Dear Family and Friends:
Monday we stopped to get gas on the way home from our walk for $1.88 per gallon. We were pretty excited later in the day when we passed the station and saw that it was up to $1.94 (really not the typical Owens luck). We were pretty excited about that. We spent most of the day at the church. I was trying to clean up some of the records and Sister Owens was able to get a name ready to take to the temple the next time we go. Most of the inactive members of the branch don't answer when I call them because of my area code, so I only call them when we have exhausted all possibility of contacting them in person. A few months ago we caught a fellow at home and we think he was telling us a little fib about the man we were looking for having moved from there two years before. After visiting with President James about him and realizing his neighbor told us he lived there just before we knocked on his door (doesn't seem logical if he hadn't lived there for two years), we decided it was probably the member we were looking for that we were talking to. In the heat of the moment he actually answered his phone when I called him Monday. It was actually kind of entertaining listening to him squirm when I told him who I was. Of course it wasn't a good time to talk so he was going to call me back. I told him we just wanted to know where he was living now. After stuttering a bit he said he was in process of looking around right now and he would call me when he finds a place (uh huh). According to President James, he had a "Joseph Smith experience" in the woods and wanted to be baptized. He was baptized, and a few weeks later his mother informed him he would be disowned if he had anything to do with "that church." That was in 2013 and he hasn't been to church since.
We had an interesting experience Tuesday. The weather was not so great so we decided to take our walk in the Walmart (the largest building in Demopolis). After our usual two laps we decided we would do another. Then we stopped to pick up some ham hocks and an onion so we could cook the greens (attachment #1) that Roosevelt gave us when we visited him with the sisters last Sunday. We were picking out an onion and Miss Connie from the local library came walking up to us, who just happened to be there to buy a lemon she needed. She was the first non-member we met when we got here in March. She had been to the Gladys Knight concert and told us she is a very good friend of our church. She has been taught by several sets of missionaries over the years. She came up to us and said the Lord had led her to us that morning. Then she asked me if I would come and pray for her at the Black History meeting that afternoon at the library. She had asked a person to pray and they called and told her they couldn't come and she had no idea who she would be able to have pray. So we went. The guest speaker was Ray Orlando Williams. He is a world champion weight lifter who was born and raised in Demopolis. He grew up in the projects and thought that was probably going to be where he was going to die. He woke up often when he was in school and was sure death would be better than the life he was living. He wanted the youth in the audience to never let the vision of what they are going through obscure the vision of what they are going to. He is now just months away from getting his PHD and wants to be a high school principal. He got his start when he was in middle school and the football coach came up to his tall friend and asked him if he would come and play football. Ray asked him why he didn't ask him to play. He told him if he wanted to, he could. He said he loved football and was very good at it. All he knew was that you could hit people and you didn't get in trouble for it. A nice black lady named Dorothy Jones (Attachment #2 – Ray and Dorothy) from one of the Baptist churches sang a nice song acapella about coming a long way carrying a heavy load in the heat of the day. Dorothy is 80 years old.
Wednesday we got started early. We went and picked up Ollie and dumped her out of her wheelchair (definitely one of the downs – see subject line). Actually we were on our way to walk at the sportsplex and Ollie called us at 7:20 and asked if we remembered that we were picking her up at 7:30 to take her to sign up at the foodbank. We said, "Sure, we'll be there in about ten minutes." We rushed back home and changed clothes and got to her house (one and a half minutes from our house) at 7:32 AM. Everything went great at the foodbank, once we found a place we could get her out of the car. They had a nice ramp up to their door (an old Jewish Synagogue). We got her up the seven inch step into the building just fine. Not so good on the way out. I was on the front and Sister Owens was on the back. When the rear wheels went down over the step the chair went over backwards and took Sister Owens with it (and Ollie). No injury, just an upsetting experience. Ollie assured us she was fine – after she stopped crying.
We were looking forward to the appointment we had with the Bullards who didn't get to church last Sunday. Sister Bullard called in the afternoon and said Rick had to work and was going to be too tired for us to come over. She rescheduled for Friday so we felt a little better.
