Week 99: Homeward bound

Dear Family and Friends,

II John 1:12

Keep the commandments and read your Book of Mormon every day, every day, every day.

We Love Y'all

Elder and Sister Owens

Week 98: It really is coming to an end

Dear Family and Friends,

Monday we were off to make another taxi run.  The sister from a couple weeks ago called us last Friday and asked if we would take her to pay some bills Monday.  We drove up to her house and she was just leaving with an older gentleman in a car and came and told us we were confused, that she asked us to help her next Monday.  So we went home and made a batch of beans to take to President and Sister James and their family.  She had called Sunday morning to tell us she wouldn't make it to church because she had the flu.

Tuesday we drove in beautiful weather for two hours to have our final interview with President Allred.  He said he wished he could ask us to extend.  He counseled us to bear our testimony as often as possible that the Lords needs senior couples in the mission field.  He told us our family and posterity will be blessed beyond our comprehension because of our service here.  Our appointment was at 11:45 AM and we were supposed to stay there until 4:30 to attend district council after two zones had interviews.  The meeting would have been another hour and a half to two hours and then we would have been driving home late and in the dark, so we excused ourselves from the meeting and drove home during the day.  As soon as we got home the sister referred to above called us to remind us we were taking her to pay her bills next Monday and then mentioned that she didn't have any food and asked us if we could pick up some dinner for her and her girls and bring it over.  We told her we would see what we could do.  We gathered up some canned goods from our kitchen and picked up some bread and milk and a pound of hamburger at the store and brought it to her.  She couldn't really hide the disappointment when we gave it to her.  She was planning on some burgers from McDonalds or some fried chicken.  She was a little disappointed that she was going to have to fix her supper.  As we left we saw her girls walking home from the store with their grandmother.  It looked like they were all eating some candy (I love Alabama).

Our non-member "friend" that is going to another church now called and asked if we would go pick up her food bag from the food bank so we went to get that and deliver it right after our walk in the morning. Ollie insisted on taking us to lunch to show her appreciation for all the help we have been to her.  We didn't really think she should do that because she certainly didn't need to spend any of her money (what there is left of it) on us.  She wouldn't let us refuse her offer.  It is a good thing it didn't happen until the end of our mission.  We found out the best pulled pork sandwich we have had in all of Alabama is right here in Demopolis a half mile down the highway from our apartment. We have gotten quite close to an employee at Walmart.  We see her just about every time we are in the store.  She is usually doing the shopping for customer pick up.  She was walking out of the restaurant just as we were sitting down.  We visited for a while and found out Ollie went to school with her mother and Knew several members of her family.  She was just going to teach the preschool children at the Methodist church.  She has about twenty seven kids in the program, but she does have an assistant that helps her.  She said she loves it.  She said she thinks like a three of four year old so she gets along really well with the kids.  As she left she assured us that it is good to do good things but the important thing is that we accept Jesus if we want to get to heaven.  The carpets were cleaned at the church so we couldn't have our coordination meeting with Brother Smith until Thursday.

Thursday morning we went to the church to do some clerk work (we were kicked out by the carpet cleaners on Wednesday because we forgot they were coming).  Sister Owens had a little "changing of the guard" meeting with the sister that is going to be the new Relief Society president.  It was interesting since it is the sister that was released two years ago when Sister Owens was sustained.  She actually knows more about the sisters in the branch than Sister Owens does.  We had Book of Mormon class with the five of us that are left (two of us will be gone after next week, and we are the transportation for two of the remaining three).  It will be interesting to see what happens to the group after we are gone.  We had coordination meeting at the church when we got back to Demopolis.  They had lunch provided twice at the plant where Brother Smith works so he volunteered to bring the food from one of them home with him.  He had his family come to the church to eat supper.  It felt like we were having our meeting in the Smith family kitchen.  The Kirks came toward the end of our meeting to learn how to clean the building.  Zyreonia came with them (their oldest girl) but Ja'Nylia stayed home.  Neither of the girls come with them anymore when they do come to church.

