Week 25: We have windows, wait a minute; I've lost my wife!

Dear Family and Friends,

Here we sit writing this email more than twenty feet from our kitchen table (in a whole different room, attachment

#2).  We couldn't get that far from it last week without going outside. I can't believe how different you feel when light shines through a window in the morning.  I had forgotten what that is like.  We love our new home.  Okay, it's a little old, but we love being here. We have hardwood floors throughout except the kitchen and bathroom.  They are well aged and seem to have a lot of gum on them (chewing not pine).  Single pane windows nailed or painted shut (but we don't care because it's still very hot outside).  We have central air and heat.  Sister Owens has only seen two tiny spiders since we got here (you know, the ones you squish with your thumb).  I am sorry to report, however, that we saw our first cock roach on our second day in the apartment.  We never saw a single one in the garage.  Sister Owens still won't walk barefoot in the house.  The best thing is that the bathroom is down the hall instead of next to the kitchen table.  Suffice it to say we are very happy here.

The week didn't start off so well.  We drove 110 miles to our appointment at Costco to buy new tires and when we arrived they informed us they didn't have our tires in stock.  We were going to go on Saturday but the sale didn't start until Sunday.  We asked how they could be out of stock when the sale just started the day before.  They told us they changed the date and started the sale on Wednesday the week before.  So they ordered the tires online for us and said they would have them the next day.  We had Zone Conferenced on Thursday so we set an appointment for that afternoon to have them installed.  Aside from the extra trip it worked out pretty well.  The tires were eighty-five dollars cheaper than they quoted the first time.  Another tender mercy.

We had an awesome zone conference this week.  We love our mission president and his wife.  They are so good at building up the missionaries and inspiring them (and us).  Everyone was so excited for us that we were getting a new apartment.  The president always starts the conference by having missionaries share mission miracles.  I thought about telling them how we came to rent our apartment but didn't say anything.  Then the president told everyone that the Owens had a miracle.  It really was a miracle.  We still had no prospects when they submitted our 30-day notice.  The housing coordinator had exhausted all of his resources and hadn't come up with anything.  We ended up renting a unit that we had previously told the rental agency we really weren't interested in(sight unseen).  But he felt we really would be quite happy with it and convinced us to look at it. We both felt right about it when we first walked in.

They told us when we looked at the unit that they would have it all cleaned up when we were ready to move in.  I guess we are still having a hard time understanding what people mean by what they say.  The place was filthy.  Luckily, two senior couples came from the mission office and the sister missionaries and a sister from the branch was here to help us clean the apartment before we moved in.  We did have one minor wrinkle.  They promised they would have a washer and dryer installed and they did not.  We didn't finish the laundry at the garage until about ten thirty the night we moved.  Hopefully they will get them installed by this weekend.

We spent Saturday getting moved in after spending Friday cleaning.  We still have a whole room that we haven't put anything in except empty suitcases and boxes (attachment #3).  The only thing so far that has proved to be a challenge is that we keep losing track of each other.  That never happened when we only had one big room for a house.

Attachment #1 is our spacious living room.

We hope y'all are excited for conference next month.  We certainly are.  Sister Owens informed me that the rumors are flying in Relief Society.  We know it will be a great conference.

Keep the commandments and read your Book of Mormon

We love y'all,

Elder and Sister Owens

PS.  Brother Kirk passed the sacrament today after being ordained last week.  They had their interviews after church for their recommends to go to the temple to do baptisms for the dead.  We will probably be going with them in a couple weeks.  The gospel is pretty exciting.

Week 24: Goodbye garage, hello three bedroom duplex

Dear Family and Friends,

Well it took, basically, another week for me to kick my lingering cough after my cold.  I didn’t feel all that bad but sounded horrible whenever I coughed.  I didn’t want to be around anyone when it happened.  Our housing coordinator was going to drive to Demopolis Tuesday to help us find suitable housing but called Tuesday morning and said he was coming Wednesday instead.  The one thing we did Tuesday was go to see a duplex to see if it might work to move into.  It was the same agency that had the first one we looked at that was totally depressing to us, but we hoped it would be a little nicer.  He called before he arrived to tell us he thought we would be happier in the one over on Colonial Circle, which was next door to the first one we looked at.  We looked at the one we were going to see and were even more depressed.  He said he was sure the other place was the place for us and that we would like it.  We followed him over to look at it but all the while we were sure we weren’t going to like it.  Well it was the best thing we have seen since we have been here, that is available to rent.  We called Elder Barfuss and told him he did not need to come to Demopolis, because we would be happy to live in this unit……It is going to be a little difficult to get used to being in rooms with windows after so long.  We move next Friday and we have been pretty excited about it all week.  We will be living on the left side (see attachment). It has a back yard with a wooden porch and a patio.

