Snakes???? What will be moving in next?

We had just finished dinner this evening and Tim got up to go into the bedroom. I saw him grab a tissue and then go outside. I said “What are you doing?” He said, “I just caught a snake!!!! It had come through the crack in our door and was just inside our front door. It was about 6 inches long and about ½ the diameter of a pencil. I’m not so sure I want to go to bed tonight. Night before last he caught a great big Palmetto bug. It is about 1 ¼” long and has a hard shiny back on it sorta like a beetle. They are supposed to be coming and spraying our apartment on Friday. Hope I can make it until then.

Another tender mercy for us......

I have been having trouble getting google to put the street names on the maps I am working on for the ward missionary committee. Yesterday I had one of those tender mercy moments. As I brought up the google program, it had “hints” and there was one about how to put street names on your maps. I have never seen it bring up tips in all the time I have worked on it in the last 6 months. Today it was a tip about something else. I have been waiting for a missionary who is going home on Aug 14 to come into the office to help me figure it out. It was the last thing that I had to do to complete this project for missing members for the ward. The Lord, indeed, shows tender mercies when we need them!

Curry goat for dinner....yum....yum!

We were almost to church today when the Elders called to see if we could go pick Christine up. She was just baptized about a month ago. She was the one baptized in about 2 feet of water and is about 34 years old. Her husband died a year ago. She lived 15 minutes the other direction so we were about 20 minutes late to church and missed the sacrament but it was worth it to get her there.
Relief Society lesson was on the temple and family history and how we had the obligation to take care of our ancestors. It was a beautiful lesson for Christine so I am glad that she could come. Hopefully she will have the desire to have her husband baptized and then sealed to him. I’m not sure how he died. We are having a Relief Society dinner in August with sisters bringing dishes from their country of birth. We have a lot of out of state members. Christine is from Jamaica. She put down that she would bring curry goat!!!

Dinner on wheels.....

This week Tina called to tell us that we don't have to worry about getting any disease from her because she is okay now. She told us that she really loves us. It has only been 5 days since she was diagnosed with Impatigo. She said, "Don't fix dinner tomorrow night because I am bringing you something." We were a little nervous about what she was doing. She brought us 4 breaded chicken breasts and 4 rice croquettes (little breaded balls). They were tasty but I was nervous about eating it because of all the cats and dogs that she sleeps with. Tim was braver than I was. Now we know how the missionaries must feel when they go into a home for dinner and aren't sure what they are going to get. I am very impressed with her kindness to us.

The itch...............

This morning we went to the church to help with a “free” car wash rather than knocking on doors for the Outreach program of the ward. We had young people standing on the busy street with signs. As the people were waiting to get their car washed, we took them inside the building for refreshments and a tour of it. I think we got a few referrals from it. They washed about 10-15 cars including an ambulance with 4 men from it. They thought they would be silly and didn’t think we would do it but we fooled them.
We thought Tina was itching to join the church but this morning she called to say that the doctor called yesterday to tell her that she has Impetigo. It makes her itch terribly It is contagious but Brian assured me that you can’t get anything from her by just sitting on the same seat she sat on. He said it is an infection like a staff infection and by scratching an open wound you infect that area and then the next area you scratch. I was worried about her having sat on our sofa but he said that even Sister Keller couldn’t catch anything by holding Tina’s hand. It is cured with an antibiotic and takes about a week.
Tina also told me that she loves us terribly but that she couldn’t be a Mormon because she needed to respect her mother who was murdered at about 27 years of age and her grandparents who raised her. They were Roman Catholic and she doesn’t want to offend them. She said that she has read a good portion of the Book of Mormon and likes it though.

Discussion with Tina........

Tina called last night and wanted to talk to Tim. She said she had some questions about the Book of Mormon and our beliefs and wanted to talk to him some time. He asked if she wanted the missionaries to come and teach her and she agreed again so we set up a time tonight.
She arrived 15 minutes early and was leaving when we got home from the office because she thought we had forgotten. The missionaries showed up 50 minutes late so Tim and I visited with her about the Joseph Smith story, prophets, the pre-existence and the resurrection, temples, etc. She keeps asking us why we are so happy and why her life is so awful.
The missionaries challenged her to be baptized when she gets her own testimony and she said she would. She wasn't feeling well and so needed to leave but said, "I want to meet with you again sometime because I have some questions. This book is very nice (B of M). We will meet with them again on Friday.

