get that far from it last week without going outside. I can't believe how different you feel when light shines through a window in the morning.  I had forgotten what that is like.  We love our new home.  Okay, it's a little old, but we love being here. We have hardwood floors throughout except the kitchen and bathroom.  They are well aged and seem to have a lot of gum on them (chewing not pine).  Single pane windows nailed or painted shut (but we don't care because it's still very hot outside).  We have central air and heat.  Sister Owens has only seen two tiny spiders since we got here (you know, the ones you squish with your thumb).  I am sorry to report, however, that we saw our first cock roach on our second day in the apartment.  We never saw a single one in the garage.  Sister Owens still won't walk barefoot in the house.  The best thing is that the bathroom is down the hall instead of next to the kitchen table.  Suffice it to say we are very happy here.

The week didn't start off so well.  We drove 110 miles to our appointment at Costco to buy new tires and when we arrived they informed us they didn't have our tires in stock.  We were going to go on Saturday but the sale didn't start until Sunday.  We asked how they could be out of stock when the sale just started the day before.  They told us they changed the date and started the sale on Wednesday the week before.  So they ordered the tires online for us and said they would have them the next day.  We had Zone Conferenced on Thursday so we set an appointment for that afternoon to have them installed.  Aside from the extra trip it worked out pretty well.  The tires were eighty-five dollars cheaper than they quoted the first time.  Another tender mercy.

We had an awesome zone conference this week.  We love our mission president and his wife.  They are so good at building up the missionaries and inspiring them (and us).  Everyone was so excited for us that we were getting a new apartment.  The president always starts the conference by having missionaries share mission miracles.  I thought about telling them how we came to rent our apartment but didn't say anything.  Then the president told everyone that the Owens had a miracle.  It really was a miracle.  We still had no prospects when they submitted our 30-day notice.  The housing coordinator had exhausted all of his resources and hadn't come up with anything.  We ended up renting a unit that we had previously told the rental agency we really weren't interested in(sight unseen).  But he felt we really would be quite happy with it and convinced us to look at it. We both felt right about it when we first walked in.

They told us when we looked at the unit that they would have it all cleaned up when we were ready to move in.  I guess we are still having a hard time understanding what people mean by what they say.  The place was filthy.  Luckily, two senior couples came from the mission office and the sister missionaries and a sister from the branch was here to help us clean the apartment before we moved in.  We did have one minor wrinkle.  They promised they would have a washer and dryer installed and they did not.  We didn't finish the laundry at the garage until about ten thirty the night we moved.  Hopefully they will get them installed by this weekend.

We spent Saturday getting moved in after spending Friday cleaning.  We still have a whole room that we haven't put anything in except empty suitcases and boxes (attachment #3).  The only thing so far that has proved to be a challenge is that we keep losing track of each other.  That never happened when we only had one big room for a house.

Attachment #1 is our spacious living room.

We hope y'all are excited for conference next month.  We certainly are.  Sister Owens informed me that the rumors are flying in Relief Society.  We know it will be a great conference.

Keep the commandments and read your Book of Mormon

We love y'all,

Elder and Sister Owens

PS.  Brother Kirk passed the sacrament today after being ordained last week.  They had their interviews after church for their recommends to go to the temple to do baptisms for the dead.  We will probably be going with them in a couple weeks.  The gospel is pretty exciting.

Week 24: Goodbye garage, hello three bedroom duplex

Dear Family and Friends,

Well it took, basically, another week for me to kick my lingering cough after my cold.  I didn’t feel all that bad but sounded horrible whenever I coughed.  I didn’t want to be around anyone when it happened.  Our housing coordinator was going to drive to Demopolis Tuesday to help us find suitable housing but called Tuesday morning and said he was coming Wednesday instead.  The one thing we did Tuesday was go to see a duplex to see if it might work to move into.  It was the same agency that had the first one we looked at that was totally depressing to us, but we hoped it would be a little nicer.  He called before he arrived to tell us he thought we would be happier in the one over on Colonial Circle, which was next door to the first one we looked at.  We looked at the one we were going to see and were even more depressed.  He said he was sure the other place was the place for us and that we would like it.  We followed him over to look at it but all the while we were sure we weren’t going to like it.  Well it was the best thing we have seen since we have been here, that is available to rent.  We called Elder Barfuss and told him he did not need to come to Demopolis, because we would be happy to live in this unit……It is going to be a little difficult to get used to being in rooms with windows after so long.  We move next Friday and we have been pretty excited about it all week.  We will be living on the left side (see attachment). It has a back yard with a wooden porch and a patio.

