Sunday, January 24, 2010

Haiti Earthquake Victims and missionary opportunities......

We have been so saddened by the earthquake in Haiti. Last week at church we found out that one of the girls in our branch lost her cousin who was raised with her. We talked to the girl who checks us out every week at the grocery store and she said her husband's brother and his 2 little kids were also killed. The mission president in Haiti has a wife and 2 little kids. The wife was flown here to Fort Lauderdale this last week to give birth this Tuesday. The church wanted Pres and Sister Hale to put her up in their home but it is transfers this week and there is "no room at the inn" because of their 5 children. Arrangements were made for someone about 1/2 north of here to house them. Evidentally that didn't go so well and she found herself sitting at a McDonald's with her 2 little kids yesterday. She was kicked out and had no where to go. I'm not sure how it all came about but she is now staying at one of our missionary empty apartments and our housing director had to get her food and equipment to stay there. Fortunately the apartment was available. The President had pulled Elders out of that area last transfer and doesn't plan on putting anyone there until next transfer which is about 6 1/2 weeks away. It’s kind of a sad story.
Friday night Tina, our 88 year old friend, called and told Tim that she needed to ask us some questions about our church. She said she was thinking about joining it. She had one lesson with us about 5 months ago and decided that she couldn't change her religion because her parents were Catholic as well as her grandparents. We invited her to come to dinner today with the missionaries. She asked what I was cooking. I told her pork chops. She said, "Is that the only thing you know how to cook?" She doesn't like them and I have fed them to missionaries quite often and she has asked previously what I was feeding them. She declined the dinner invitation but said she needed to talk to us face to face so she came by night.
Tina asked if she could ask us some questions. She asked about the Godhead so Tim basically told her the Plan of Salvation, the war in heaven story and why we are here on this earth. We visited about 1 1/2 hours about the church and she asked if we could meet with her again. We told her we would get some missionaries to teach her and she thought that would be great. I called Sister Barros and Sister Miller and they want to come tomorrow night and Tina agreed. She has told us several times that she notices we are always happy. Obviously she hasn't seen us first thing in the morning or late at night.

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