Going to the temple

The highlight of the week for me was getting to go to the Washington DC Temple with the Pittsburgh Stake Relief Society.  There were 150 women in three buses with 7 priesthood holders.  We loaded the buses in three different locations around the stake so people didn’t have so far to drive.  There were 16 sisters from the Wheeling Ward who left Wheeling about 0600 and drove to Washington PA chapel to meet our bus.  The buses got on their way about 0700 and we arrived at the temple at 1230.  It’s a beautiful temple, but then, I’ve never seen one that wasn’t.

              

Most of us attended a session but some who weren’t able to attend yet were able to visit the visitors center and the near-by church book store.  Barb Safreed, Renee Barker and Sara Walton were among those not attending a session in the temple from Wheeling but had a desire to share the temple experience with us.

We got to hear from President and Sister Tingey in a short devotional before the session and we were spiritually fed in both.  We had to load the buses immediately after the session for the long ride home.  We had a wonderful time in the temple as well as on the bus coming and going.

             

Naomi Campbell wasn’t sure she could make it because she has some physical limitations but she made it and enjoyed the trip. We made it back home to Wheeling about 10:00 pm.  A long but enjoyable day.  I wonder if we enjoy the temple more if we have to sacrifice more to attend.

Rod had a good day in Pittsburgh with Elder Marshall while Sister Marshall and I went to the temple.  They said they were doing splits.

Moundsville is a town down river where several members live and where we spend a lot of our time.  It is named for the mounds that are found around the area.  They are ancient burial mounds which have been dated pre-Christ times.  It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

               

We have had four out of five new families move into the Ward in the last month.  They are all active and experienced in church service.  They will be such a blessing to the ward. We tell them we prayed them here.  They are Jared and Suzi Halterman, Jory and Betsy Bulkley, John and Amy Stansell and Doctor and Elise Pringle. (I can’t remember his name)  They are all doctors of something.

My sweet mother celebrated her 90th birthday with friends and family this week in Rexburg, Idaho. She and my father served a mission in San Jose, California and have always been such a good example to us of faithful, gospel living.

                          

                           Thanks, Mom, for everything and happy birthday.

August Already

We can hardly believe the summer is almost over and we have been here this long.  Our missionary experiences have become widely varied and interesting.  We have come to know and love so many people that we visit and teach that we are having a hard time getting around to finding new members to visit.  One of the member families we have spent a lot of time with is Rebecca Beaver and her two sons, Austin (10) and Alex (5) and her parents, Louie and Vicki Michelli. Rod has been teaching Rebecca how to drive so she can get her drivers license. 

             

Vicki and I took the boys to get everyone a drink while Rod and Rebecca practiced the maneuverability test.  They work at it for about 2 hours at a time.  The boys have watched the DVD on the Restoration in the car a couple of times while we wait.  Vicki has to drive Rebecca and the boys whenever they go any place so she will have a great weight taken from her when Rebecca gets her license.  We are also teaching Austin the lessons so he can get baptized soon.

We had a wonderful three days with Kent and Kae Servoss when they stopped to visit on their way to serve in the New York, Rochester Mission for eighteen months.  Everyone in the ward wanted to keep them.

            

We showed them around the area and then took them shopping at our favorite discount store, Gabriel Brothers. Kent let Rod help him choose a few things.  He came away with three pairs of shoes, a few ties, a few sox and a white shirt.  Rod is a good teacher.  Kae also found a good deal on a new outfit but Kae taught me about KD’s a long time ago.

We drove to Wintersville for District meeting because the Wintersville Elders had a car accident and are without a car again.  No one was hurt in the accident, but Elder Boughton got his hands messy checking the car after the accident and wiped them off on the foliage at the side of the road.  As it turned out, it must have been poison ivy because his arms and face are now covered with a bright red rash and his hands are covered with watery blisters.  And he is miserable.  After the meeting, I called Dr. Mikesell, our mission physician, and he call in some prescriptions for prednisone and a strong topical ointment to help lessen the symptoms and misery.  We took them to a pharmacy after we ate and the prescriptions were ready to pick up.  Rod wrapped him up after he applied the ointment so the blisters wouldn’t break and weep all over.

                         

Elder Boughton is a faithful missionary and just keeps smiling through it all and keeps on doing the work.  Rod has great empathy for him.

