Dear Family and Friends,
Sister James finally got back to us about a family we were helping for Thanksgiving. It seems the mother doesn’t really share much with Sister Owens so Sister James was reaching out to her to find out what she and her family wanted for Thanksgiving. Turns out they just wanted a small turkey to cook and some frozen mac and cheese and something to drink. So that’s what we took over to them. The sisters called us that evening and told us that they were both being transferred. We were all pretty sure Sister Allen would stay one more transfer just so they could familiarize the new sister with the area. She said she asked the Zone leader several times if it was a joke, but he assured her that she actually was leaving. We were a little bummed and started wondering if they would send sisters or elders or would possibly not replace them at all.
Tuesday was P-day for the sisters because of transfers being on Wednesday. Sister Snarr is going home and has never had catfish yet. We decided to pick them up and take them to Greensboro (the catfish capital of Alabama) to have catfish before she went home (attachment 1). On the way there we asked them what they thought would be done with the area as far as missionaries to replace them. We talked awhile about it but of course nobody knows until they tell us at transfers. We were a little concerned about how we would get luggage and bikes for two sisters to transfers and the same for two coming back. We bought a little cartop carrier several months ago when they asked us to take luggage back for another sister in Tuscaloosa but ended up not needing to use it. So we were going to find out if it would do the job. On the way home the sisters received an email that said if they were receiving this email no missionaries will be replacing you in your area and you will need to do some additional things to the apartment before leaving for transfers. That answered our question about who might replace them. We are now without proselyting missionaries in Demopolis (things do change). Neither of them had ever been to the Gaineswood Mansion (attachment 2), and neither have we, so we took them over and went on the tour of the home before we took them home to pack.
Our luggage problem was solved. Since no missionaries were coming back to Demopolis the sisters had to drive their car to transfers. Since there was no one to bring back, there really wasn’t any reason for us to go. We have been planning to go since the beginning of the transfer because we knew Sister Snarr was going home and we intended to see some Elders and Sister that we have known who are going home so we decided we were going anyway. We told the sisters they didn’t have to worry about fitting everything into their car because they could put some of their luggage in our car. We took one suitcase for each of them in our car and Sister Snarr had a big bag of clothing she was not taking home that she left with us to take to the church or the second hand store along with a couple boxes and some shoes that a friend gave to them a few days ago. We just kept it in the car while we went to transfers. It was a good thing we went. Sister Allen was transferred to Clanton to be in a trio before one of the sisters there goes home next week. They did not come to transfers and there was no way for Sister Allen to get to Clanton. They asked if we would be willing to take her to Clanton before we went home. We were happy to do so but we did not bring our bike rack so they had to have some elders drop her bike off for her.
Thursday we were going to have the sisters over for Thanksgiving dinner so we just spent the morning preparing the meal for us and a Sister in the branch and her son who we were bringing plates to. We cooked the turkey in our borrowed roaster for as long as the instructions said to for the weight of the turkey. We got the plates ready for Sister Jones and her son about 1:30 and carved the turkey and were lucky enough to find enough of it that was actually cooked to take to Sister Jones. Then we came home and microwaved some for us to eat for dinner and we will cook the rest of it some time in the next few days.
We left Friday for an overnight senior couple activity. The Hursts that used to be in the same district with us invited us to go down to Pensacola, Florida to see the Naval Aviation Museum (attachment 3) and the ocean—of course (attachment 4). Their son from Utah called them and said he was coming to see them for Thanksgiving but he wasn’t going to get there until 9:00 Thursday night. Hursts have a daughter that lives in Florida so we thought we were going to be kind of intruding on their family holiday and told them we didn’t need to go. They weren’t going to see their daughter (she is actually in another city quite a ways away) and they assured us they wanted us to come. So their son chauffeured the four of us for the whole trip. It sure was a change of scenery for my walk on Saturday morning (attachment 5).
Sunday there were quite a few of our members out of town for the holiday and several that probably didn’t get up after Alabama lost to Auburn yesterday. The fourteen of us that were there had a very nice testimony meeting. After President James stood up to close the meeting three more people excused themselves and said they wanted to bear their testimony. Sister Morgan told Sister Owens that the spirit she felt today was the spirit she felt when her dad took her to the Mormon church the first time. That was the reason she joined the church.
Keep the commandments and read your Book of Mormon every day, every day, every day.
We love y’all,
Elder and Sister Owens
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