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
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