You all probably heard about hurricane Gordon making landfall this past week.  We were just fine.  We weren’t really affected by it in Demopolis until Wednesday and Thursday.  We had some very heavy rain and some pretty good winds.  It was pretty awesome to realize that the storm was several hundred miles to the southwest of us and we still had so much rain and wind from it.  Our district council was moved back to Wednesday this week instead of Tuesday so we thought we were going to have another really fun drive from Demopolis to Tuscaloosa in the rain but Demopolis was as far north as it got so we missed all the heavy rain that day.  It was actually a pleasant day for driving.  We had a great district council meeting.  It is always a neat experience to meet with the missionaries and witness how mature and wise they are and how much they have the spirit with them.  We have a brand new district leader.  I commented to him after the meeting that the district had a very interesting mix of missionaries.  He told me President Sainsbury called him to be a district leader and then told him that there would be quite a few sisters in this district.  We have two senior couples, including us (they had a new couple come and they were assigned to the Tuscaloosa YSA to replace the Johnsons who went home in May). Then there are four sets of sisters and the District Leader and his companion.  We have almost more sisters in our district now than we had in my whole mission in Arizona.

Thursday we went to Book of Mormon class in Greensboro and missed a pretty good downpour in Demopolis again.  When we got back to Demopolis it stopped just long enough to drop off the sisters and Sister Jones and then came pretty hard again.  It pretty well drenched us coming from the car to the front door when we got home.  We have noticed we have become pretty much the umbrella dispensers of the area.  We keep buying one little one for each of us and then someone uses one to get from the car to their door and we pretty much don’t see it anymore.  The sisters told us just the other day how glad they are that they have our umbrella when it rains.

Friday we took the sisters and sister Jones and went back to Greensboro to visit Horseshoe Farms.  It is a non-profit community center that caters to members of the community that seem to have mental and emotional needs.  Their major funding comes from a Doctor in town and a few other generous donors as well as some grants that they are able to acquire.  They solicit graduate students from all around the country that are going into the medical field to come and spend a one year internship there.  They have classes of all kinds and sponsor a health clinic and counseling services, all free of charge.  Sister Owens attended the women’s class while we were there and the moderator never really got to say anything.  She had everyone introduce themselves and they took up all the time explaining what was causing the stress in their lives that prompted them to attend the class.  It is housed in the old Greensboro hotel that was built in the late 1800s. While Sister Owens was attending the class I was sitting in the community area and a young fellow came up to me and looked at my name tag and asked if I could answer some questions he had about our religion. I told him I would be happy to and he wanted me to explain why we believe if we go to Heaven that we will actually become Gods.  I told him to understand that it would be necessary to understand who God is and what He is like.  We started to discuss it and he promptly changed the subject and wanted to know why we believe that women that go to heaven will have children throughout eternity.  We started to talk about that and one of the interns came over to ask him if he was going to come and play the bean bag toss game with him.  He excused himself and went to toss the bean bag. It was a fun little experience.  The sisters were sitting there waiting for me to start to squirm.  They told me I did pretty good.  Sweet Sister Borden grabbed me by the hand and took me to introduce me to two different interns and told them I was the cook around the house and then laughed and laughed.  Sister Owens had mentioned at Book of Mormon class that she has me cook and she does dishes at our house (Sister Borden thought that was really amusing).

We had a visitor Friday night while we were brushing our teeth (see attachment).  I won’t go into detail about what Sister Owens did when she saw him, but I never thought she could actually jump that high.  Needless to say, he ended up sorry that he made an appearance. When we left for church this morning we noticed another visitor under the eave about three feet from our front door (see attachment).  I tried to get Sister Owens to hold a quarter by it so you could see how big it is in the picture but she refused.  If he knows what is good for him, he will stay outside.

The highlight of our week was after Church today when Cedric received the Aaronic Priesthood and was ordained a Priest.  As shy as he is, I’m sure he was overwhelmed when President James told him afterwards that he was glad he would be able to help now with passing the sacrament (Cedric has partaken of the sacrament twice already). And then he said they would have him study up on the sacrament prayer in the D&C so he would be able to say it without any trouble.  Nothing showed on the outside but on the inside I’m sure his eyes were about as big as silver dollars.  I probably shouldn’t have said it, but I patted him on the back and said not to worry because everyone would have their eyes shut when he says the prayer.

Remember Conference is coming the first weekend of October.

Keep the commandments and read your Book of Mormon (EVERY DAY)

We Love y’all,

Elder and Sister Owens

Week 23: Where did the week go?

Dear Family and Friends,

We went to see Brother White Monday. He is doing okay but is taking a long time getting his strength back. The doctor told him the operation would be very hard on him so its not unexpected that it is a lengthy recovery. He has a cousin that has been coming just about every day and checking on him and spending a few hours with him.  Sister Owens was still finishing up getting over her cold.

Tuesday morning we picked up the sisters at 6:00 AM and headed to Birmingham for our Zone temple session (see attachment).  We get to go every other transfer (about every three months) so we really look forward to it.  Unfortunately I felt my sore throat coming on as we were driving there in the morning.  By the time we got home my cold was well on the way.

In the doctor’s follow up visit last week with Brother White he (the doctor) said he wanted someone to call him in a week.  Brother White told me he would prefer that I make the call.  I wanted Brother White to be with me when I called incase there were any questions that he would have to answer.  Sister Owens was just getting over her cold and mine was just starting but we drove to Greensboro to make the call to the doctor.  The last thing we wanted to do was give Brother White our germs, so we opened and closed the door with our elbow and didn’t touch anything while we were there and kept our distance from Brother White.  Of course when we called the doctor we were transferred to his nurse and it went to voice mail.  The message said making multiple calls would not get our call returned sooner.  Of course they never did return the call and have not called Brother White all week either.  We have been soooo impressed with the medical services since we have been in Alabama (that is totally sarcastic incase anyone isn’t sure).  We came home and I promptly became very serious about my cold.

