We love our mission!

Another blessing is enjoying the Lord's workmanship in
nature. They tell us we have seen nothing yet! South
Carolina is a beautiful place!

Being senior missionaries serving in a branch is a wonderful experience.  It is filled with hopes, discouragement, spiritual uplifting moments, late night calls, fun, adventure, discovering bugs we have never seen - experiencing their bites, miles and miles, patience, great food, interesting food, friendships, lengthening our stride, feeling old, feeling young, realizing you have limits, pushing those limits, appreciation for family and friends, receiving testimony of the Lord's work in small, simple ways, loving the people, loving the work, finding strengths you didn't know you have, recognizing weaknesses and with the Lord's help, making these weaknesses strong, learning from and working with the young Elders (here they call them the Little Boys), learning to cook all over again, learning a new language with many different dialects, realizing how blessed we are temporally and spiritually, teaching, learning, experiencing a new culture, respecting their culture, listening - they love to talk, watching people grow as they exercise their faith, serving, praying, studying. All this in just a few short months.  When you wonder if you're really doing any good, all it takes is an investigator who is very quiet, standing on the sidewalk as he bares witness of feeling the promptings of the spirit, listing the blessings they have had since they have been involved with the church, with tears in his eyes tell you he loves you, takes your hands and asks you to pray right there, then give you a hug when it's done; watching the look on a member's face when she is able to play her first song on the keyboard; having a sister in a wheelchair thank you for not forgetting her and getting her back to church; taking members to the temple after they've been away for a long time or going for the first time, watching them be sealed to their living parents and to their deceased parents; helping members discover their grandparents; feeling the spirit guide you as you teach.

We send our love to our family and all our friends. Thank you for your support and prayers! Wish you were here! : )

It snowed again!

Elder Lovell checking the snow depth.
 It was 5" deep at that time and still snowing.

We got another snow storm (January 10). Bro. Hill says he doesn't want any more missionaries from Idaho because we bring the snow with us. This has been the coldest and snowiest winter since 1979 we have been told. I'm just hoping that if we bring cold winters, it should make for colder summers as well.  We're not looking forward to 110 degree summer days. The whole state of South Carolina closed all of their state offices for about 3 days. School was out in some places for the whole week. (Latta got 7", Marion got 4")  The funniest closure we saw was on Tuesday. The roads were really pretty dry and we had to check the heat situation for an investigator.  We headed to Burger King  (in Marion) to get them something to eat about 2:30.  They had just closed because of the weather!? Our next effort was down the road a short distance to McDonald's.  You could hardly find a parking place and when you did, you had to wait for a break in the drive through lane to get out. We think some workers just wanted to go home early.

Temple Trip #2

We again had a wonderful trip to the temple.  Part of that experience began with helping members find family names to take to the temple.  Everyone who attended today had their own family name - there was a sister, grandmother, greatgrandmother, niece, and cousins. Sister Lisa Jackson hadn't been back to the temple since she got her own endowments about 5 years ago.  We helped her get her grandmother's name ready for her to do the initiatory and endowment.  When she came out of the initiatory, she was so overwhelmed that she was sobbing. She has been so appreciative of the opportunity and her goal is to get the rest of her family to the temple. We had so many stumbling blocks getting the baptisms done so they could have the rest of the work done, but the baptismal workers were so wonderful and helped us get it done. Bro. Weatherford came in just as they were to do the confirmations and they asked him if he would like to do them.  What an emotional experience. He confirmed his sister-in-law first and the spirit was so strong that all who were in the room was affected.

We stayed for another session with the other Senior Missionaries in our mission. Afterwards we went to the mission home where we had dinner and a white elephant exchange.  It was fun getting to meet and get to know the other senior missionaries. 



 

Elder Lovell checking out his gift, an old phone that doesn't work









Sister Hadley with her do-it-yourself grapevine wreath.  Actually, she was excited as she wanted one since I told her about them.  I ended up making it before we left.



We left home about 6:00 a.m. and got home about 9:30 p.m.  It was a very long day but so spiritually fulfilling!

Music



Elder Jones & Elder Linford trying out the new keyboard.
They have the same expressions that Lisa, Kellee, and Kara
had when they played their first song.



