More Mission News

The time is flying by. Can't believe we have been here almost four months already. November flew by. We had Zone Conference, which was great. President and Sister Ogden are great examples and teachers. We are still visiting quite a few people regularly.

Beryl Eden has finally got an appt to get her Patriarchal blessing. She is so excited. She says she is "over the moon" about it. She is 80 years old and can't wait to see what life has in store for her!!! She is a really cool lady and calls us her favorite people, which makes us feel really good. We have really come to love her.

We have another visit with Matthew Gregory tomorrow. He is the only member in his family and quit going to church when he got worried that he might not be with his family in the next life because he doesn't think they will ever join the church. We are trying to help him understand about their opportunity to accept it in the spirit world and that he needs to keep coming to church so he can do all he can to help them.

Betty Walraven is another 80 year old sister who we are visiting. She is very active, but has a lot of worries in her life. She grew up never knowing her mother and none of her family even knew that she existed. With the help of a couple in the ward doing some family research she was able to find some of her family and they have met and have become close. She is going to the temple next week to do the work for her mother. She is so excited. She also has had an insurance guy who has been blackmailing her for the last 16 years into paying him 400lbs per month. Threatening her etc. When her family found out about it they hit the roof and called the police. Come to find out he has been doing the same thing to several other women. He is now in prison (the mental ward) and Betty is having a hard time dealing with it. We have been asked to stay close to her and visit as often as we can to help her deal with it. She will probably be able to recover a lot of the money she paid him. She feel very embarrassed to have been taken in by him.

We are trying to visit with more of the active members so we can get them involved in helping with the inactives. It is amazing how little home teaching and visit teaching they do in this ward. They just don't seem to stay in touch with those that don't come all the time. It is something that the Mission Pres. really stressed at zone conference. Get the members involved.

We had a great Thanksgiving Dinner with a family in the ward. The husband is from the States so they always celebrate Thanksgiving. they had around 25 people for dinner. I made pecan pies, banana cream pie, and sweet potatoes w/marshmallows. They don't really eat that here, so some of them wouldn't even try it. the hostest loved it, however, and ate about 6 helpings. They did have turkey, ham and all the other trimmings. They set tables up outside in their big shed and it was freezing, but we managed to stay out long enough to eat way too much!

The weather has turned pretty cold. We wear sweaters "all the time" and are still cold. And the real cold weather hasn't even come yet. We actually had a little snow this week.

The Mission got 2 brand new cars a couple of weeks ago and the Mission Pres. gave one of them to us. Wow, we are so blessed. It runs so much better than the one we had. It is diesel and has the suicide doors. All the elders were quite envious at dist. mtg last week. They all had to take turns sitting in it and drooling.

We will be going to Birmingham next week for a Farewell Party for two of the senior couple that are going home. And Dec. 24 we are having a Christmas Party for the whole mission. Pres. Ogden says this is the first time they have ever done this, so everyone is very excited. They are working really hard to coordinate getting all the missionaries to Birmingham at one time. Should be really fun.

We had our first YSA Family Home Evening last night. Not a good turnout, but it was a start. We are also starting a weekly scripture study class the 1st of January. We are excited about that and have several people who want to come.

We love and miss you all. Love, Sister Henry

P.S. Heard the funniest thing in SS Class yesterday. The teacher said she was coming home from Wales Saturday and realized that the water in her "wishy washer" was frozen. It took us a minute to realize that she was talking about her "windshield wipers". They talk real funny over here!!!