Dear Family and Friends,
Monday we took Brother White for his MRI that should tell his new surgeon what might need to be done to improve his situation with his neck. I really can’t get started again on the Alabama medical community so I won’t. Suffice it to say we were supposed to arrive at 10:00 for a 10:30 appointment and when the waiting room had cleared out and filled up with new patients I went to the desk and asked when they were going to take him back for his test. They got his sheet out and called the MRI people and, from hearing our side of the conversation, it seemed obvious that they did not have anything scheduled for him. She hung up and said they would be calling him back soon. The technician was very understanding when we finally went back and said he didn’t know what might have happened but the test was scheduled for 11:30 on their system. The surgeon originally told us we could have the test done in Tuscaloosa and the results would be sent to him in Birmingham. Then they scheduled it in Birmingham. I had to call and make them cancel it and schedule the test in Tuscaloosa. But I digress. I wasn’t going to get off on the medical community here, so I won’t.
Tuesday we were back to Tuscaloosa with the sisters for District Council. We have a new district leader this transfer. He is Elder Bailey. He transferred in from the Florida Mission in July when they combined the missions. We had some good training on helping people keep commitments. We had another lesson with Otis in the evening and the sisters reviewed the lesson on the restoration. It is really hard to determine how much the people here really grasp about what we are teaching them. They never seem to answer questions directly. They are so vague in their answers it is hard to tell if they know the concept we are trying to get them to understand. He always tells us he feels really good about what we talk about as we are leaving, but never mentions anything in his prayers about wanting to know if it is true. I guess we will see how it turns out.
Wednesday was off to Bessemer with the sisters for interviews with the Mission President. It was great, as always, to visit with President Allred. We always have to be sure we are not late. No matter where we are on the schedule, he is always ready for us at our appointed time. He is very good at keeping on schedule. We didn’t quite make it ten minutes early but we did have five minutes to spare when we arrived after our two hour and ten minute trip from Demopolis. We were kind of excited. My brother, Kelly, and his wife, Laurel, were arriving to spend a day with us. They drove down from Tennessee and arrived in Demopolis about five minutes after we got back from Birmingham. We got to have a nice visit with them that evening.
Thursday Kelly and Laurel picked us up and we drove to Greensboro. They got to see the catfish ponds (attachment #1) on the way (Greensboro is the catfish capital of Alabama). They used to grow cotton in the state and then went to soy beans and, in recent years, replaced many of the soy bean fields with catfish ponds. When we got to Greensboro we toured Magnolia Grove, one of the antebellum homes in the area. The man that lived there was the commanding officer of the group that volunteered for the suicide mission to sink the Merrimac in Santiago bay in Cuba to bottleneck the harbor and keep the ships from sailing against the states in the Spanish American war. None of the crew died although they were captured and imprisoned for a time. They came home as heroes. We took Kelly and Laurel to Eutaw for lunch at West End Grocery for a true Alabama experience. A member of the branch does all the cooking there and she changed the menu for Thursday just for us. We had her famous chicken pot pie, succotash, mac and cheese, and peach cobbler. The flies came free of charge and there were plenty of them. It was definitely a true Alabama experience for them. On the way back to Greensboro we stopped along the way at Owens Circle and took some pictures (attachment #2 and #3) After lunch there was time for a twenty minute nap at the local park (attachment 4) before we went to Book of Mormon class (attachment #5). They decided to feed all of us fish and chicken this week. Fine time for that to finally come through. It was really neat to have Kelly and Laurel meet some of the people that we have come to know while we have been here. They got to meet the Morgens and Sister James Wednesday night but we missed President James.
Friday we took Vanessa Walker (our non-member friend) to get signed up for some food and clothing services at the Salvation Army. It turned out to be a little more complicated than we originally thought. We were making a few trips back and forth between her house and the store and the distribution center but we finally got it done. On the way she told us she is at a point where she wants to get God more in her life. She said she would like to come to church with us. I told her she should meet with the sisters and have them explain a little bit about the church. Since we had her right in the car we just called the sisters and had them talk to her and set up an appointment. We had an appointment with Otis later in the day and just as we drove up he came out with his phone in his hand and said he was just trying to call us. His friend’s girlfriend’s dad had just died five minutes before and he was with them so he needed to cancel.
Saturday we did chores and got some food ready for the Potluck on Sunday. In the evening we had our appointment with Otis and told him about tithing and fast offering. He said he was anxious to pay his tithing and fast offering. Of course he also told us he just quit his job that day as well. It sounded like there were some influences there that he just doesn’t want to have in his life right now, so he decided to quit instead of being exposed to them right now. Vanessa called and told us she really enjoyed the bible study with the sisters and asked if we would pick her up for church the next morning.
We called Brother White from Otis’s house during our appointment to have him stop and pick up Otis for church. Sunday morning we were unloading food for the potluck and Otis drove up in his sister’s car and said he didn’t need Brother White to pick him up so we called Brother White and told him. As of Book of Mormon class on Thursday there were three people from Greensboro that would be coming with him to church. He ended up driving in alone again. His dialysis treatments start at 5:00 AM again like they used to. That sounds hard but he really seems to be doing quite a bit better since they changed his schedule. He is a lot more rested and seems to be in much better spirits. We hoped to increase our attendance a little bit with the potluck today but we only had thirty-six people there (last week we had forty-four). The Morgans were out of town so everybody brought a little extra since they wouldn’t be bringing anything and we ended up with way more food than we needed (but we always do). Vanessa and Otis were both there and Vanessa got to visit with Ollie and it might be that she will be able to do a little work for Ollie as a care giver. We are going to see how that develops. After church we went with the sisters to teach the restoration to a single man they met this week. We stopped by there a few months ago and his mother was quite rude to us. He had a pamphlet and Book of Mormon that we left with him then and his mother had thrown them both away. He seemed to be happy that we were there again and we have another appointment with him later this week.
Keep the commandments and read your Book of Mormon every day.
We love y’all,
Elder and Sister Owens
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