July 24th, evening

I don't know what was going on today, but it was not a great day for us!!!! The best thing that happened was that we stopped at the city hall of Rice, Texas to ask for directions. They were very helpful and couldn't find our address. So she called a police officer and she gave us a police escort to show us the way. It was pretty neat. That's the first time we've ever had a police escort anywhere. The only thing that would have been better would have been to have her blow her siren too. (Ha! Ha!) But I guess it would have been out of line. Anyway, when we found the house we were looking for, the people had moved five years ago!!! That was a bummer!! On top of that we had some videos we needed to give away and the lady that lived there wouldn't even accept one for free!! She was nice, though.

The people whom we were looking for are on the ward list and have not been to church and we are trying to find out if they are still living here or what. Five years is a little long to be gone without someone finding out in the ward. We also located another home of a family who had been lost and they were still living in Rice.

One of the sad things that happened today is that we called the Martens to check on Sis Martin who has been in and out of the hospital the last month. We found out that she has been in the hospital the last two weeks and in a coma for the last six days. They do not know if she will make it or not. We had to call the Branch President and tell him about it. No one had bothered to find out from the last time we told them she was going back into the hospital . Anyway we got the information and passed it all on to the Branch President, called and put her name in the Temple, and called and had Elders in that area go to the hospital to administer to her. It is kind of sad because her husband used to belong to our church and he left our church for the Cowboy Church. I think they are actually proving him right that they don't seem to care about them.

Later this afternoon we went to the Wathans to give them a lesson. Bro Wathan threw up his hands and yells, "I don't believe this crap. I'm not staying here." I'm talking and he gets up and walks out of the room. I continue to stutter and stammer and talk to his sweet wife and he walks back into the room again. Everything that we said he just poo-poo-ed. He ranted and raved and did everything he could to keep the spirit from coming into the room. Finally we asked him why he was baptized in the first place. Then he said that the people were nice to him in California. It was a nightmare experience. We don't know that we want to go back and waste our time. We were doing it for his wife, Helen. It is amazing that someone can have so much hate in their heart for everyone.

We stopped to give Holly her final lesson and she was gone. By then we were tired and just came home. We had experienced one of these downer days in missionary work. But it will help us to really appreciate the days where we can really help and teach with the spirit. I still would not trade places with anyone right now. We love the work.