We spent a good share of the day Friday with Ollie.  We picked her up at her hair dresser and took her to the church to work on her budget and check register.  She didn't ask for any help last month so we thought she had just decided not to worry about it since we are going to be gone next month anyway, but she wanted us to go through everything before we leave so she knows where she is with her account.  So we went through all the checks she has used since the first of December and I need to balance her December and January statements.  Then we will get with her next week and write checks to pay the rest of her bills.  It looks like her trust money isn't going to run out until March.  She wants to take the money out of the trust after she pays all her bills and put it in her safe deposit box and only use it in emergencies.  She called the bank while we were with her and said she wanted to find out how much money she had left in her trust and that she wanted to close the trust.  Then she would ask us a question and the lady on the phone was very concerned (understandably) and asked who was with her.  She told her, "The people that are helping me with my money."  Then I assured the lady that she didn't want to close her trust at the present time, but just wanted to know how much money she has so she can be sure she can pay off all her bills.  We could hear the relief in her voice as she told Ollie how much money was in the trust.  We had to get Ollie home so she could go with her husband to get his Veteran's Disability money (she has to sign for him since he is disabled).  Her driver was sleeping so we took them to the bank (it saved her twenty dollars).  The bank is across the street less than a quarter of a mile from her house.  We went to the local library to see the librarian.  She was one of the first persons we met when we came here.  We thought she had retired and just heard that she was still there.  A classy restaurant in town (The Red Barn) recently closed and was for sale).  Miss Connie (Lawson) told us she would love to take over the restaurant (she used to cook there)  When we heard they were open for business again we thought maybe she was there.  We visited with her for a while and found out that after being with the Library for twenty-five years they didn't even offer her the position as Director when it recently came open.  She is staying until August and then she will retire.  She told us she was hurt at first but is now happy with where she is in her life and has her bills paid off and her home is nearly paid for and she is going to be at home in her kitchen where she wants to be and do what she has always wanted to do.

Saturday we spent the day doing P-day chores and packing things that we are not going to be using the next week and a half.

Today was a great day, the sun shined all day. Sister Owens was released as Relief Society president.  This morning when President James extended the release he told her she can do missionary work for a week now. We had a great testimony meeting except people were a little over the top expressing their appreciation for the Owenses and telling how much they will miss us.  After church we couldn't pass up the chance to sit out on our back porch in the sunshine (attachment #1).  We have harvested our cotton tree (attachment #2).  Rather symbolic of the end of our mission here.  It is hard to believe we are only going to go to church here one more Sunday before we go home.

Keep the commandments and read your Book of Mormon every day, every day, every day.

We love y'all,

Elder and Sister Owens

Week 97: It's dang cold here, we're anxious for the southern Idaho banana belt

Dear Family and Friends,

Monday morning it was 31 degrees when we went for our walk.  I think Alabama is trying to make us happy about leaving.  This isn’t the southern climate we have grown accustomed to.  We have a little more time to look for members of the branch with the sisters gone.  Unfortunately we still don’t have much luck finding any.  We did confirm that a couple of them aren’t here anymore though, so we have moved their records out.

Tuesday we found the Nursing home in Tuscaloosa where Deborah Bolden is staying.  She is the non-member that came faithfully to our Book of Mormon class in Greensboro until her family ignored her to the point that she was no longer healthy enough to come out of her apartment.  The state took her family to court and forced them to put her in a nursing home (she has had both her legs amputated above the knee).  When we saw her in the hospital she said she only wanted to go to the nursing home long enough to get better and then wanted to go back to Canterbury Manor.  We had heard that she was very happy at the nursing home.  We found her and went to see her Tuesday (attachment #1).  We told her we heard a rumor that she was happy there and thought we better come and confirm whether or not it was true.  She said she is very happy and doesn’t want to leave.  She loves the staff and they take very good care of her.  She loves the other patients and has made a number of friends.  Her family comes to visit her often and takes her to visit her mother occasionally.  They took her to their home for Thanksgiving dinner.  The neatest thing is that she gets to eat three meals every day.  Her daughters gave the management at Canterbury strict instructions that she was not to eat when they served meals in the community room.  Being wheelchair bound it was very difficult for her to prepare meals for herself and she was hungry all the time.  We would send a lunch home with Brother White after church and he would always take it home and share it with Deborah.  We were so pleased to see that she is happy where she is.