You all probably heard about hurricane Gordon making landfall this past week.  We were just fine.  We weren’t really affected by it in Demopolis until Wednesday and Thursday.  We had some very heavy rain and some pretty good winds.  It was pretty awesome to realize that the storm was several hundred miles to the southwest of us and we still had so much rain and wind from it.  Our district council was moved back to Wednesday this week instead of Tuesday so we thought we were going to have another really fun drive from Demopolis to Tuscaloosa in the rain but Demopolis was as far north as it got so we missed all the heavy rain that day.  It was actually a pleasant day for driving.  We had a great district council meeting.  It is always a neat experience to meet with the missionaries and witness how mature and wise they are and how much they have the spirit with them.  We have a brand new district leader.  I commented to him after the meeting that the district had a very interesting mix of missionaries.  He told me President Sainsbury called him to be a district leader and then told him that there would be quite a few sisters in this district.  We have two senior couples, including us (they had a new couple come and they were assigned to the Tuscaloosa YSA to replace the Johnsons who went home in May). Then there are four sets of sisters and the District Leader and his companion.  We have almost more sisters in our district now than we had in my whole mission in Arizona.

Thursday we went to Book of Mormon class in Greensboro and missed a pretty good downpour in Demopolis again.  When we got back to Demopolis it stopped just long enough to drop off the sisters and Sister Jones and then came pretty hard again.  It pretty well drenched us coming from the car to the front door when we got home.  We have noticed we have become pretty much the umbrella dispensers of the area.  We keep buying one little one for each of us and then someone uses one to get from the car to their door and we pretty much don’t see it anymore.  The sisters told us just the other day how glad they are that they have our umbrella when it rains.

Friday we took the sisters and sister Jones and went back to Greensboro to visit Horseshoe Farms.  It is a non-profit community center that caters to members of the community that seem to have mental and emotional needs.  Their major funding comes from a Doctor in town and a few other generous donors as well as some grants that they are able to acquire.  They solicit graduate students from all around the country that are going into the medical field to come and spend a one year internship there.  They have classes of all kinds and sponsor a health clinic and counseling services, all free of charge.  Sister Owens attended the women’s class while we were there and the moderator never really got to say anything.  She had everyone introduce themselves and they took up all the time explaining what was causing the stress in their lives that prompted them to attend the class.  It is housed in the old Greensboro hotel that was built in the late 1800s. While Sister Owens was attending the class I was sitting in the community area and a young fellow came up to me and looked at my name tag and asked if I could answer some questions he had about our religion. I told him I would be happy to and he wanted me to explain why we believe if we go to Heaven that we will actually become Gods.  I told him to understand that it would be necessary to understand who God is and what He is like.  We started to discuss it and he promptly changed the subject and wanted to know why we believe that women that go to heaven will have children throughout eternity.  We started to talk about that and one of the interns came over to ask him if he was going to come and play the bean bag toss game with him.  He excused himself and went to toss the bean bag. It was a fun little experience.  The sisters were sitting there waiting for me to start to squirm.  They told me I did pretty good.  Sweet Sister Borden grabbed me by the hand and took me to introduce me to two different interns and told them I was the cook around the house and then laughed and laughed.  Sister Owens had mentioned at Book of Mormon class that she has me cook and she does dishes at our house (Sister Borden thought that was really amusing).

We had a visitor Friday night while we were brushing our teeth (see attachment).  I won’t go into detail about what Sister Owens did when she saw him, but I never thought she could actually jump that high.  Needless to say, he ended up sorry that he made an appearance. When we left for church this morning we noticed another visitor under the eave about three feet from our front door (see attachment).  I tried to get Sister Owens to hold a quarter by it so you could see how big it is in the picture but she refused.  If he knows what is good for him, he will stay outside.

The highlight of our week was after Church today when Cedric received the Aaronic Priesthood and was ordained a Priest.  As shy as he is, I’m sure he was overwhelmed when President James told him afterwards that he was glad he would be able to help now with passing the sacrament (Cedric has partaken of the sacrament twice already). And then he said they would have him study up on the sacrament prayer in the D&C so he would be able to say it without any trouble.  Nothing showed on the outside but on the inside I’m sure his eyes were about as big as silver dollars.  I probably shouldn’t have said it, but I patted him on the back and said not to worry because everyone would have their eyes shut when he says the prayer.

Remember Conference is coming the first weekend of October.

Keep the commandments and read your Book of Mormon (EVERY DAY)

We Love y’all,

Elder and Sister Owens

Week 23: Where did the week go?