After we received our call, we got a letter talking about the Harman Music Grant. This grant provides wards and branches with keyboards and all the keyboard & conducting music material for the purpose of teaching those with the desire to learn to play & conduct music. We applied for three keyboards and course material kits.  The Primary Presidency asked to be the first to take the course.  I didn't expect such nice keyboards. They have a lot of bells & whistles.  Lisa, is the president as well as the branch chorister.  She does quite well but has a strong desire to do better and to understand what she is doing.  Giving these sisters their keyboards, which has opened up a new talent they didn't know they have, has been a wonderful experience.  When Kellee played her first song, the excitement she had was uncontainable. She and Kara are sisters and their father has expressed how he can feel their excitement every time he talks to them. Each one has had only a couple of lessons but they are like sponges, they have set a goal - which song they want to play or conduct and when. When they have finished the course, if they still have the desire to continue using their new talent to benefit the branch and be willing to teach others, then they can apply for a grant to receive their own keyboard kits. There are others who have expressed their desire to be the next one to learn.

Jam

Elder Lovell needed some apples and we finally found a stand that had them by the box. We also found many of the stands sell jam.  This particular stand had some very  jams: frog jam, traffic jam, and toe jam.  We have tried the traffic jam and and the frog jam - they are really good. I especially like the frog jam.

Frog jam: figs, raspberries, orange, ginger

Traffic jam: blueberries, raspberries, strawberries

Toe jam: tangerines, oranges, elderberry juice

Christmas Decor

(I had problems with downloading pictures so back to catch up mode.)

I wondered what we would do for Christmas decorations without too much expense. 

We found a tree at Family Dollar and some lights on sale. We then decorated with a popcorn and cranberry garland, and pinecones from Weatherford's.  Along with one of the grapevine wreaths we made we thought we were doing well.  This poinsettia was the one from the church.

We had dinner at President Harvey's and they gave us a tinsel tree which is a tradtion in their family. Sister Weatherford loaned us a Santa Claus, and along with the poinsettias that we were given, we really did have a festive home.

This is a magnolia tree in Marion.  I don't think the picture can show you how big it really is, but it's huge! 

And then they lit it up for Christmas!  It was beautiful!

The Christmas stockings filled with candy and other goodies from Bro. Hill was a nice touch as well.

Christmas in South Carolina

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! Christmas Eve was spent quietly at home and Elder Lovell commented on how unusual it was not to have family with us, or a nativity program to take care of, or finishing up the last of the Christmas presents. Our family has spoiled us along with the branch. We had supper at the Weatherford’s and was able to meet some of their family as they came in.  Christmas morning I made bread for dinner, then went to the Weatherford’s for the rest of the day. More family came and some of their daughter’s in-laws. It was loud, active, and there was lots of food. The Christmas dinner consisted of 3 turkeys (2 fried and one roasted), a ham, plain rice with giblet gravy, greasy rice, corn, cornbread dressing, macaroni & cheese, green bean casserole, relish plates, homemade bread, kidney beans, cookies, cakes, pies, etc  It was all very good. I spent a lot of the day practicing sons with children & grandchildren as they were to do the Sacrament meeting program on Sunday and since they were all very talented singers, I was privileged to be their accompanist – and some songs were not easy. However, I guess we were as ready as we could be. 

Christmas Day - it was a beautiful day!

Watching the weather, we are discovering that there are actually some days that are warmer in Ririe, ID than here in Latta, South Carolina!!!! Bro. Hill said that they’ve got to quit sending missionaries from Idaho as we seem to be bringing the cold weather with us.  They say that this winter so far is the coldest it’s been in a long time. I kept telling people that having Christmas without snow is hard.  They assured me that Christmas will still come. It did, but the snow didn’t come until the next day. During the night it actually snowed! We woke up to about 2 inches of wet snow and it is still snowing.  Church was canceled so I don’t have to worry about playing and messing them up!  However, we have really noticed that without church, the rest of the week was really hard - many of us just felt down and really had to work at getting excited about doing anythng. 

Sunday morning, the day after Christmas!

We were told through a text message from the mission office elders, “Because of the snow, leave your cars parked except to drive…” We got a chuckle out of that, then later we received the rest of the story, “to church if your unit has not been canceled. Be safe.” That made more sense. The snow is very wet, cars continue to go by. We are told, however, that we need to stay off the roads even though we can drive on these roads, the people here don’t know how and that’s where the danger is.  The snow is very wet and as it melts on the roads, the temperature drops and then its black ice.  We have been warned to get to the stores and make sure we have food, and have some water on hand as the power will probably go out, and if it does, go to the Weatherford’s as they have a wood stove and we can stay warm there. It’s nice to be looked after!