Dear Family and Friends,
We had a great start to the New Year. We went o a team up with the sisters to a Book of Mormon discussion with a very receptive man that advised us that he has always attended church. His father is a deacon in his church and he has several uncles and cousins that are deacons or preachers in different churches. He was interested to find out about the Book of Mormon and said he was definitely going to read the introduction. He was excited to make a follow up appointment for Friday and looked forward to seeing us again.
Wednesday morning we went with the sisters to a couple of appointments in Greensboro, both of which fell through. So we used the time to look for some more of the inactive members of the branch. We drove five miles out of town to try to find one of them and they weren't home (what a surprise – see attachment # 1) I guess it's been a while since they lived there. On the way home we took a picture of the flooded pasture that we photographed five days earlier and sent with last weeks email (this week's pic is attachment #2). We went in the afternoon to read the Book of Mormon with Larry (the Viet Nam vet with PTSD). He always has so many questions about what we are reading. We hope it is making a difference for him. Sister Owens thinks he is seeming a little more mellow than before we started reading with him. After coordination meeting we went back to help Ollie get her bills paid for the month and get her bank statement balanced. She shakes so badly she can't write checks and Ross charges her $40 dollars to write them for her (what a place).
Thursday was Relief Society Presidency meeting for Sister Owens and then we had the Book of Mormon class in Greensboro. We haven't had food for the last couple weeks and a couple of the men didn't show up this week (don't know if that is because we are just finishing up the Isaiah chapters or because we didn't have food for two weeks). It was neat to get to chapter 25 of II Nephi and read how Nephi glories in plainness. That chapter was much easier for them to understand. We suggested that maybe everybody might read two or three chapters on their own before we have class because Sister Owens and I would like to get closer to the end of the book with them before we go home next year. They have only been reading a chapter each week and at that rate would only be somewhere in Mosiah when we leave. We'll have to see how that goes.
Friday we followed up a second time with a fellow in Linden on a team up with the sisters. Last time was not a good time and this time he was gone shopping in Demopolis. Sister Weaver said she has no problem with rejection but really resents people that just waste her time standing them up instead of saying they really don't want to talk to us. They keep going back just in case. It is Alabama and nobody wants to hurt anyone's feelings. We went to the follow up appointment with the fellow we met with on Monday. His father was there and he was going to go see about buying a car, so it wasn't a good time for him. He will have us come back next week. Gee, someone in our branch with a car that could drive to church. I think we are dreaming.
We had to pick up Andrea for church so we weren't available to get the new people that the sisters have been teaching. They called a sister from Eutaw that just bought a car to see if she could get Andrea and her mother so we would be able to get the McGees, but they said they never could get in touch with her. But the mother of the new family wasn't coming so we could just go by and get her daughter after we picked up Andrea and her mother. Well, interestingly enough, Andrea's mother was having Vertigo and didn't come, so we just had Andrea and Kamia and we weren't late for church. Sister McGee was "doing hair" but said she is coming next week. The sister they tried to contact to pick up Andrea and her mother showed up at church with her inactive son and his non-member "wife." Sadly, we found out why they were there later when the Branch President showed me the overdue power bills that they wanted us to pay for them (I guess that's not nice to say but it's so often true). The Kirk girls that wouldn't join in on the discussions when Cedric was being taught and said they did not want to be baptized are planning to be baptized this Friday. The youngest (13) stood up and bore her testimony today in Testimony meeting. It is so neat, they seem like totally different girls than when we first met them. On the way home from church today we had to turn on the AC. Seventy-two degrees is kind of warm with all this humidity. We sure miss all that snow and freezing weather (yeah, right).
Keep the commandments and read your Book of Mormon every day.
We love y'all,
Elder and Sister Owens
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