We finally got to go to the temple with our district Tuesday night.  It has been a long time since we got to go.  They changed from going as combined zones to just going as districts a couple transfers ago (12 weeks).  We didn’t really get to go the first transfer because of the transition to missionaries having their own temple clothing (they all had to get their clothing).  The last time when they had a session for the combined zones Sister Owens was to ill to make the trip so it has been a long time.  We were so happy to get to go finally.  It looks like it was our last trip before we go home.

Wednesday we had our District Council which is usually on Tuesday but it was changed because of the temple trip.  We got to the building in Tuscaloosa about two minutes before the meeting started and there was no one there.  We waited a few minutes and decided to call the DL.  Just before we did the phone rang.  It was the DL wanting to know where we were.  I told him we were at the Northport building and were just going to call him and see why they weren’t there.  He said they were meeting in Fayette and apologized for not getting the word out.  Since Fayette is more than an hour out of Tuscaloosa we told him we weren’t going to make the trip as the meeting would be almost over by the time we got there.  We had gotten a couple of prints made for Deborah and went to drop them off to her and had a short visit and told her goodbye and then took the Champions to lunch for Elder Champions birthday.  So the trip to Tuscaloosa wasn’t a waste.

Thursday we had Book of Mormon class.  Two women and two men is all that were there this week besides ourselves.  One usually would not be there but Brother Whites son gave Thomas Harris Brother White’s motorized wheelchair.  He has sores on his leg and is very heavy and has a very hard time walking so he usually stays in his apartment instead of joining us anymore for class.  I’m a little worried that his condition will just get worse with the chair because he has even less incentive to try to loose some of the weight now. 

The stake was planning the second tornado cleanup for Saturday so I started to see if I could get a reliable count for the lunch for the crew.  They finally told me it looked like we should plan on about twenty “so far.”  That wasn’t so good since they originally said they were going to get fifty people for the second round and I had already purchased the meat for that many.  Then I started getting texts telling me how many would be there from different wards.  I told them I was confused now and didn’t know if the texts were about additional people coming or if they were just part of the twenty they said to plan on.  They said it was part of the original twenty and they were just confirming the numbers.  That meant thirteen were confirmed compared to the original fifty or the revised twenty.  So I only thawed two thirds of the meat I had purchased.  Friday night I got a text saying it looked like there would be about thirteen.  I replied that I hoped they came hungry.  Saturday morning as we were starting to assemble the sandwiches I got a text saying they had thirty-five people and more were on the way attachment #2 and #3).  I told them they would have to share as it was a little late now.  Marvelous how the Lord takes care of things.  We had a little loaves and fishes experience.  We figured we had enough meat for about twenty-five people.  We had purchased forty buns.  We used all the buns and still had meat left.  We went to get more buns and ended up with sixty sandwiches.  They said there were about forty-five people there all together.  We didn’t run out of food but there were only a couple sandwiches left when they had finished lunch and they were quickly spoken for.

Today it really hit us how short our time is here.  After today we will only attend church in the branch two more times.  In Branch Council President James said with the sisters gone and now with the Owens leaving it was going to be up to them to find people to bring into the church.  He said they might have to baptize a branch president, they might have to baptize an elders quorum president or a relief society president.  We had our twenty-seven regulars attend church again today.  A drastic difference from the seventy-three we had last week for branch conference.  President Smith, our Elders Quorum president, gave a great follow up talk on tithing after the invitation President Lewis gave everyone last week to pay an honest tithe and a generous fast offering.

Keep the commandments and read your Book of Mormon every day, every day, every day.  And pay your tithing and fast offering.