We had 15 people show up for our first Institute class.  We are looking forward for the next class and are hoping for even more people to attend.  It was a combination of YSA and not so single or young adults.  We invited anyone who wants to come study the Book of Mormon with us to come.  I know we are learning a lot, but this is what we came on a mission to do: teach the message of the Restoration and the Book of Mormon is the tool the Lord prepared centuries ago to teach that message.  We are having a great time!

Six Months Plus

I can’t believe we have been out over six months already.  How can couples serve only six months?  We’re just getting started.  At least in our circumstance, we need another year to see what more we can do to serve the Wheeling Ward.  We are finally feeling like we belong and that this is home for now.  The people are wonderful and you love those you serve.  Hopefully we are serving them and they, for sure, are serving us. 

We so enjoy having visitors come see the area and meet the people.  Tearsa, Ben, Cole and Elise came to stay another night with us on their way back home to Iowa.  We were able to have a birthday party for Cole who is now 4 years old.

              

 

                                       

                                 Cole liked eating spaghetti on his birthday cake.

I bought a Dottie Folmor apron at the YW spaghetti dinner auction a few weeks back and  Dottie finally got me the apron on Sunday.  I modeled it at dinner Sunday night.  Dottie and her daughter each make a new apron every month so her aprons are famous. 

                 

We were able to go to the Columbus Temple on Saturday for the ward temple day.  There was only one other couple who were going so we picked up the Holbrooks and they rode to Columbus with us.  It’s legitimate to leave the mission boundaries if we have a member with us.  Adam and Becky have three little girls they left with the Wrights while they went to the temple.  It took us almost eight hours for the total trip.  Of course, that included visiting and eating before and after.  It was wonderful to get back to the temple again.  We miss our weekly trips to the Bountiful Temple. 

It has been in the high 90’s all week and we are especially grateful for the new air conditioning unit that the mission purchased for us.  The humidity is so high that your glasses fog up when you go outside.  It’s most comfortable just riding in the air conditioned car which is what we did when we drove to Pittsburgh again this week with the elders and had interviews with President Topham.  He is a wonderful leader and the mission is in good hands with the Tophams.

The work is progressing and we see more and more less-actives coming to church. We have two young men who are coming back with their families and two young people who we hope to see baptized soon.  We have our disappointments, of course, but we see the Lord’s hand in the work and He is guiding us here in the mission field.  And we are having fun doing it.  The Church is true and His gospel is restored and we enjoy telling and reminding people of that.

A Wonderful Week

We started the week at transfer meeting at Greentree.  We said goodbye to the Brenchleys and to Elder Neerings.  The Brenchleys are going home to Centerville after they visit the New York, Rochester area where they served their first mission.  We have really enjoyed serving in the same mission and having good times together.  Elder Neerings is going to serve in the Warren area and says he is looking forward to new challenges there.  He is a good missionary and will be successful where ever he serves, but we will miss him here in Wheeling.

               

Wes and Sara Walton also came to transfer meeting to see Elder Neerings off.  Wes and Sara were baptized in December and are a great addition to the Wheeling Ward. Wes is serving in the YM presidency and Sara is the RS music director.  They have a one year old daughter named Peyton.  Wes is known for his funny-feet shoes.

              

Our new missionary and district leader is Elder Ames. He is from a small farming community near Bakersfield, California. He will serve with Elder Boam in Wheeling.  They drove with us to Wintersville on Wednesday for district meeting.  After the meeting we broke tradition and ate at Burger King which is Elder Ames favorite.  Elders van der Spek and Boughton enjoyed it too.

             

We had a great week finding and teaching.  We were able to visit about 20 people this week.  Usually we can’t find that may people home. Most have no interest in coming back to church, but some did and that’s worth all the time and miles we spend finding them.  We were finally able to meet with the Birkhimers.  They have been on our radar since we got here and Sunny and Kamryn came to church Sunday.  Kamryn is 8 and we are hoping to see her get baptized. 

Tearsa, Ben, Coleson and Elise came late Friday night to stay for a few days.  We drove them around the area a bit on Saturday so they could see where we serve. 

            

We spent some time down by the Ohio River, but Cole’s favorite was the fire engine.