We spent Thursday and Friday in the apartment trying to get me over the cold. And when Saturday came I still wasn’t all that much better.  A couple weeks ago I received an email informing us of our cleaning assignment at the temple scheduled for this Saturday.  We were the only ones from the Branch that went last time and we still only have six current recommend holders in the branch besides ourselves.  President and Sister James are gone this week and one couple is to old to make the trip.  Sister Shreeve found out a convert from her first area was being sealed on Saturday and got permission from President Sainsbury to go with us so she could be there for the sealing.  I was not over my cold yet so we decided we were not going to help clean the temple but since the sisters couldn’t go to the sealing if we didn’t take them, we said we would drive them there and then bring them home after the sealing.

Today I thought I better stay home from church because I’m still coughing and when I do, people look at me like I have the plague.  I stayed home and it was a good thing I did,  I coughed more today than I have all week, but things are loosening up and I think I am just about done with it.  There were only twenty-two people at church today because so many were staying home because they were either sick or they didn’t want to get sick.  Whatever this is, it seems to be getting everyone in the whole area.  A lot of people think it is caused by the smoke and pollen that is here now from the California wild fires.

I read some conference talks form President Packer while I was home today.  Here is a quote from one of them referring to D&C 124:

During a very difficult time, the Lord gave the sternest warning that I know of in all scripture. It had to do with the building of the Nauvoo Temple. The Saints knew from experience that to proceed to build a temple would bring terrible persecution, so they delayed. The Lord extended the time and said, “If you do not these things at the end of the appointment ye shall be rejected as a church, with your dead, saith the Lord your God.”

Often overlooked in that revelation is a marvelous promise: “If my people will hearken unto my voice, and unto the voice of my servants whom I have appointed to lead my people, behold, verily I say unto you, they shall not be moved out of their place.”

Remember this promise; hold on to it. It should be a great comfort to those struggling to keep a family together in a society increasingly indifferent to, and even hostile toward, those standards which are essential to a happy family.

The promise is a restatement of what the Lord told the multitude: “Blessed are ye if ye shall give heed unto the words of these twelve whom I have chosen from among you to minister unto you, and to be your servants.”

I repeat the promise that those who hearken to the voice of these men whom the Lord has raised up “shall not be moved out of their place.”

But the promise was followed with this caution: “But if they will not hearken to my voice, nor unto the voice of these men whom I have appointed, they shall not be blest.”

The Twelve Apostles

October 1996

General Conference

Boyd K. Packer

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1996/10/the-twelve-apostles?lang=eng&verse=#p

Another interesting thing he said:

President Harold B. Lee told me once of a conversation he had with Elder Charles A. Callis of the Quorum of the Twelve. Brother Callis had remarked that the gift of discernment was an awesome burden to carry. To see clearly what is ahead and yet find members slow to respond or resistant to counsel or even rejecting the witness of the apostles and prophets brings deep sorrow.

The Twelve Apostles

October 1996

General Conference

Boyd K. Packer

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1996/10/the-twelve-apostles?lang=eng&verse=#p

Conference is coming in a month!!

We are planning on the coming week being a much better week.  Keep the faith.

Keep the commandments and read your Book of Mormon

We love y’all,

Elder and Sister Owens

Week 22: We are just sick and tired

Dear Family and Friends,

What a week this has been! It is really nice that we have had a little break from the heat,  It hasn’t been too much over 90 degrees most days this week.  We finished up our last two apartment inspections on Monday. It is nice to be able to serve that way and meet the different missionaries and get to know them a little better and learn a little about their life at home.  We were kind of looking forward to taking a little break on Tuesday after all the inspections last week but it ended up being a get ready for Wednesday day. Wednesday was the first weekday Relief Society meeting since we have been here.  We spent a good share of the day getting supplies and setting up at the branch building.  Then we had to work out the logistics of getting the sisters there for the meeting the next day. We only have five sisters in the branch that can drive or have vehicles that they can drive. One of them, Sister James, let us know Tuesday that she was not going to be able to come.