We love y’all,

Elder and Sister Owens

Week 96: Our first week of lasts

Dear Family and Friends,

This week I went to my last Doctor appointment before we go home.  Wednesday we attended our last Zone Conference.  The Hursts came out a year ago last August.  They served eighteen months so they are going home in February as well.  They are actually going home a week before we leave.  In each Zone conference they have departing missionaries bear "extended" testimonies (everyone bears testimonies but they ask that we limit it to thirty seconds).  President Allred announced that we were having some departing missionary testimonies.  He walked over to where we were sitting next to the Hursts and he looked at the Hursts and said, "You didn't know that I knew you are leaving, did you?  But I know."  He said we would hear from them and then Sister Hurst said, "The Owens are going home too, a week after we leave."  Then the President turned and looked at us all wide eyed and said, "You're going home too!?"  Forgotten in Demopolis, I guess.  When we bore our testimonies sister Hurst told us to go first, "Age before beauty!"  We also made our last trip to Costco to have our tires rotated.  Sister Owens went to her last hair appointment for her cut and perm (which is good, I'm not sure we could afford another one of those).  Friday we had our last weekday RS meeting before we will leave to go home.  And today was our second and last Branch conference for our mission.  It was nice.  We had seventy-three people in attendance.  I'm sure at least thirty of them were stake visitors (they always come and bring their whole family).  The youth met during second hour and filled their room.  There was probably about twenty there.  Six of them were members of our branch.  We did have several people from the branch come that usually don't.  Hopefully it wasn't just for the pot luck after the meeting.  In Branch Presidency meeting President Lewis talked to us about Brother White and said how much he thought of him and how much he misses him.  He said how wonderful the funeral was and how kind the members of his mother's church were to us to let us use their building.  He was impressed that it was such a bonding experience for all of us from the two religions.  President James mentioned that Sister Owens had made a friend of one of the ladies in their church.  Then I told everyone that whoever stayed for the pot luck after church would be eating chicken that the Baptist church cooked for us.  The lady met us at the Walmart parking lot Saturday night and delivered the chicken to us.  They told us earlier in the week that they would only accept cash, that we couldn't use checks or credit cards.  I have to admit I felt a little shady  reaching in to my pocket and pulling out a bunch of cash and giving it to the black lady in the black Malibu there in the parking lot in the dark.  I was afraid someone was going to think a drug deal was going down.  The chicken was awesome and everybody at the dinner was really impressed.

Our busy week didn't turn out to be quite as busy as we anticipated.  Just as we were gearing up for the three meals in three days on the weekend we found out Thursday night that the tornado clean up planned for Saturday was postponed another week.  We were thinking it might be, with all the rain we have had this week.  They are arranging to have a lot of heavy equipment this time to move the big trees.  So we just had chicken enchilada soup for RS on Friday (see attachments) and then got to spend Saturday getting ready for the pot luck on Sunday.  Our attendance lately has been pretty consistently below thirty.  We thought we might have as many as sixty with all the stake visitors.  We were a little overwhelmed with the seventy-three people that were there.  We had tables set up everywhere for the dinner and used all the paper plates we had in the building.  We did have plenty of food for everybody and there were seven pieces of chicken left when it was over.  All the stalwarts usually bring two dishes instead of one to the pot lucks.  There seems to be plenty here that just show up to be fed and don't really contribute anything to the meal.  The Morgans had to leave right after the meeting and weren't able to stay for the dinner.  There was enough chicken to take some to them so they could have some for supper.  They did make a change in the Branch Presidency in our conference today.  Brother Morgan was officially released as first counselor.  Brother Borden was sustained as first counselor and Brother Morgan was sustained as second counselor.  President James said they are probably going to have to call someone from Tuscaloosa to come and serve In the branch as clerk after we leave.  Sister McCleskey has started coming back to church lately and she might be a candidate for Sister Owens' replacement as RS President.

Keep the commandments and read your Book of Mormon every day, every day, every day.

We love y'all,

Elder and Sister Owens