A close call............

We are being watched over. Tonight we had to go buy 45 huge potatoes to bake for zone conference tomorrow. The closest parking spot to our apartment is a handicapped area so we parked there and carried our potatoes in. Tim forgot to go move the car and as he was saying his prayers the thought came to him that he forgot to move it. He came out and said “You don’t have to do it right now but will you go out and move the car before you come to bed.” I told him I would go right then because I was waiting for the computer to boot up. When I got about a car length away from the car, I noticed a policewoman getting out of her vehicle and heading towards our car looking at the license plate with her flashlight so I hit my remote and unlocked it. She looked up and said “Is this your car? You can’t park here. I have been going around here more often because I noticed people are parking in handicapped spots and along curbs where there is no “real parking place”. I told her that we had just carried a lot of potatoes in and would be moving it. She said, “I was just ready to give you a citation.” Then she looked at the license plate and asked how long we were in town for and I got to tell her who we were and thanked her for not giving me a ticket. Someone was watching out for us!

Our "adopted friend" Tina......

Tina, our 88 yr old friend, called this afternoon and said she wanted to ask me something yesterday but was embarrassed to. She said “Did you say that I could go to church with you? I would like to do that.” I told her we would be glad to take her next Sunday. I didn't mention to her that it is 20 minutes away and 3 hours long so we may not be staying for the whole time next week. She also told me that she was having some health concerns and if she died she only wanted 3 people to be near her coffin….myself, Tim and her one grandson. I think we have an "adopted friend".

Same-O, same-o.....

We really don't have anything news shattering to report this week. I think we have settled into the routine of things so life seems pretty normal.
We continue to work with the missionaries on a couple about our age that is taking the lessons. They are on vacation in Georgia this week so we will probably have them over for dinner with the missionaries after the 20th when they get home.
We continue to see our little 88-yr old friend, Tina, about twice a week. She had us take her shopping yesterday and we were gone for 3 hours. She is a joy to be around. We had her set up to meet here with the missionaries on Friday evening but she said she had to go shopping with her daughter on Friday. I thought she meant that she wouldn't be able to come so I cancelled with the missionaries. Friday night at 5:30 she called to see if she was supposed to come at 7pm or 8pm. I told her I had cancelled and she was not happy with me. She is going to be moving to a senior citizen place as soon as her counselor finds a place so I thought it best to wait until she gets settled in and have the same missionaries teach her from the beginning. We could start with the sisters here and then she could end up in another set of missionaries' boundaries. We will continue to work with her.
For those of you who don't know, Amber had her baby on Thursday, July 9.....8 lb. 15 oz. and 20 inches long. She is a very chubby darling baby. Watch for pictures on Amber's blog.

A beautiful baptism and another friend to teach......

We had a very nice baptism today after church for Fernando Chaud, a Brazilian. She is a beautiful young lady with a beautiful testimony. She even bore her testimony at the end of the service. I was again privileged to play the piano for the service. The font was actually full enough this time for her boyfriend to baptize her successfully the first time and it was warm.
Tina, our 88 year old friend, called us on our way home from church to see if she could come and see us. We didn’t catch the phone in time. She left a message that said, “I miss you folks. I love you.” It almost made me cry.
Tina spent about 2 hours here again tonight. She is such a delightful lady and remembers everything we tell her and she tells us. She keeps saying “Don’t you remember I told you about ……?” We showed her pictures on our laptop of each of our children’s families and their homes as well as ours. She was very impressed and said, “They all look so happy.” I told her it was because of our faith. She asked me what our church believed so I shared with her that we have a prophet on the earth today and that we are all children of a loving Heavenly Father who has a plan for us to live with him again. She agreed to let the missionaries come and teach her here in our home. I will schedule a time with the missionaries hopefully this week.

4th of July celebration.....

We went to the President's home for the 4th of July celebration last night. He BBQ’d hamburgers for us. It was the first one I have had since leaving home and it tasted so good. We had the works with potato salad, relish tray, baked beans, chips, and, of course, apple pie and ice cream for dessert. It was a fun evening with the 6 couples. We spent about 2 hours discussing temple trips, budgets, zone conferences, etc. The 2 Hale boys put on a firework show for us.