Dear Family and Friends,
We were worried about Brother White being home alone Monday since he was so weak when I took him home on Sunday. So we went out to check on him. He was down in the community room in his chair with his arm stretched out on the table and his head resting on his arm. He was having a hard time staying awake while we visited with him. He told us he would really like some chicken noodle soup, so we went and bought some and brought it back and went up to his apartment with him and heated it up and he ate about three bites of it and asked us to put it in the fridge. We could hardly make room for it. There was so much stuff in the fridge that he had gotten to eat and then couldn't eat so he put ii in the fridge to save. We found a hamburger that was still warm on the table in the living room that his niece had brought to him. It had one bite out of it and we had to make room for it in the fridge as well. He has lost a lot of weight in the last five or six weeks. We are starting to worry about him quite a bit. While we were there a neighbor came who said they (management) had asked her to check on him each day. We felt a lot better when we found out she was doing that. She was going to take him to dialysis the next day and would talk to his doctor about the list of medications on his discharge sheet from the hospital. She said she would help make sure he took the medication according to schedule. We left Brother White and decided to stop in Sawyerville to try to locate some branch members. Pretty typical. The first one we went to was a trailer that looked like it had been vacant for years. No neighbors at home and no answer on the phone that was a South Carolina number. I did an address search later and found another one listed for them up the road a few miles. We will try to check that one out this week and see if we have better luck. The address for the next one we tried to find is shown in the picture above (attachment #3) (I Love Alabama). "Posted No Trespassing" His number is disconnected. The satellite view shows a house off in the distance behind the trees. Probably won't bother whoever lives there.
Sister Owens hasn't been feeling all that great for about a week. We didn't do much on Tuesday other than help Ollie with her finances and try to encourage her to stop giving so much money to her care givers. She is spending way to much money every month. She has a trust fund in the bank and just keeps asking them to put more money in her account because she runs out. At this rate she will probably run out of money before we come home from the mission.
Wednesday I had to do a little maintenance on the car. I had to change the headlight on the battery side (of course) for the second time in about three months. Going to have to figure out what's going on. I had to clean up the battery with my toothbrush (makeshift terminal cleaner) while I had it out of the car. We also found out we picked up a nail in one of the tires (probably in Sawyerville). We got enough air in it Tuesday to last until we got to Costco after Zone Conference on Thursday. The sisters asked us to pick up Timothy at the library and take him to Sonic for some ice cream (attachment #2) to celebrate his baptism coming on Saturday. Wednesday night the sisters needed us to go to see James with them at 8:00 PM. He texted them during the day that he had to go to Birmingham to the ER with his girlfriend and wouldn't be back until about 1:00 AM. They asked if we would go with them and check at his apartment anyway. We did. He was there and wouldn't answer the door. He looked out through the curtains twice to see who was there but would not open the door. Sister Weaver is quite frustrated with him. At this point in her mission she has no problem with rejection but she doesn't like people wasting her time and lying to her.
Thursday was another Zone Conference in Birmingham. We were the first Zone for this transfer. That lasted until about 4:30 and then we had to go to Costco to get the tire repaired. They told me it would take about an hour. After an hour and a half I thought I should check in case they didn't have my correct phone number. They told me they were repairing it right then. An hour later I had to check again and they told me they were wrapping it up right then. We are still hoping someday to leave Birmingham in the daylight to come home but it hasn't happened yet. We got home about 9:30.
Friday was Relief Society monthly meeting. We started about eight to get to Greensboro and get Sister Borden back for the meeting. In two days she never said anything to us until we turned toward Demopolis. Then she said "Sister Nixon's coming." She doesn't come because she volunteers at the VA on Friday. So we planned to get to Demopolis in time for the meeting and had to take another fifteen minutes to get Sister Nixon. I got to speed all the way again so they could start on time (I love Alabama). It's interesting how it worked out. Sister Borden told us the night before that she talked to Sister Jones and she was planning on us picking her up to come to Greensboro to get Sister Borden (Sister Jones is in Demopolis but loves to ride in the car). We knew she had been ill earlier in the week so as we were on our way to her house we called her and she told us she wasn't coming. Had she come, it would have been an interesting feat to get the three of them in the back seat of our car to get them to Demopolis. As it was, we just had Sister Borden and Sister Nixon. After the meeting we took them home and got back to Demopolis just in time to turn around and go back to get them for Book of Mormon class (we moved it to Friday because we had Zone Conference on Thursday). I was just too tired to make the trip again so we called and cancelled the class. The sisters sent a text telling us Timothy would need a ride to his baptism on Saturday and asked if we could pick him up (he lives in Forkland, about twenty minutes away).
