Dear Family and Friends,
Our favorite thing for this whole week was the baptism of our grandson, Corbin, in Boise. We are so proud of him and excited for him. And our granddaughter, Shelby, had a birthday in Pocatello. To celebrate she and her friends went to the Twin Falls Temple to do baptisms for the dead. Twin Falls was the only Idaho temple she hadn't yet been to. What a special thing to do for her birthday. We are so proud of her as well.
Monday was definitely not my most fun experience so far. I went out with President James to confirm with a couple in the branch that they wanted their names removed from the records of the church. It was a really friendly gentleman that Sister Owens and I met last summer. President and Sister James went with them to the temple as their escorts about twelve years ago and just a few weeks later they quit coming to church. They have asked several times since then to remove their names. So now we are doing as they have asked. The mayor of York is a member of the church that threatens the church with a law suit every time she gets a communication from the church. She got an invitation from us for our Branch Conference and called several leaders in the stake threatening legal action, so her name removal is under way as well. I told President James I feel kind of badly. We are removing three members from the records and there have only been four people baptized since we came here. We did stop and see the Bullards that we are hoping are starting to become active again after several years and we had a good visit with them. President just found out where they actually live. Brother Bullard and I just sat there for quite a while listening to Sister Bullard and President James reminisce about all the people they both used to know years ago in the branch. As we got outside Greensboro on the way home the serpentine belt broke and we stopped on the side of the road. A nice black gentleman in a pickup stopped to see if he could help. He offered to take us back into town (about a mile) to the mechanic's shop. I got out and told them I would stay with the car. He looked at me and said, "What are you guys doing….are you FBI?" I told him no, and assumed President James would explain on the way back to town. He came back followed by the mechanic and President James in another pickup. Then the gentleman that helped us went on his way and the mechanic said we could drive the car back to the shop without the belt. Then the car wouldn't start so he was going to give us a jump, and I thought it was kind of strange that he had to look so closely and try so many times to release the hood latch on the truck so he could give us the jump. Each time we got the car started it wouldn't keep running so they finally decided to tow it back to the shop. After the strap either came apart or fell off the ball on the pickup about three times, we finally got going down the road with about four feet between us and the pickup with no power steering and no power brake. We made it to the shop without incident. They had the belt we needed and got it replaced for us in about forty-five minutes. While we were waiting President James told me the pickup they used didn't belong to the shop. It was a customers truck. We were glad it just happened to have jumper cables and a tow strap, and he just happened to find them. Then I understood why the mechanic had such a hard time figuring out how to release the hood latch. When they were filling out the bill before we left the mechanic said, "We'll just call it a free tow." President James told him we appreciated that very much.
We took the sisters to Eutaw for a couple follow up visits and referral contacts both of which fell through, so we did a little hunting for inactive members. One moved a year ago, one wasn't home, and one was a woman whose boyfriend was taught by the sisters about a year and a half ago. We were told that her boyfriend was all ready to be baptized but she had found some "anti" literature and put an end to it. They haven't been to church since, so we were ready for her to tell us not to bother them when she appeared at the door. Sister Owens asked her how she felt about the church. She said she was glad we stopped by because just a few days ago they were discussing coming back to church. We visited for a while at the door and she told us she would come to church this Sunday. We were all pretty happy on the drive back to Demopolis.
We had another discussion with James and he said he would be at church this Sunday and said he would like to be baptized the latter part of April. Then we met again with Joe Davis at the Trucking company. We got there before the sisters and Joe gave us the rundown on how to skin and cook a beaver. He says they are a very clean animal and the meat is very lean and is just like a big piece of roast beef. He says you cook it, head and all. He says because of their powerful jaws there is a lot of good meat on the head. Anyway, I digress. We had a great discussion with him. He committed to baptism the end of April—if he is ready. The sisters had prepared a calendar for him so he can stop his coffee by the baptism date. I asked him if he had other concerns besides the coffee as far as being ready to be baptized. He said, to be honest he argues with himself a lot about whether or not he is really worthy. So I told him what came to my mind last week about the fact that he does not have to get perfect to enter the Lord's kingdom. You enter the Lord's kingdom to get perfect. It seemed to make a difference for him and he has changed his thinking about being ready for baptism. He told the sisters that they keep telling him that he will be blessed if he reads every day and is baptized. He told us, "I am blessed, I am really blessed everyday. The only way I could be more blessed would be if he received a golden invitation to enter heaven." It was a neat thing to hear and to see how thankful he is for the Lord's influence in his life. We tried to explain how much better it will be after he is given the gift of the Holy Ghost. It is a hard thing for them to understand when they have not experienced the gift in all aspects of their life. He said he would be at church this week and we told him we would show him the baptismal font when he comes.
Saturday morning we decided we wanted to fix something in the crock pot for lunch and we needed to get a few things from the store. We stopped to get them before we went on our walk. We came out from the store and put the groceries in the car and Sister Owens took the buggy to the buggy return and I got in and started the car. Before she got in the car she knocked on the tailgate and told me to wait a minute. Then she opened the door and said we had to go back because our card didn't go through. I turned off the car and got out and the lady from the store was out in the middle of the parking lot waiting for us. As I started to go back into the store I realized I had no recollection of taking my wallet out of my pocket and getting my credit card and putting it in the reader at the self-checkout to pay for the groceries. It was a little awkward trying to explain to her that we "just forgot" to pay. She said it was just good that she was able to catch us before we drove away. Yah, that way she didn't have to call and report us to the police. The funny thing was that when we arrived at the store I turned around in the traffic lane and parked in the front parking space pointed the other direction and said to Sister Owens, "Now we are headed the right direction for our quick getaway." I just love Alabama, and I'm sure some of the people here just love me, or at least they find me quite entertaining. Getting old is so fun.
Sunday was kind of a bummer for us. None of the people that said they were going to come to church came. Even the Kirks, that we had a really nice visit with this week and told them how good we feel each week when we see them in church, dropped off all their non-member nieces and nephews and went home. President James was out of town to see his mother and the Morgans (President's counselor) were ill and didn't come. Brother White was laying on the floor in his apartment when the Bordens stopped to pick him up for church and is now back in the hospital. The Elders Quorum president conducted Sacrament Meeting and I helped pass the sacrament and all twenty-six of us had a very nice testimony meeting. As Sister Weaver always says, "That's missionary work."
The church is true and things can only get better. We are so excited for General Conference next week. We hope you will all make time to listen to all the sessions and learn from our prophets and apostles. The continuing restoration is so exciting to witness.
Keep the commandments and read your Book of Mormon every day and watch Conference.
We love y'all,
Elder and Sister Owens
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