Brother White had to go back to Tuscaloosa to follow up with the surgeon this week and he was going to let us know when his appointment would be, because we told him we would take him there. He called and guess what.  His appointment was 1:00 PM Wednesday, the exact time of the Relief Society meeting.  Long story short: we picked up one sister in Demopolis (she just wanted to go along for the ride so she can be out of her house) and went to Greensboro at 10:30 to pick up the one sister that lives there that wanted to come to the meeting.  Then we had to get them back to Demopolis early so I could get back to Greensboro in time to pick up Brother White to take him to Tuscaloosa. They helped Sister Owens set up for the meeting and Brother White and I went to Tuscaloosa. We kept moving from room to room to sit and wait. He went to the seventh floor to the surgeon’s office and they sent him to the main floor to get an x-ray.  It had been six days since his surgery and he could hardly stay upright with his one leg and they had him walking all over the building.  We finally got a chair for him to go back up to see the surgeon.  We were just on our way out of town at 4:00 PM when Sister Owens called to see where we were.  Their meeting ended 3:00. I told her we would be at least another hour before I would get to Demopolis.  We got to Greensboro and I dropped Brother White off at his apartment and headed for Demopolis. Half way there I looked up ahead and thought I saw a house in the middle of the road. After another half mile I saw that it was a house in the middle of the road.  I was too frustrated with the whole thing to even think about taking any pictures.  Of course I was the first car that got there and had to wait.  The cross road comes in at an angle and the house movers were trying to make the short right turn.  It did not work. The tractor was clear across the road in the borrow pit on the left side of the road and the house stretched across the entire road and still extended back down the road they were turning from half again the width of the road they were turning onto.  After what seemed like about a 30 or 40 point turn, they finally got moving down the road and, of course, we all had to follow along behind at about 20 MPH. It was a state highway with curves and hills all the way and the load and tractor had to be at least 70 feet. They finally stopped about 2 or 3 miles down the road and had us all pass them. I got to Demopolis about 5:15. They changed Coordination meeting from 5:00 to 6:00 for us.  The ladies that were waiting for their ride home said they weren’t riding anywhere with me until I got some rest.  The Branch mission leader just left to take his son to Eutaw and I did not want to drive to Greensboro and back in the dark, so I told them if they wanted to get home we were leaving “now.” We left for Greensboro and got back about 6:45 for Coordination meeting. We finally got home a little after 8:00 and I got the car parked, which is a fete in and of itself now that there is our landlady and 4 renters that live in the house in front of our garage home.  When we got in the house the phone rang.  The sisters locked their car keys in the church.

The meeting was a great success.  Seventeen sisters attended (our Sacrament meeting attendance is between thirty-five and forty lately).  Two of them were non-members.

Thursday we got to drive back to Greensboro for Book of Mormon class.  We baked some rice pudding and made some cookies to take with us. We took the sisters early so they could teach Christopher another lesson while we doubled back to pick up Sister Borden and Sister Nixon. We hoped Brother White would be there but he had dialysis that day later than usual and he didn’t make it.  I took some cookies and pudding up to his room before we left to start taking everybody home.

Friday was our turn to clean the branch building.  Before we went to clean we spent some time driving around town looking for a place to rent.  The mission housing coordinator has given the thirty day notice that we are moving but we haven’t found any available housing yet (other than places that are more depressing than our garage).  We found some houses that we did not know existed in Demopolis.  It was like driving through the neighborhood that stretches around the golf course in Pocatello, only a lot more green.  We sort of wish we hadn’t seen them, knowing where the people live that we are working with.  We are a little anxious about where we will be in a month.  Sister Owens started to feel kind of sick while we were at the church to do the cleaning.  She has come down with a pretty good cold now.  Saturday we got a call from two other sisters in the branch telling us they won’t be to church Sunday because they have sore throats and colds.

If you haven’t already watched it, be sure to sit down with your family and watch President Nelson’s testimony of the Savior on the Church website.  It is awesome.

Church was a little sparse today we only had 31 people by the time the opening hymn was over. Apparently several people came down with colds besides Sister Owens.  We won’t say who came to church today and said, “Oh, those are all the symptoms that Lucy had when I brought her on Wednesday. But I kept her in the primary room to play.”  I got to drive to Bessemer tonight for Stake Priesthood meeting (another two hour drive one way).  I’m afraid I will feel like there is nothing to do tomorrow since we won’t be on the road again until the temple trip Tuesday (two hours and fifteen minutes one way).  Then we get to go again Saturday afternoon to help clean the temple.  Since it’s a holiday weekend, I suspect we may be the only ones there from the branch again.

We have been calling Brother White for three days and finally reached him tonight after Priesthood meeting.  He is not doing good and had to go back to the hospital.  I asked him to tell me what happened and he just said he would have to call me back.  We haven’t heard from him yet.  He did say he is back home.  We will have to go over tomorrow and check on him.

The work goes on and the Lord supports us through it all.

Keep the commandments and read your Book of Mormon (Lookin good Pahoran)

Love,

Elder and Sister Owens

PS:  Brother White just called and said he is alright.  We are going to go see him in the morning.

Week 21: Really good news, and really great news

Dear Family and Friends,

It was a very busy week this week.  It is the end of the transfer and we had our eight apartments to inspect.  Only two left to do tomorrow. They closed one of the areas where we had an inspection last transfer so we got another one to do this time in Fayette.  So we got to see some more of Alabama that we had not yet seen.  Friday was our day for Selma and Greenville.  They used to have elders in Greenville and they put sisters there this last transfer. The sisters at the apartment told us we were only twenty-three miles from the fried chicken voted best in the state of Alabama (how could we pass that up). So our day Friday was a little longer than it actually had to be, but it was well worth it.  The fried pickles were very good and we were not disappointed in the fried chicken at all. The sisters told us about one of their contacts.  They said they cannot tract at their apartment building.  They decided to stop at Walmart one night and do some store contacting. They usually just tell people about the Book of Mormon and try to set an appointment with them but with one lady they just told her they are sharing the message that there are prophets on the earth again and that God has revealed additional scripture through them in addition to the bible.  The lady said she had noticed a lot of inconsistencies in the bible and she would be very interested in learning about this new scripture.  They set an appointment and found out she is their next door neighbor at the apartment building.  She is very interested in the lessons they have been teaching her and she is married with a little baby.  Her husband wants to take the lessons too but has  been too busy to sit in with his wife so far.  We have never seen any missionaries more excited about the work they are doing than those two sisters.  One has a twin brother serving in the Florida mission who is currently assigned to an area in southern Alabama.  They are actually in very close proximity to each other.  She called her brother last week to give him a referral she received for a person that lives in his area.  Her companion, Sister Sanfilippo, is a tiny girl and started talking the minute they opened the door and didn’t really ever stop.  She reminded us a lot of Amanda (that is a compliment).  Her companion is Sister Soctomah.   It reminds me of the time Elder Satterfield and Elder Degrafenried served as companions in my mission in Arizona.