             

After we drove to St. Clairsville, OH and had some lunch we went home and got ready for the Wheeling Ward Pioneer Day Celebration.  The families loaded their hand carts and trekked across the plains.  Rod and I were in charge of the stick-pull station where the pioneers stopped and played.  We had some fierce competitions with the stick pull and the pie eating contests.

              

              

There were over 100 people there for the party.  That’s more than we get out at sacrament meetings some times.  We finished off the day with a campfire and roasted wieners and marshmallows.  It was a great event for the ward.

Sunday we went to church where the kids got to meet all the friends they had made at the party.  After dinner we drove up to Oglebay Park.

               

On Monday we went to the Pittsburgh Zoo and Aquarium and then to the Pirates game that evening.  What a fun day with the kids.

              

              

                                       Cole enjoyed petting the sting rays the best.

                                         

             

The game was rain delayed twice so we had plenty of time to enjoy the PNC Park. Ellie bug enjoyed eating fish off of Grandpa’s knee and Cole had fun wiping the rain off the seats for people.  He even got a $1 tip from one lady.  The Pirates beat the Reds 2-0.  The kids did great at the game.  It was Grandma who got tired.  The game didn’t get over until midnight.  It sure is hard having so much fun.  Thanks Tearsa, Ben, Cole and Elise for coming and spending some time with us on our mission.

Trip to New York

The highlight of this week was our trip to Palmyra and the Hill Cumorah Pageant as chaperons for the Pittsburgh Stake Youth Conference.  We had four youth go from our ward and the Bishop asked us to go with them.  Since there wasn’t room on the buses for everyone, we offered to drive up ourselves.  It saved us an all-night trip on the bus which we felt was a good thing.  We met the buses at the Sacred Grove on Friday morning about 0700 and had breakfast.  There were about 120 people all together.

               

We were then able to walk through the grove for about 90 minutes and take in the spirit of that beautiful place.  It was a wonderful time of the day to be there because there weren’t many people and there was plenty of opportunity to sit and read scriptures and feel.  We could literally hear the bees humming and the sweet birds singing.  It was a great way to start the day. 

Rod and I were asked to go to the pageant site and save seats for our group.  The security missionary in charge was very kind and let us save seats in a very good spot.  He even supplied the tape and paper for signs to secure the spot. 

We met up with the group at the Whitmer Farm and ate lunch.  We then drove to the Seneca Lake Girls Camp where we stayed Friday night.  It is patterned after the Heber Valley Girls Camp in Utah but on a much smaller scale.  There were two missionary couples there to run the camp.  We stayed in 8 of the cabins and had the central meeting hall, called Zion, for meals and group meetings.  The youth from Wheeling Ward were Christian and Emily Oliver, Elise Wright and Helen Barker.

             

              

The cabins could sleep 16 people and were named after early women of the Church.  There were bathrooms and showers for every four cabins.

After we got settled in camp and rested for a while, Rod and I drove back to the pageant site to make sure the seats were secure.  The buses came later.  We had about three hours to visit the cast and staff of the pageant.

              

The pageant was spectacular.  What a great opportunity for the youth to experience.

                                         

                                       This was the stage set up on Hill Cumorah.

              

This was a picture of the whole cast on stage and a picture of Nephi and the Tree of Life in honor of Brendan who played Nephi when he was in the pageant.  After the pageant we all drove back to camp and had a very short night in the cabins.

Saturday morning we ate breakfast and then walked to the amphitheater for a testimony meeting.  It was a spiritual meeting in a beautiful setting.  After we packed up, the buses  drove to the Joseph Smith Farm and the Palmyra Temple.

                      

We all met for a group picture and then the buses started for home.  Rod and I stayed to see the things we had missed and met several friends from home who were serving as volunteers for the pageant.  The Browns from the Centerville Stake and the Johnsons who were previously from West Bountiful.  We met up with the buses in Erie at an all-you-can-eat buffet and had our last trip event.  We made it home to Wheeling about 10:30 that night. 

Another highlight of the week was meeting President and Sister Topham.  They are wonderful people and will lead this mission well. 

                                   

We have to admit, the best part of the week was seeing some new less-active members at church on Sunday.  That is what we have been working so hard to see happen in this area. The Lord is blessing the work here.