Sunday, Aug. 11, 2019

A week to put in the journal!

What a week !  I can't wait to tell to all about it!  

We are zone leaders over several districts of young sister missionaries.  We were contacted by one companionship and asked to take them for a dinner appointment to someone that they had contact with at Pageant.  After getting the approval from our mission president, they were excited to meet with Kent, his brother, Mark, and sister, Julie Johnson.  They lived about 10 miles south of Quincy along the river.  When we arrived, we see this beautiful, old farm house and barn with an immaculate yard and garden.  Kent and Mark live in their childhood home while Julie has her own home a few miles away.  Julie brought their childhood family friend (Carol) along as well.  Jim and I were actually abit apprehensive (thinking that it may well be a setup for a Bible bashing session against us) but it turned out to be wonderful.  The young sisters were excited and had baked brownies to take.  They had been invited to supper.  After 2 hours of visiting / tour of the yard / and talking about family history, I was beginning to wonder if the food was really going to happen.....haha!  We had a fun time together and enjoyed our visit and at the end of the meal, Sis. Green asked if she could leave a spiritual thought with them.  They agreed and she shared a scripture from 2 Nephi which led to the question, "Who is this Nephi?"  When she offered them a copy of the Book of Mormon, they declined saying that they were sure that they already had one somewhere in the house...haha! BUT their friend, Carol said, "I want one!"  We talked some more about prophets and having a living prophet today and as we were leaving, Kent said." If you have another copy of that book, I'd like one too"  The young sisters didn't have one but I have carried one in the Tahoe ever since David was in the hospital in Calgary and it has my marks and some notes in it but we gladly gave it to him.  I am interested to see what develops here.  I have carried that Book of Mormon for over 4 years with the thought that I would love to give it to someone.  What a blessing to be able to do that when we are not called to an actual proscelyting mission !  I feel that we have had so many other ways of sharing our testimonies here and never really thought that I could be able to actually testify by my words.  The Lord make us instruments in His hands in many ways!

As we pulled up

Sis. Green and Sis. Riddle. 

Beautiful old brick home....very spacious but in need of alot of work ( as all of these homes from this era are)  It is over 100 years old. 

Barn and some of the yard

Back row:  Left to right:   Kent / Carol (their friend) / Julie / Mark Johnson.  All three siblings are single (we didn't delve into that story)   Front row : left = Sis. Riddle   right = Sis. Green

One of the teamsters taking feed to the sheep.  They follow him down the middle of main street.

Friday was our last performance of Sunset by the Mississippi.  It was bitter/sweet.  Jim was relieved but he actually admits to enjoying it this summer whereas last summer, it was a "pain"...haha!  Saturday, we drove over to West Point, Iowa for their CornFest.  We had to see if it measured up to Taber (we were sorry to hear about the storm that wiped alot of the Taber crops out)  It was something else!!  It is a town about the size of Raymond and they had 16 TONS of corn dumped into their town square on Thursday,  The entire town turns out (young & old) and they husk all that corn by hand. Then, they cook and give out corn for free on Friday & Saturday.

They lower the corn into the cooker inside this basket...looks like a crab basket.  The electric winch and chain are used to lower and raise the basket filled with corn into the boiling water.

The corn cooks inside of this big tub of boiling water .  When they pull it out of the tub, it is piping hot and they just place it on long tables with butter and salt .  It was really good and sweet.

They also have this gigantic barbeque, cooking chicken.  We didn't stay long enough for that to be complete... but it is quite the setup!! We did watch the end of the water fights (with fire hoses) and the bathtub races.  It was a fun event! 

Today, on the way home from Quincy, I had to have Jim stop so that I could take a couple of pictures of the river.  The water lotus are in full bloom along with a purple flower.  It looks beautiful but the locals aren't so impressed.  The vegetation clogs up the river.  I'm wondering if it is that same stuff that they inspect boats for at the border when entering Canada.  What is it called ?  I remember...purple loosestrife !!  And....yes it is!  Looks so pretty but is a real detriment to the quality of the river water.  The barges stay away from it. 
 

If every week goes as quickly as this past one, we will blink and be on our way home !  While we are both looking forward to that day, we , also, realize how much we will miss Nauvoo.  The spirit here is tangible and real!    One thing that I won't miss is the bugs....they all seem to like biting me!  Love you all....have a great week!