Monday was my doctor appointment in Tuscaloosa that was scheduled for 8:30 AM and wasn’t over until after 11:30 so we had to reschedule the apartment inspection in Fayette for Thursday. Then we went to visit Brother White.  He was doing a little bit better.  Tuesday we stopped to see him again after we finished our inspections in Tuscaloosa.  He was doing better still and told us he was anxious to come home, but he wanted to stay as long as he was supposed to so everything would be alright when he was discharged.  I told him we would get to see him the next day because we would  be passing through on our way back from one of our inspections.  After we left Sister Owens reminded me we rescheduled the inspection for Thursday and not Wednesday.  We had to drive up to see him Wednesday so we wouldn’t let him down after telling him we would be there. Then we had to get back to Demopolis for our coordination meeting with the Branch mission leader.  Before the meeting was over Brother White called and said he was discharged and he wanted us to come and get him and bring him home. So we headed back to Tuscaloosa right after the meeting.  Alabama is beautiful in the daytime but I really don’t enjoy driving here on the state highways in the dark.  It ended up being quite a long day again and we had to get up in the morning and drive back the next morning for our Fayette inspection.  When we got there to pick him up we found out he discharged himself against medical advice and they refused to do anything for him. No wound care instructions, now medication, no therapy orders, nothing.  They didn’t even let us use a chair to take him down to the car.  A lot of things went on the night before and he told them he refused to spend another night there.  That is a story for another time. Anyway, he is home now and he is getting better every day.  His Kidney Doctor is getting things worked out for his medication and therapy.  We took the Sacrament to him again tonight.  Brother Borden helped me.  He was there with his wife and we took the sisters with us.  After the Sacrament Brother White said he wanted to bear his testimony.  It was a choice experience.

That was the good news, the great news is that Cedric was baptized Saturday.  I think I am getting too old for this.  I was sure it was scheduled for 11:00 AM.  We got there about twenty minutes early in case anyone needed any help getting things ready.  At three minutes to 11 we were there and the sisters were there.  About five minutes later Cedric and Tasha came with Cedric’s mother.  At 11:10 there was still nobody else there.  I was really disappointed.  The sisters assured us the Smiths were coming right after their soccer game.  The Branch President wasn’t there yet and neither was the mission president and his wife.  The sisters told us they were coming. Then the sisters said it was scheduled for 11:30 and the Smiths had just arrived in their soccer clothes.  Sister Owens and I left at that point to get plates and napkins for the refreshments since nobody brought any.  So we were the only ones late for the service.  I’m afraid baptismal services are about the same as church around here, with respect to attendance.  Several of the people who said they were coming ended up not coming.  Of course when the driver is one that can’t come from Greensboro that takes out at least four others who don’t have any other transportation.  By the way, Brother White couldn’t make it to the baptism because his sister’s funeral service was the same day.  We found out, though, that after his brother picked him up and took him to the service, he got to the door and had to go back and sit in the car because he was too weak.  We felt bad for him.

The attachment is a picture of Cedric with the sisters.  He really isn’t as scary as he looks.  He is just really shy.  I got to confirm him today in Sacrament meeting. He and Tasha participated pretty well in Gospel Principles class.  I just remembered today that Sister Owens and I were the ones that found them and got the sisters set up to teach them.  After I was called as clerk I was reviewing the records and the one whose address was “1^st street” in Demopolis stood out to me and I felt compelled to find them.  We only walked up and down a couple streets before we found them on Wolf Drive instead of 1^st street.

I did survive my first financial audit this morning as Branch Clerk.  It went fairly well.  We didn’t have quite enough transactions each month to be able to randomly chose some to audit.  The auditor just looked at every expense transaction we had for the first six months of the year.

We have our last inspections tomorrow so we need to get this mailed and get to bed.  The greatest news is that neither of the sisters are transferred this week so we don’t have a day trip to Birmingham Wednesday.  We get to stay here in Demopolis.  Which is nice because Sister Owens has a Relief Society Luncheon that day (always something).  Things are going well.  We are staying busy.

Keep the commandments and read your Book of Mormon!

We love Y’all,

Elder and Sister Owens.

Week 20: "The Longest Day" (week), and ministering to the one

Dear Family and Friends,

Monday we had to take Brother White to Tuscaloosa to pay the surgeon the amount of his fee that wasn’t covered by insurance.  They insisted that it be paid before he was admitted to the hospital for prep two days before his surgery. I called the office last week to ask if it was really necessary to waste time and resources to do that when we were bringing him there the very next day to admit him.  They never answered and never returned my call.

