Dear Family and Friends,
The week started off a little bumpy. Sister Owens succumbed to the approaching winter weather and was fighting a bug for a couple days ( I think she spent a little to much time in company with the sick and afflicted). She felt good enough Wednesday that we could go to Tuscaloosa for District Council. As usual it was a very good meeting. We are always impressed with the caliber of these young missionaries with whom we get to serve. Sister Owens was still fighting a pretty good headache so nothing much happened after we got home from Tuscaloosa. Brother Smith had to have Coordination meeting Tuesday night instead of Wednesday so I had gone to that without Sister Owens.
Thursday Sister Nixon's daughter came to Book of Mormon class. She was paralyzed from the chest down from a car accident a couple years ago. She came to church the first Sunday of the year (the first time since we have been here). She has seemed like a pretty hard case the times we have visited her so we are excited to have her in class. Our non-member "regular" was trying to hold back her tears all through class. Her family is failing to provide the care they should be providing. We might be paying another visit to Human Resources again.
Friday we got some prints at Walmart of the pictures we took of the Kirk girls at their baptism so we could get them framed and give to them. We went to a book of Mormon referral with the sisters. He was an older black gentleman. When we went into his apartment he apologized because he only had two chairs. They were wooden kitchen chairs. He has been trying to find work and is hoping to move into a different apartment in the next few weeks. He only had one table lamp on in the whole apartment. There was no shade on the lamp, it was just the light bulb. He was a very humble man. He and Sister Owens sat on the chairs while the sisters explained the Book of Mormon to him. He said a very sweet prayer before we left. Then we went with the sisters to meet with the McGees who we have been taking to church the past few weeks. It is a lady and her ten year old daughter. They are both very excited about being baptized next Saturday.
The sisters were tracting in the rain this week and thinking they should be in their car making phone calls but kept going anyway. They knocked on a door and a young lady opened the door and invited them in and said she had been waiting for them to come. She was being taught a year ago by the sisters and was scheduled to be baptized but moved to Tuscaloosa. She moved back here last fall and didn't know how to contact the missionaries because she had lost their number when her apartment was flooded. She asked them to sit and read the Book of Mormon with her and said she wanted to come to church Sunday, which she did. President James remembered her from a year ago but never knew what happened to her. She will probably be baptized before too long.
We have a mission temple trip next Tuesday and our Branch conference is next Sunday so we will be going to the temple on Saturday as well, as a Branch. We have had several family names for a while and have not been able to do the work when we have gone because they needed baptisms and initiatory work done. We have to schedule everything with the temple here because they are only open certain hours on certain days. We decided we would go Saturday and get the work done so we can do family names in the upcoming endowment sessions. Brother Kirk was baptized several weeks ago for the names I have. Sister Owens has some names from a couple sisters in the branch that still have to have baptisms done so we were hoping we could get those done in one of the youth sessions and then we could both do initiatory work. When we got to the temple there was only one parking place in the parking lot. The day before when we called to schedule an appointment they had told us they don't do appointments anymore, that they have cards for all the sessions (initiatory, endowment, etc.) and you just come and if they still have a card you can get a session sometime during the day. Kind of a gamble for a two hour and twenty minute trip one way. When we went in they told us they had a three stake youth conference from the Tupelo, Mississippi area doing baptisms all day (don't know why they couldn't have mentioned that the night before when we were talking to them on the phone). We asked and they didn't think they could fit in any of our names for baptisms but they would try. We decided to do an endowment session and then see if they got any of the baptisms done and then hopefully get an initiatory session. They hadn't done any of the names when the endowment session was done, so I went and did an initiatory session for the names I had and Sister Owens was going to wait a while longer for the names from the baptismal session. Two hours later I was finished and they still hadn't done any of the names. Well, next Saturday is the day for new converts to do baptisms for the dead so now we have some names for the Kirk girls to do then. On our way home from the temple we encountered some pretty gusty winds when we crossed a bridge and traveled most of the way in moderate rain but really didn't know anything about the tornado until after we got home and started getting texts wanting to know if we were okay. So far all the really dangerous weather has stayed pretty far to the east of us. I guess Montgomery had a tornado Saturday but that is about a hundred miles east of Demopolis.
With all that was going on last Sunday, I forgot to mention that Brother white was ordained an Elder and set apart as the first counselor in the Elders Quorum. I asked him today if he talked to President James about when he could go to the temple. He said President hasn't said anything about it to him. I told him he is the one that wants to go to the temple and he has to ask President James about it. He was just waiting for the President to say something. We got to visit with President James for a few minutes after church. He had interviewed the Kirk girls for their recommends for baptism for the dead and told us how impressed he was with their gospel knowledge and the depth of their testimonies. He had been a little skeptical about their preparedness for their baptisms. There are some really neat kids in the branch right now, mostly under sixteen and several actually primary age. They seem to be stronger in the gospel that a lot of the adults. Two nonmember kids call the James about 6:00 AM every Sunday morning asking them for a ride to church. A little cousin of the Kirks, Aliah (the one wrapped up in Ja'Nylia's arms in attachment #1), has been coming to church longer that they have and is just waiting for her Auntie to give her permission to be baptized. She is nine.
Sister Owens liked the cloud we saw on our drive home from the Temple (attachment #2 looking to the west away from the bad stuff).
We are seeing a lot of good things start to happen here. We are glad we're here.
Keep the commandments and read your Book of Mormon every day.
We love y'all, thanks for your support.
Elder and Sister Owens
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