A Baptism without a Funeral!!

So many things happened this week!  Most of them wonderful things, but a couple of scary and sad things.  Shannon came to our Book of Mormon class early and had an interview with the Bishop.  She came into the class and said she wanted to get to the temple as soon as possible.  This was Wednesday night.  So I got right on the phone and we managed to get an appointment to do a baptism for Friday night.  She really wanted to take an ancestor's name.  We had no time we could meet to work on it together and frankly very little spare time to work on it alone before Friday evening, but she gave me her sign in information and I started working on getting a name ready.  I had tried everything I knew of and had just about given up late Thursday night (about an hour past when I'm supposed to be in bed) when the Spirit prompted me to try googling her great grandmother's last name.  When I did an alternative spelling came up, which I then tried in Family Search and found a match!  She'd had her married name as her husband's first name and her maiden name spelled wrong!  So Shannon was able to be baptized for her grandmother and it was awesome! Wednesday night Odell Jackson's nephew was able to talk to the Bishop and was found worthy to baptize his uncle!  Chris was less active when we arrived.  He was the caretaker of an investigator who died before we got her baptized.  That really put the fear of God in him and he started coming back to church.  His uncle moved in with him then and he came to church with him.  It turns out he's my 12th cousin through the Ezekiel Johnson line.  Anyways Odell is amazing!  He's 68.  He is so excited to serve!

The scary thing is that our new member has had trouble with alcohol.  The good news is that the Spirit told me he needed to finish the Addiction Recovery program.  There's a member in the ward who's recently finished rehab.  We invited the 2 of them to come with us to Kingwood on Thursday night for the group meeting for the Addiction Recovery Program at the Stake Center.  They came and ate dinner with us first and it was awesome!  We are going to do it every Thursday night as long as we're here.  The sad thing is that neither of them made it to church Sunday!  We just keep inviting and praying and texting and I worry, Elder Quincy doesn't worry, but I do enough for both of us!

These pictures are all backwards.  Friday we spent a few hours getting the lattice woodwork off of Tammy's porch so that we could paint her house Saturday.

Christina, an investigator who's engaged to a member got septic pneumonia and almost died!  They put her in a medical induced coma.  The doctor told Br. Soper that she may not live through the night.  Br. Johnston went to the hospital in the middle of the night and gave her a blessing.  When we got there the next day she was improving slighty, her kidneys weren't functioning, so they planned to start her on dialysis that day.  She gradually improved all day and they didn't have to start dialysis.  yesterday she got off of the ventilator!  They are supposed to get married on July 1st and she'll be baptized on July 8th, if all goes as planned! 

Saturday,we got the Elders at 7:00 and painted until 11. We came home and changed into clothes for the baptism and went to Odell's baptism.  Elder Quincy gave the baptism talk.  We took the Sisters back with us after we all changed and painted until 4:00. It was awesome because Sonya's husband Lloyd, and she and Tammy's parents; the Allens were there working and talking with us all day.  That's Jerry Allen on the ladder by Elder Quincy.

This is Barbara Allen talking to Sister Houseman.

Elder Quincy getting ready to cover the last of the barn red.

Sweet Shannon.  Her goal is to be able to get her endowment and be sealed to her husband by the anniversary of his death; July 30th. 

These pictures are all in the wrong order.  This is the porch without the lattice work.  It seems so much bigger!

One side finished.

Can you spot the squirrel in this picture?

A new flower I spotted on our walk.

Hard working Elders. Taking down the latticework. 

The Terrenos sales office I was talking about last week.

I thought this was hilarious.  We got our tires rotated this week and these moms were holding their daughters the whole time we waited!  One of them is bigger than her mom!

Update on the Morales; Antonio got everything done and should get his Social Security card in the mail this week!  AND Ruby has been cleaning and dejunking!  I killed hundreds of cockroaches and did a lot of sweeping up and organizing things, but Ruby has been going gangbusters on cleaning and getting rid of stuff!  My sisters would be amazed!  We even started on the back porch on Saturday night!