Tuesday was our long day.  They decided he should have his Dialysis in Eutaw as he always does instead of the hospital doing it after he was admitted.  We got up at 3:50 AM so we could pick him up at 5:00 AM and get him to Eutaw by 5:30 to start Dialysis.  He was supposed to be finished at 10:00 AM but didn’t get through until 10:45.  Then we headed for the hospital in Tuscaloosa to have him admitted. That was not fun.  Last week his surgeon and his kidney doctor each kept telling us that the other one would have all the instructions for us on getting him admitted.  We ended up with a sticky note from the nurse at the Dialysis center with the name of the hospitalist doctor we needed to see when we got to the hospital.  We went in and the nurse told us they couldn’t just admit him because he had a note from his nurse.  She wanted his doctor’s name and surgeon’s name and started calling them.  Of course neither one of them were available. After about forty-five minutes waiting, I asked her if she couldn’t just call the hospitalist doctor and ask them (which she never hinted that she was going to do).  She acted like I was being very impatient and told me she did call them and they were busy with other patients and had not called her back.  I explained that we weren’t being impatient but I wasn’t aware she had tried to contact the doctor.  To make a very, very long story short, we finally got him admitted and into a room. Since it was Tuesday, we were actually supposed to be at District Council, and we had scheduled interviews with the Mission President, which we were about an hour and a half late for.  We thought we were going to get to the last part of District Council and then we would come back with a Cheeseburger (Brother Whites favorite) and a strawberry milkshake for him and the Elders would help me give him a blessing.  President Sainsbury was still conducting interviews when we got there and continued for more than an hour longer and then saw that we were there and interviewed us.  We were glad we got to visit with him and Sister Sainsbury.  Then, of course, we had our district Council, which is a two hour meeting.  We finally got the Elders in the car with us and went for the cheeseburger and shake.  Here is where the fun begins. We were sure they had him in a room by then rather than in preadmittance where we left him for testing, so we checked at the desk and, sure enough, they had him assigned on the fifth floor.  We went to the fifth floor and were told he wasn’t on that floor, he was still in preadmittance.  We got directions to preadmittance and past the receptionist that had steered us to the fifth floor on our way there. When we got to the room (which we recognized from when we left him) a nice security guard asked if he could help us.  We told him we were there to see Manuel White.  He asked us to follow him.  He escorted us out to the outside lobby of the emergency room (where we brought him in the morning to admit him) and asked us to go out the door and come back in past the officer at the security desk.  We were carrying the burger and milkshake through all of this.  The nice lady at the security desk recognized us from earlier in the morning and just chuckled at us as we emptied our pockets and walked through the scanner.  She told us to go to another security guard at the next door and tell him who we were there to see and he would tell us where to go.  We did so and he told us to pick up the white phone and tell them who we wanted to see and they would tell us what to do.  We did so and they couldn’t help us.  So we went back to the guard at the second door and told him.  He made a call and had us wait a minute and then let us go through the lobby door into the patient area and pointed to a security guard (the one that escorted us out to the outside door) and said he would take us where we wanted to go. He took us down to the room where we left Brother White that morning and it was empty.  We checked with the nurse and she told us they just took him to X-ray and then he would be taken to the fifth floor.  So we went back past the first receptionist and mentioned, as we passed by, that he was going to the fifth floor.  We took the elevator to the fifth floor and went to his room, which was empty.  He was still in X-ray.  Of course by then holding the warm milkshake over the AC vent really wasn’t doing a lot of good. After waiting another twenty minutes for him to get finished at X-ray, we finally got to see him again.  We left him a little after noon and it was then after 5:00 PM.  The Elders had a dinner appointment that evening at 6:00.  We just got to visit for a few minutes and we gave him a blessing and had to leave to get the Elders back to their apartment in time to get to their appointment.  Then we drove back to Demopolis and stopped for a warm dollar cheeseburger at McDonalds and went home about 7:00 and decided to call it a day.

Monday after we got back from our first trip to Tuscaloosa we went to look at an available apartment that Elder Barfuss found for us to consider moving to.  It was really depressing.  It was a third floor apartment in the old part of Downtown.  It was like taking a step back in time to the 1930s. The fridge was about the size of the microwave we are using in our garage, but the bar sink was actually bigger than the one we are using now. I am sure the range has been there since 1930.  We called Brother Barfuss and told him, “No thank you.”  We looked at another one on Wednesdaythat a member of the branch had found.  It was a little bigger and on the ground floor (actually half of a duplex).  It was just as discouraging, after we got inside, as the one we looked at on Monday.  It is interesting because we inspect eight apartments for the mission where the elders and sisters live.  All of them look like castles compared to our garage.  We are not complaining, it is just the way the situation is here in Demopolis.  It is quite a depressed area.