Saturday morning I went walking without Sister Owens because she still wasn't feeling all that great. I ended up getting drenched to the bone in a rainstorm. I got home and had plenty of time to shower and we could get Timothy to the church by 11:30 for the Noon baptism. The Sisters texted us and said they wanted him there by 11:00 (crunch time again). We had a good service (attachment #2). President James was there. He was planning to be in New Orleans to see his mother for mother's day but something must have changed. Brother Smith (mission leader) was working a plant closure for maintenance and was going to try to come on a long lunch hour but he said they ended the closure that morning so he was there in plenty of time and his family was there on time because the soccer games were rained out (along with my walk). It was a good thing because they were the only people there except for the sisters and Timothy and us. The Kirks said they were coming (Timothy asked Cedric to say the closing prayer). They haven't come to a meeting less than thirty minutes late yet, which makes it hard if the meeting is a baptism. None of the family came except Cedric. He got there about five minutes before the end of the meeting and said the closing prayer (I love Alabama). Timothy has a fairly serious speech impediment and he asked if he could say something at the end of the meeting. He thanked everyone for being there and bore his testimony. It was really difficult for him, but he did a great job. At the end of Priesthood meeting on Sunday Brother Smith asked him to say the closing prayer. My heart went out to him but he said he would. It took a few minutes, but he said a really nice prayer.
Saturday night Brother Smith texted the sisters that he could pick up Timothy for church on Sunday. I thought that would be good since President James and I are the only ones around for Branch Presidency anymore and I have been having to get Timothy the past few weeks because of the plant closure. I went to Branch Presidency meeting instead of going for Timothy. About fifteen minutes after we got started Brother Smith called and asked if I had any commitments to pick up people for church. I told him I was going to get Timothy until I heard that he was going to do that. He said he was taking a little longer getting his family ready to get to church and would be late if he had to get Timothy and wondered if I could do it. That was already ten minutes too late to get him there before church started. I told President James I had to hurry and go to get Timothy. He said he was going to tell me that was probably what the call was going to be. It sure is a good thing the police don't care how fast people drive on the county roads here. We got to church just as it started. It was nice since Timothy was confirmed today. The poor guy. He has stayed so late the last three weeks so we could take him home. Next week is Stake Conference. They like the whole stake to meet together so they rent an activity center on a campus (the stake center is too small) instead of broadcasting it to the outlying branches. Very few of our people can afford to travel the two hours to attend. Timothy needs a ride next week. We told him we would have to pick him up at 7:15 AM so we can drive forty-five minutes to Greensboro so the Bordens can follow us to the conference from there. Conference is an all day commitment for anyone that goes. Anyway, we had a good meeting today. We planned on twenty dozen rolls for the mothers and we only had nine women come. There were only twenty-nine in all that were in attendance. But Brother White was one of them. He is too weak to help anymore with the sacrament, but it means so much for him to get there to partake of it. He was sitting in the mother's chair from the primary room when I got there with Timothy. They moved it into the chapel for him. Right after the sacrament he motioned for me to come over to him. He needed me to help him stand up. He was in a lot of pain. He told me he got to take the sacrament and now he had to go home. He drives thirty minutes one way to get there. Two men who are members live at the same place and one of them is always out in the parking lot when he comes out to come to church and he refuses to come with him. So he has to drive all the way and back alone.
We asked the sisters if anyone invited them to dinner today. They said no one had, so we told them to come over and eat with us after they called their Mom's. We ate the Mother's day Boston butt from the Young women fundraiser for camp (Sister Owens was planning on Roast Beef but they changed it). We were told it was going to be smoked. It was a really good pork roast but it was not smoked. I'm not sure they know what it really means to smoke meat here in Alabama.
Keep the commandments and read your Book of Mormon every day.
We love y'all,
Elder and Sister Owens
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