Dear Family and Friends,

We went to see Brother White Monday. He is doing okay but is taking a long time getting his strength back. The doctor told him the operation would be very hard on him so its not unexpected that it is a lengthy recovery. He has a cousin that has been coming just about every day and checking on him and spending a few hours with him.  Sister Owens was still finishing up getting over her cold.

Tuesday morning we picked up the sisters at 6:00 AM and headed to Birmingham for our Zone temple session (see attachment).  We get to go every other transfer (about every three months) so we really look forward to it.  Unfortunately I felt my sore throat coming on as we were driving there in the morning.  By the time we got home my cold was well on the way.

In the doctor’s follow up visit last week with Brother White he (the doctor) said he wanted someone to call him in a week.  Brother White told me he would prefer that I make the call.  I wanted Brother White to be with me when I called incase there were any questions that he would have to answer.  Sister Owens was just getting over her cold and mine was just starting but we drove to Greensboro to make the call to the doctor.  The last thing we wanted to do was give Brother White our germs, so we opened and closed the door with our elbow and didn’t touch anything while we were there and kept our distance from Brother White.  Of course when we called the doctor we were transferred to his nurse and it went to voice mail.  The message said making multiple calls would not get our call returned sooner.  Of course they never did return the call and have not called Brother White all week either.  We have been soooo impressed with the medical services since we have been in Alabama (that is totally sarcastic incase anyone isn’t sure).  We came home and I promptly became very serious about my cold.

We spent Thursday and Friday in the apartment trying to get me over the cold. And when Saturday came I still wasn’t all that much better.  A couple weeks ago I received an email informing us of our cleaning assignment at the temple scheduled for this Saturday.  We were the only ones from the Branch that went last time and we still only have six current recommend holders in the branch besides ourselves.  President and Sister James are gone this week and one couple is to old to make the trip.  Sister Shreeve found out a convert from her first area was being sealed on Saturday and got permission from President Sainsbury to go with us so she could be there for the sealing.  I was not over my cold yet so we decided we were not going to help clean the temple but since the sisters couldn’t go to the sealing if we didn’t take them, we said we would drive them there and then bring them home after the sealing.

Today I thought I better stay home from church because I’m still coughing and when I do, people look at me like I have the plague.  I stayed home and it was a good thing I did,  I coughed more today than I have all week, but things are loosening up and I think I am just about done with it.  There were only twenty-two people at church today because so many were staying home because they were either sick or they didn’t want to get sick.  Whatever this is, it seems to be getting everyone in the whole area.  A lot of people think it is caused by the smoke and pollen that is here now from the California wild fires.

I read some conference talks form President Packer while I was home today.  Here is a quote from one of them referring to D&C 124:

During a very difficult time, the Lord gave the sternest warning that I know of in all scripture. It had to do with the building of the Nauvoo Temple. The Saints knew from experience that to proceed to build a temple would bring terrible persecution, so they delayed. The Lord extended the time and said, “If you do not these things at the end of the appointment ye shall be rejected as a church, with your dead, saith the Lord your God.”

Often overlooked in that revelation is a marvelous promise: “If my people will hearken unto my voice, and unto the voice of my servants whom I have appointed to lead my people, behold, verily I say unto you, they shall not be moved out of their place.”

Remember this promise; hold on to it. It should be a great comfort to those struggling to keep a family together in a society increasingly indifferent to, and even hostile toward, those standards which are essential to a happy family.

The promise is a restatement of what the Lord told the multitude: “Blessed are ye if ye shall give heed unto the words of these twelve whom I have chosen from among you to minister unto you, and to be your servants.”

I repeat the promise that those who hearken to the voice of these men whom the Lord has raised up “shall not be moved out of their place.”

But the promise was followed with this caution: “But if they will not hearken to my voice, nor unto the voice of these men whom I have appointed, they shall not be blest.”

The Twelve Apostles

October 1996

General Conference

Boyd K. Packer

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1996/10/the-twelve-apostles?lang=eng&verse=#p

Another interesting thing he said:

President Harold B. Lee told me once of a conversation he had with Elder Charles A. Callis of the Quorum of the Twelve. Brother Callis had remarked that the gift of discernment was an awesome burden to carry. To see clearly what is ahead and yet find members slow to respond or resistant to counsel or even rejecting the witness of the apostles and prophets brings deep sorrow.

The Twelve Apostles

October 1996

General Conference

Boyd K. Packer

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1996/10/the-twelve-apostles?lang=eng&verse=#p

Conference is coming in a month!!

We are planning on the coming week being a much better week.  Keep the faith.

Keep the commandments and read your Book of Mormon

We love y’all,

Elder and Sister Owens