We promised Brother White that we would be there when he got out of surgery Thursday.  He was supposed to be out between 10:00 and 11:00 AM.  We got there about 10:30 and he was still in surgery.  He finally came out and went to recovery and they wouldn’t tell us anything because we weren’t family. Our ministerial certificates that are supposed to carry so much weight really didn’t do us any good.  He had no family there.  We explained that we brought him and would be bringing him home and he had no one else, but they just said they were sorry.  They told us they would let us know when he came out of recovery. So all we did Thursday was get to know the volunteer on duty in the surgery waiting room.  At shift change she came in and fell against the desk (moving it about a foot) and broke her nose.  She told everyone she was fine and stayed and worked her shift.  Sister Owens was one of the ones that went to help her when she fell and kept checking on her from time to time (there was nothing else to do).  They became pretty well acquainted.  After we had been there for so long she started checking on things for us and did all she could but we still never got in to see Brother White. She finally left at the end of her shift with a big bruised and swollen nose.  She said she hoped she wouldn’t see us when she comes back again next Thursday.  We hoped not as well, but we all thought it would be good to see each other at Walmart or something.  At 5:30 they told us that a room had opened up in ICU and they had to clean it out before they could move him in and then we could see him.  They were sure it would be at least 6:00 before he would be ready.  We had to be in Demopolis at 6:30 so we had to leave and could only leave a note for him.

We just were sure we would be able to see him the next day so we got up and drove straight there Friday, instead of calling and checking on his status. When we got to his room the nurses were there working with him.  They told us we would have to wait a few minutes before we could go in.  Then one came out and said he is really groggy from all the medication he is on and he told her he doesn’t want any visitors.  We asked her to tell him who we were and she did and came back and said he opened his eyes and said to have us come in.  We went in and talked to him for about five minutes and he opened his eyes twice. Then we came home.  We stopped on the way home for gas and they had a sign on the door that they had hot boiled peanuts.  We decided it was time to try them and bought a pint of them.  We both thought they were quite tasty, but we weren’t crazy about how they affected us about six hours later.  Lets just say it is a really good food to eat when you are getting ready for a colonoscopy.

We stayed home Saturday to do our P-day stuff so we didn’t get to see Brother White.  He called us this morning at 5:50 and it was really good to hear him.  I told him we were going to go today and take the sacrament to him. By the time Branch Council was over and we got started, we realized we were going to get there right at their shift change when they don’t let any visitors in for an hour. We were there eight minutes before the shift change so we went straight to his floor and when we got off the elevator, the nurses were waiting for our elevator with a patient in a bed that they were transferring.  It was Brother White so I asked them where they were going with him.  The nurse just looked at me like, “You can’t ask me a question like that,” and didn’t say anything.  I said, “Really, we are here to see him, where are you taking him?” Then she told me they were moving him to the fifth floor.  I almost thought, “Here we go again.”  President and Sister James were driving to Tuscaloosa to pick up their son from YSA and said they would come to help us administer the Sacrament to Brother White.  We went up to the fifth floor and sat down in the waiting room and I called President James to let him know we were there and that they were moving him.  He said they were there as well and were siting in the second floor waiting room.  They were waiting  because they checked and were told they couldn’t see him because of shift change. So they came up and sat with us and we got to see Brother White about ten minutes later.  He told us that he got a call from his brother about his baby sister that had surgery there the same day he did in a different wing of the Hospital.  He said she got to go home Friday but she fell after she got home and had to go back to the hospital and that she died. He will be in the hospital at least two or three more days, so probably won’t get to go to the funeral or anything.  It almost seems they have been an oppressed people for so long that death is just something they take in stride.  I know he is hurt but he can’t do anything about it and he just deals with it.

We don’t seem to be ending on very happy notes lately.  We will have to try to change that.  A couple from Layton, Utah visited today that served here twelve years ago.  They cried as they bore their testimonies in Sacrament meeting.  They said they were jealous of us.  Sister Owens told them it is our turn.  Cedric has his baptism planned for this coming Saturday.  We hope it is going to happen.  We will have to let you know next week.  We have to get this sent and get to bed. We are driving to Tuscaloosa tomorrow (gee, we haven’t been there for a while).  I have a doctor appointment at 8:30 in the morning.

The attachment is what I think is the most interesting wildlife we have seen since we got here.  It was waiting to greet us one day on our door when we came home for lunch.

Keep the commandments and read your Book of Mormon!!

We Love Y’all,

Elder and Sister Owens

Week 19: Dark days in Demopolis, Roll Tide

Dear Family and Friends,

So our week started about the same as it usually does (as far as planning goes).  We were driving home from our walking path and got a call from the Sisters informing us that a member of the church was stranded in Eutaw (that’s the same as Utah only with a southern spelling).  He was moving from Utah to Georgia when his U-Haul truck broke down and he had to have some help moving his belongings from the broken truck to the replacement truck.  We told the sisters to call him back and tell him we would get there as soon as we could, but it was going to take a while.  We came home and changed clothes, called the Smiths to see if their three boys would come and help us, and then drove 20 minutes to pick them up and another 40 minutes in the opposite direction to get to Eutaw.  When we got to town we called the man to find out where he was and he said he was towed to Livingston.  He didn’t bother to call anyone and tell them he was no longer in Eutaw.  Knowing that would have saved us about 30 minutes driving time. So we got to Livingston about 25 minutes later and found a very healthy young man (late 20s to early 30s) sitting in his airconditioned pickup with the broken U-Haul trailer (not truck) attached, and the replacement trailer next to it.  The trailer was full of personal belongings, which included one item (a headboard) that would have needed two people to transfer because it was bulky. If he would have at least started transferring his things then maybe he would have been the one kneeling on the floor of the trailer, in 96 degree weather with 90 percent humidity, picking up all of his Lego pieces that spilled out of his half bushel apple box either when it was loaded or during transit, instead of Elder Owens. He had a cooler full of soda and when we finished loading the trailer we were leaving and he asked us if he could have a bottle of water that we brought for the Smiths.

