Dear Family and Friends,
The taxi service got another call on Monday (actually it was a text). I have to quote it so you can appreciate it (by the way, I love Alabama). "I hate to ask you, but is there any way you can take Mama to pay her loan today by Dollar General?" Next Text: "Good Morning." We told her we could come by at 10:00. Then we received this text: "She needs to stop by another loan place to borrow some money to pay back that loan and then stop by the bank to get the money out." Next text: "To pay the loan back." I knew she wasn't going to get a loan but they were totally shocked when they turned them down for the loan to pay back the first loan. So we drove them to the original loan company so they could talk to them about making arrangements to make payments. They agreed to accept payments each month for the next four months until the balance was paid. Then we took them to the bank to get the money for the first payment to take back to the finance company. On the way to the first loan company she told us this caught them by surprise. She had already splurged and spent her money and now they are behind (???? IT WAS JANUARY 6TH). These poor folks! We helped them move the first weekend we were here. They have moved a total of five times in the past twenty-two months. We don't know if they will be allowed to stay where they are until after we leave to go home or not. The branch members are the ones that move them every time. They are related to one of the richest white families in the area and they have basically disowned them. There really are more quick cash loan institutions here in Demopolis than there are Baptist churches. And that's a lot.
Tuesday we thought we had a doctor appointment in Tuscaloosa. Luckily, I checked the calendar Monday night to confirm the time and found that it wasn't until the next week (that explained why we didn't receive a text reminder of our appointment—which we did receive on Wednesday). We were going to have a discussion with Morris but he forgot he was meeting with us and was out of town. We had a couple of dry days so we took advantage of the opportunity and emptied out the wash tubs that Sister Patterson loaned to us last spring to grow some tomatoes in (nothing ever grew).
Wednesday was transfers. We don't find out if they need us to transport missionaries until they call us to tell us on Tuesday. We didn't get a call so we didn't have to go. We had some meat mix left over from the pot luck last week so we made some burritos and took them over to Ollie. She was excited to get them. They sat down and ate them right after we left and finished them off the next day. We had a good discussion with Morris after our coordination meeting with Brother Smith. Morris seems to be very sincere. After he said he wanted to join the church a couple of weeks ago in second hour combined meeting, President James explained that he needed to learn all about the church and the commitment he would be making and then he could be baptized if he wanted to. He was very excited to get the Book of Mormon and to learn about the restoration. He currently attends the Church of Christ and sings in the choir and writes music and poetry for the church. He gave the closing prayer after our discussion and was very sincere. He committed to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it and about the restoration and the prophet Joseph Smith, and said he wanted us to pick him up for church Sunday (another one without a car—sigh).
Thursday we went to another funeral. A lady that went for dialysis treatments on the same shift with Brother White past away last week. Her sister is a member of the branch. It was a Baptist funeral and was quite different than Brother White's funeral. The choir consisted of three women (probably the only members of the choir that attended the service). The congregation sang along with them when they sang. There were three pastors. One read from the Old Testament and one read from the New Testament and one gave the eulogy. He got so loud during the eulogy that he made the baby in the congregation cry. A couple of the family members were so distraught that they couldn't be consoled. They were weeping uncontrollably. After the service Ruthie (the sister that is a member) didn't go over to the cemetery (next to the church) because she isn't in to going to gravesides, so we got to visit with her for a few minutes before we went to Book of Mormon class in Greensboro. Class just isn't the same without Brother White. There were five of us there and we decided we were going to start over because Come Follow Me is on the Book of Mormon this year. We had gotten to the middle of Alma. We read the introduction and the testimonies at the front of the Book this week. The manager of the facility came in at the end of class and brought us a Danish ring from Panera Bread. She said she wondered if we would keep coming after Brother White died and she was glad we still came. We had been wondering if they would still let us come since only one person from the facility actually attends. We bring all the rest of them with us. Everybody that lives there scatters when they see us coming, even though we invite anyone to stay and read with us that wants to.
Friday we arranged to take Beth and Ollie down to Thomasville to their favorite Chinese Restaurant for lunch. They were both so excited to be able to go. Beth lives alone so she is always happy to go anywhere. Ollie goes crazy with all the men that live in her house and is just as anxious to go anywhere whenever she can. They both seemed to be having the time of their lives and appreciated it so much. We were a little worried for a while because the bad storm was forecast to be here sometime Friday but it didn't show up until Saturday. Ollie doesn't like to try to go anywhere in the rain because she always has to get in and out of the car from her wheelchair.
Saturday was hunker down day. Friday we got emails and texts and facebook messages from the Stake President and the Mission President and the Zone leader all warning of the severe weather coming to our area. The radar showed the entire state being overrun with the storm coming from the west. It was supposed to start during the night Friday but didn't actually start until around noon Saturday. There were tornado warnings all around the state including here in Demopolis. We thought maybe we were going to experience some pretty severe weather before we leave for home. There were three people that were killed outside of Tuscaloosa and we heard that someone was killed up in the Huntsville area. We were very protected here. As far as we know there wasn't any damage or injury in this area. No one in the branch was hurt. It was our turn to clean the branch building and we thought we would be there through most of the storm but we actually got finished before the storm came. All we had here was a terrific downpouring of rain for a few hours.
We got up to mostly cloudy skies this morning but by the time church was over the sun was shining. Thunder storms are forecast for the next several days and then light rain on Friday (the forecast seems to always change as the days go by). We got a text early from Morris advising that he wouldn't be able to attend church today because he has to sing in the choir in his current church. We were disappointed and told him we would miss him but are looking forward to meeting with him tomorrow night. We didn't get a response but are hoping things are still good. Our speaker today was from Tuscaloosa. She shared her testimony with us and told us she was just baptized a few weeks ago in December. Then we realized she was the one our zone leader had been working with for quite some time and was asking all of us in the District to pray for. It was neat to hear about it from the other side. Since the only men in the branch today, other than myself and President James, were our high councilman and our speaker's non-member friend, we decided to combine Priesthood and Relief Society. It was Brother Smith's turn to teach Priesthood but he had to work so I was taking a turn and Sister Owens was supposed to teach Relief Society, but she ended up conducting the meeting and left most of the teaching to me. She said she was going to make lots of comments but she really didn't. There was a lot of good participation from those who attended, though. We discussed Elder Bednar's message on being watchful unto prayer. We have our branch conference next week and President James said he wants to have a pot luck. So we have lunch for RS meeting Friday, lunch for another clean up crew from the tornado a couple weeks ago on Saturday (which is supposed to be a bigger crew than last time). And then the pot luck on Sunday. Busy week coming. We have to tell you: we were so impressed with the baked chicken they had at Brother White's funeral we wanted to find out where the Baptist ladies got it so we can order some for the pot luck for Branch Conference. We contacted the lady that was in charge of the food and found out that a lady in the church baked it for them. Sister Owens asked if she might be willing to bake some for us. We haven't heard back yet. We both had the thought that the Baptists will have the chance to get rid of the entire Mormon congregation if we aren't careful.
Keep the commandments and read your Book of Mormon every day, every day, every day.
We love y'all,
Elder and Sister Owens
Rob and Suzie
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