Nov 10, Monday

Though we are doing different things now than when we began our mission, we are keeping busy doing the things Heavenly Father has for us to do. After we visited with the Herrin Family on Thursday, we left with a feeling that they are earnestly striving to do what they can do build the kingdom by inviting others into their home to share a night of games and socializing. We hope they will especially invite Holly and Adam Graham who are in need of fellowship.

At the church on Friday, we spent nearly the whole day making copies, posters for empty nesters and going over the Forgotten Carols. Elder Whiting was on the computer catching up church work for the Branch and we worked on a couple of lists for the Branch of people that need callings, etc. Because we are only in a small branch, we can only visit people so many times before they begin to feel like we are wearing out our welcome. But we try to support the branch in the many things they are doing. On Saturday we cleaned the church and fellowshipped with Sis Vega in the morning.

Sat Evening we spent with Ricky and Becca Murray working with them on their mission plan. They are such choice young people. She is Relief Society President and is still in her twenties. He is either young men's president or in the priesthood quorum. They are great leaders. We had a wonderful dinner and talked about who they want to work with. He is the only member in his family and so there is a lot to do there. The only thing is that he has been disowned by his family because he joined the church and married Becca. He has such a strong testimony and always cries when he talks about the church. Growing up he was severely beaten by his Dad and suffered a lot of emotional trauma. But his testimony is just that strong!!! They had a long list to work with. We love them.

Sunday morning we went to the 8:30 missionary meeting, PEC and then I played the organ for church at the last minute and also in Relief Society. The accompanists have gotten a little sloppy about their callings because they know I will be there. But I love to do it, so it's okay. Bro. Vega finally got the Priesthood!!! It is kind of a funny situation. Brother Vega is Spanish and was baptized in March, but has not received the Priesthood. We found out from Pres. South that it was because he was told he would be made a "Priest," Bro. Vega has been Catholic and because he doesn't understand the whole organization of the church, he thought he had to be the Preacher, which he did not want to be.

The Branch President then started telling him that they would give him the Priesthood. But we haven't been able to get him to church. We have been visiting with the Vega family and trying to include them in everything we do. We always talk to them and take them things so we have established a relationship of caring with them. But the Branch President has not. So Bro. Vega will listen to us and trusts us when we tell him things, also because we take time to explain things to him.

We figured out that Bro Vega was afraid to pass the Sacrament because his son who is 12 was afraid also. So we stopped over there one day to drop something off and told him we would teach him how if he would come to church. So he did come to church yesterday and the Branch President told him that they were going to give him the priesthood. Bro Vega told him he was not ready, (again.) So the Pres. South comes to us because he doesn't know what to do. We had to take charge of the problem and tell Bro Vega he needed to receive the Priesthood so he could pass the Sacrament with his son. The bottom line was they ordained him in Priesthood and we stayed after church with Bro. Ricky Murray who taught him all the basics. We then walked through everything and explained it all to him. He said he didn't have any questions, so we are hoping that everything is a go now!!

Bob Cornell was interviewed for the Priesthood and will be ordained next week. He also got started with his Genealogy with Sister Weger. He is excited to get that going and she is going to help him. We are so delighted.

Today was Monday and we had an enjoyable day. Because we arose early this morning we had the dough for five loaves of bread all mixed up by 8:30 a.m. We then drove to the Sears home 30 minutes away and took our pans and all the ingredients for five more loaves. Paula Sears had invited two non members into her home and we taught them how to make bread and then they each took a loaf of bread home with the recipee. After the first batch was baked we all sat around and ate two of the hot loaves with butter/ honey and jelly. I have to say, it was so good.
The two non members are people they are working with as their missionary goal. They were very sweet women who have come to activities with Paula before. Paula's husband, Gary, even came home for some hot bread, as well as the other Non-member's husband who lived through the fence. It was fun and productive.

Tonight was an interesting night. First of all I have to say that we have not been teaching very many lessons because we have not had people to teach because we don't go door to door. We have been teaching Bob Cornell, but we finished the lessons long ago and have been teaching them lessons of our own making. We went to the home of Donna and David Courtney. She is a member, he is not. They are probably in their fities. They have only been married for a couple of years. She was sealed in the temple to her first husband, but they were later divorced. This is her third marriage and she has known periods of inactivity.

So we went to talk to her about missi0nary work, but because he was home, we had talked about teaching him a lesson. We weren't sure about what their expectations were. So we were going to wing it. On the way our there Brother Whiting said, "let's teach them the Plan of Salvation." I agreed thinking that it was the first lesson since this is our first visit. So Elder Whiting taught the second lesson, which was the plan of Salvation and I taught the first lesson which is The Restoration.

So Elder Whiting starts and is using visuals for the Plan of Salvation. Now on the travel out there for 30 minutes, I have been practicing the Restoration lesson. I thought he was listening to me because at one time, he told me I was doing great. So here we are in this lesson, he is trying to give them the Plan of Salvation and I keep switching him over to the Restoration. Then he tries to get me back on the Plan of Salvation and I try to pull him to the Restoration. We couldn't figure out what was going on with each other. We were working so hard to get the other back on track! This was a very funny situation, and the spirit was there. We bore our testimony and talked about coming back. They didn't know we had combined our lessons so it worked out.

On the way home we started talking about what was going on and we started laughing and laughing about what had happened. I was trying to teach one lesson and get Elder Whiting to go with me and then he was trying to teach another lesson and get me over there with him. It really was comical. Thank goodness for the Lord, that he has a sense of humor about things. I'm sure someone up there was having a good laugh. We did give them a lot of stuff to think about.

Tomorrow we are going to a Veterans Day celbration out in Dawson and help the Sears family with that. It is so nice to feel needed even if we are teaching actively, we are meeting a lot of non-members and planting seeds.