Thurs, July 9

We are loving our lives in the mission field. We just go from place to place trying to fellowship members and teach non-members. We are really enjoying getting to know and value others.
Yesterday we visited mary Wanda and Victor Lane. They kind of live out in the country. Everyone around here that lives out mostly lives in mobile homes either double wide or single wide. Land is not so expensive so they put these mobile homes on large acreages. The land here is different too. Out in the country the earth cracks when it is dry, and makes a gap in the earth that one could easily lose things in if they were dropped.

Mary Wanda and Victor are members. He has been in leadership positions and has poor health, but they both have just stopped coming to meetings on Sunday. She says she just got out of the habit. She has done some wonderful genealogy and family history books. She is very talented, crochets, paints, makes hand made quilts. We just visited with them and showed some interest in them. They were a sweet older couple, probably in their 70's.

After we left them we drove to see David Criddle. He didn't even come to the door but told us he would call us if we would leave our number. He is a High Priest, I believe, but also doesn't come to this ward. We also stopped to see Brother Ward, who has served a mission and married in the Temple, but doesn't come to church. They were just leaving on vacation for a week. Leon ask if it would be okay to come back next week and they said yes.

Last of all we drove out of town to see the Dillion family. They were not home. They had a big noisy Dog guarding their home. I was glad not to get out of the car. Later Leon went to the church and met Jerry Lehr there, to do some training as ward clerk. They had a successful evening and I got lots of phone calls made at home.

This morning we started out by driving to the Cornells to give them a lesson. We ended up reviewing with them everything we had covered so far. We took the books we had made for Julie and used all the pictures. That was a great idea because when we finished, they seemed to understand things much better. The other thing was that the Spirit was there as we taught and it made teaching so much easier. I think our explanations were more complete as was their understanding. It was a great experience. We took a loaf of bread to them and they always send us home with tomatoes from their garden. They are so good! Millie prayed today, but Bob is not ready yet. Being Jewish, it is difficult for him to readily accept all of our teachings. When we get him to pray, it will come easier for him.

This afternoon we went to the Watham Grandparents. We felt the spirit as we went in and tried to prepare ourselves spiritually. What we found that they needed was love and acceptance. It was not a matter of him not believing in God, but a matter of them feeling like no one cared here when they have been experiencing so much hurt from losing their son, (He was murdered by the police in California.) We listened to a lot of Satan's garbage, but when we left, we felt we had made some friends and that they knew we cared. Some of the people in the branch have been giving them a hard time and they have felt some rejection. These are Julie's grandparents.

Last of all we ended our day over visiting our young neighbors who are members of the church, but living together. Their names are Alisha and RD. They are in their early 20's. She has been a member all of her life, but not real active. He has only been a member for two years. We just got acquainted and taught them a lesson on Tithing. That is almost funny, because we would have rather taught them one on chastity. But the good news is that they are coming to church on Sunday. Maybe if they are taught correct principles, they will do a better job at governing themselves. We took them chocolate chip cookies and they were very open and kind to us. They seem to enjoy our visit. They even cleaned their apartment, it looked better than ours.

Leon seems to be enjoying this mission very much also. He is already planning our next one. Things seem to have worked out so well. Everything at home is well taken care of and the Lord seems to be blessing everyone. We are thrilled that we don't need to worry about things there. This is a different, but such a nice time of our lives.