Thursday was definitely the highest "up" of the week. We had zone conference in Birmingham. It was definitely a long day. We left at 6:20 AM and didn't get home until 8:45 PM. It was interesting that I don't really remember ever feeling as alert as I felt all the way home that night. President Sainsbury reminded all of us that we were the only zone in the mission that got to have a zone conference all about love on Valentines Day. We watched an address by Lawrence Corbridge (General Authority Seventy) from BYU Speeches of the Year https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/lawrence-corbridge_stand-for-ever/ We highly recommend that everyone watch it. It is one of the most powerful messages I ever remember hearing. It is not recommended for our kids. If we have any authority as your parents, we are requiring that you all watch it as families. Since Costco is in Birmingham, we always stop there on our way home from Conference for gas and groceries and get something for the sisters to eat (I know, we're cheapskates – but they like it) We picked up a bag of pot stickers for the Hursts (senior missionaries at the Tuscaloosa YSA). They mentioned that they haven't been able to find them anywhere. When we stopped in Tuscaloosa to drop them off, Elder Hurst said, "I'm sure we owe you something for this' don't we?" I said, "Well, lets see, how about a nice keyboard for my iPad." He had just given me one last week that he no longer had any use for. I think I convinced him they didn't owe us anything. We were going to stop at the hospital in Tuscaloosa to see how Andrea was doing (The new mother mentioned last week). We called her uncle when we got in town and he said she is doing better but they were limiting visitors because of her weakened immune system. We said we would come another time. We were trying to get off the freeway at Tuscaloosa when I had to slow down rather abruptly for an emergency vehicle that was half in and half out of our lane. It happened to be right when Sister Owens was on the phone with Andrea's uncle. The three leftover cupcakes from zone conference that we were taking home were on Sister Owens' lap – until then. They ended up frosting side down on her shoes and then on the floor. Luckily the frosting was a little bit crusty by then. We do still have to clean the floor mats. The chocolate frosting all over the mat really doesn't look very good.
Friday, Sister Bullard called to cancel again. She said Brother Bullard had to go help a friend and they didn't know when he would be done. She said it sounded like they were just putting us off but they really weren't. We rescheduled for next Tuesday and I asked her if they were going to make it to church. She said they were going to try. Last week they said they were definitely going to be there. I started to worry just a bit since it will be two weeks on Tuesday since we saw them last. We decided if they didn't make it to church we would just drive to Greensboro and check on them so they knew we cared about them.
Saturday was our turn to clean the building. Sister Owens said she is really thankful it is a small building. After that we went home and got our regular P-day chores done. The sisters called us in the evening and gave us some depressing news – another "down." Shearstine and Kamiah (Kamiah was just baptized a couple weeks ago) don't need us to pick them up for church because they are going to church with Shearstine's Grandmother. The sisters went over to see them and the house smelled like weed, and Shearstine asked them why they always talk so much about the Book of Mormon instead of the Bible. The sisters think their family is getting to her. Then they told us that Kirks are having a bit of a challenge again with the word of wisdom. We were all crying on each other's shoulders (over the phone) and were realizing how much Satan is working against the church here. We were all a little discouraged and wondered what kind of Sunday we were going to have.
Sunday morning we got there for Branch Presidency meeting an hour before the block time and Brother White's car was in the parking lot. We wondered if somehow he forgot the new meeting time. He was sitting in his car and we talked to him for a minute. He had come all the way from Greensboro alone so he could take the sacrament and then he was going to go home because he is in a great deal of pain. He is having pain in the other shoulder now. The pain he was experiencing from his surgery has gone away. They give him medication to lessen the pain but when he has dialysis it flushes all the medication out of his body. He is having a hard time. The surgeon wants to do another surgery on the shoulder but Brother White does not want to go through the hospital experience again. He told us he doesn't know what he is going to do, but he knows God is still in charge. When I came out of Branch Presidency meeting The Bullards were just coming in the door with their friend, Jessie. I told them how glad we were to see them and Brother Bullard said he told us they were coming and they came. Our sacrament meeting was about the best one we have had since we have been here. There couldn't be a better one for the Bullards to come to. The messages were about President Nelson's conference address about the correct name of the church and about the covenants we make when we are baptized. Before the sacrament the Kirks came in late, as they usually do when they come, but they had nine people all together. Two of Cedric's children came with them along with some cousins and friends. It was really neat. And Cece who the sisters have been working with that was actually on baptismal date over a year ago was there also. Our week definitely ended on an "up." The Lord is making things happen. We just need to keep up. The Bullards are looking forward to our meeting with them on Tuesday. He told me he has been reading the Book of Mormon. Hopefully his Patriarchal blessing is going to be available on line by then. It will be two weeks since we ordered it.
In President Sainsbury's letter this week he quoted some of the council Elder Anderson gave the missionaries when he visited the mission a year ago (just before we got here – darn) One of the things he said was:
" You will never stay firm and true to the Restoration and to the church if you do not know the Book of Mormon and have a testimony it is true. You must read it every day, every day, every day!"
Keep the commandments and read your Book of Mormon every day!
We love y'all,
Elder and Sister Owens
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