We  are finally admitting that President James was right when he told us, when we first arrived, that people here tend to tell you what they know you want to hear.  Out of the four active investigators, all of whom told us they would see us at church, none of them came today. The less actives that told us they were coming last week and didn’t, who told us again this week that they were coming, didn’t come either.  The couple that served here until December, that is visiting here this week, told us about the time last year that they were trying to visit a lady and couldn’t find her.  They went to the store and met her on the way out of the store.  The first thing she said was that she was coming to church on Sunday. That was the lady that told us last week that, no matter what, she was coming to church.  Then told us again this week that she was coming.  We still haven’t seen her at church.  Elder Owens is feeling kind of badly that we are going to be judged according to our works AND the desires of our hearts, because what he desires to do with most of the people her is kick them right in the….. Well moving on.

We did have our most exciting cultural experience of our whole mission so far.  This week we got to tour the Crimson Tide Stadium with the Elders and Sisters.  We got a call, while we were on the way to help the stranded mover Monday, telling us the guy at the stadium said that if we could  be there by 3:00 PM we could do the tour.  We were pretty sure we weren’t going to make it, but we actually did.  I could fill a couple of pages telling you about that, but I will forbear.  We did learn, though, that two seats in the Ivory box (see attachment #2) cost $150,000 and then on top of that they have to pay $40,000 to $45,000 for the tickets to the games for the year.  He told us, though, that they don’t have to pay the $150,000 every year.  They only pay that every five years. It would be a pretty awesome place to sit to watch the game though (attachment #1). After we toured the press box, the President’s box, and the Ivory Box all the Elders and Sisters went down the stairs on the bleachers to the field. Sister Owens and I got to go on the elevator with the tour guide (cause we’re old). When we got off the elevator, he said, “I’m not going to show this to everybody, but I’ll show you guys, since we’re here.”  Then he took us into the visiting team locker room.  He explained that it used to be the home team locker room and that a gentleman made a very generous donation to the foundation that enabled them to build a nice new locker room for the home team.  They told the gentleman that, to show their appreciation, they wanted to name something after him.  He was pleasantly surprised and said nobody ever wanted to name anything after him.  They named the visiting team locker room after him (see attachment #3) and we were told the winning rate since they installed the plaque outside the door has been 99 percent.

So we actually planned our day Wednesday, and just as we got going we got a call from the sister that was taken to the Phsyc. ward in Tuscaloosa after being transported by ambulance last week.  She was discharging herself and called us to come and pick her up because her cousin’s car wouldn’t make the trip.  We explained that we had commitments for the day and we just couldn’t come to get her.  Her family, who has disowned her, is one of the richest families (and largest) in the area.  We told her she might have to call her aunt and see if she would come to get her.  We went on about our day and learned, the next day, that her cousin’s car made the trip after all.

Book of Mormon class was really good this week (although Gloria, who promised us the day before that she was coming, didn’t show up).  The Joneses were there (Senior couple from last year).  We had a birthday cake and a little party for Debrah.  She is the one that really wants to be a member of the church but her children will not allow her to be baptized.  Sister Nixon got there a little late and Sister Jones was behind her as she came in.  When she saw Sister Jones they hugged each other and screamed and jumped up and down like little children.  Then they did it again about three times.  Everyone there felt their joy.  It was awesome.  Junior Cantrel is a new member we caught at home the first week we were here and haven’t been able to see since.  He has never been to church since we have been here.  The Joneses said we just had to hear him sing “Come, Come Ye Saints.”  He came to Book of Mormon Class and we all convinced him to sing for us.  Everyone sang without accompaniment and, quite honestly, it was disastrous.  He wasn’t quite on pitch without a piano.  It wasn’t anywhere near as bad as the eight of us in Priesthood meeting this morning trying to sing “If You Could Hi To Kolob.”

Sister Owens had a really fun experience Saturday on P-Day. She was trying to scrub the bathtub ring and a nice big black spider came crawling up from the bathtub drain.  She said it certainly got her heart pumping for the day.  She washed it back down the drain and let the water run for a good five minutes or more and as soon as it drained she put the big rubber stopper over the drain and it hasn’t moved since except to drain the tub after her shower (yup, she showers with the drain plugged now).  She hadn’t seen any spiders for two or three days and was just starting to relax a bit and let her guard down.  Now she’s nervous about it everyday and keeping her eye out.  Good news!! Our six month lease will be up the latter part of September and they are looking for another apartment for us.  We so will miss garage, sweet garage.

Well, if y’all will keep the commandments and read your Book of Mormon, Elder Owens will work on his attitude.

We love y’all,

Elder and Sister Owens

PS:  It was so exciting to get a picture of the kids when they all got to be together in Boise (attachment #4).  Made us a little bit homesick.