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.