The Fish that Elder Quincy caught and Cinco de Mayo in Spanishland

All the missionaries went fishing at the Neal's property on Monday.  Elder Quincy caught this giant fish.  Everyone had to pose with it.  Jaymo caught this fish with Luke later in the same place.  Its just as big if it look at it in proportion to the fisherman.

 We've had a wonderful week with lots of firsts. An outdoor service project without Elder Quincy there was a first.  Finding a sweet lady at the nursing home's great great grandparents was a first.  She is so excited about it, too!  I need to teach her why she feels the urgency to do her family history.
We went with the Sisters to eat at Odell's on Tuesday night.  BTW he's getting baptized Saturday!! He fixed us a delicious meal with pork roast and vegetables.  We left there and met the Spanish Elders to go teach Ramon's family. They failed to tell us that they were also feeding us dinner!  First time to eat 2 big meals in one night!  Shannon fed all of us lunch after we worked on her yard that day, and Sister Perry has been feeding Br. Sneed and Elder Quincy lunch everyday up at the ramp project, so we have had a record number of meals with investigators and members this week.  We ate with the Allens on Monday night, as usual, with the Elders and Shannon on Thursday night and with Br. Hodges and the Elders on Saturday night.  Sunday I cooked Café Rio pork for all the missionaries for a farewell dinner.  So we only ate at home twice this week. 
Ok, so on Friday night, Cinco de Mayo, after the Family History class and a lesson with Odell, we took some cookies to Ramon's house to thank them for dinner and Elder Quincy and I taught our first lesson in Spanish without the Elders.  I gave my second prayer in Spanish for the week.  Elder Quincy prayed in English, but I told them what he'd said after.  The missionaries call the areas with lots of Hispanics in our area Spanishland.  There are about 4 of them.  There's a huge business; that's kind of like Craiglist for Spanish speaker and a real estate company all in one called Terrenos.  I think it must be bigger than just here, because the signs say Terrenos Houston.  They build these subdivisions and seem to mostly sell to Hispanics, which makes it easy for the Spanish Elders to know where to look.
Saturday we went to a funeral for a step grandson of a sister we visit in the nursing home.  Her son is an inactive member.  It was the most country funeral ever!  Lots of cowboy music blaring, lots of guys in cowboy hats, and the preacher's accent was so thick, we had a hard time understanding him.  He gave a good, uplifting message though. 
Sunday was cool, Sister Houseman had the great idea of putting on a musical missionary fireside, this was planned months before we had the surprise fireside with David Archuleta last Sunday.  She had the Primary kids, the Young Women and a few individuals in the ward preform.  She also had President Rascon from the Mission Presidency speak and sing with his wife.  It was really nice and each set of missionaries; Elders, Sisters and Spanish Elders, had an investigator there.  The interesting part is that the Elder's Quorum were in charge of refreshments.  I had brought some brownie bites from Sam's Club as back up, and Elder Allen brought a cake a member had given him, but there obviously wasn't enough to go around.  The Spanish Elder's investigator left and bought a couple of chocolate cakes and a watermelon.  Life is different here in the mission field!  This ward is growing with new members and we are seeing inactives coming back! 
Okay, the best for last!  Luke was called to be the assistant Scout Master yesterday! Jessica Becker bore her testimony in Sacrament meeting and Ashley Evans gave her testimony in Relief Society!  This is a great adventure!  I'm so glad I have my companion back!  Oh and another awesome thing is that this ramp Elder Quincy just finished is in the same street as the Mason family.  Stephen Mason, the 14 year old son who is wheelchair bound was able to get into the Perry's home and hang out with their grandson, a 14 year old we are trying to get ready for the priesthood!  We'd built the ramp with his great grandmother in mind, but how cool that Heavenly Father had another plan in mind!

Elder Romero is leaving us today. 

Elder Allen, far left is leaving us, too.

While Elder Quincy was working on his ramp project, I went with all the missionaries to clean some of Shannon Watson's back yard.  Br. Roberts showed up with his lawn mower and got the whole place mowed, which was awesome, but he didn't get the message about bringing his chain saw.  All Shannon had was a machete and some hedge trimmers, but the missionaries managed to take out a few trees with what she had.  My job was to make sure they didn't take out each other and/or get too close to the Copperhead snake we saw down by the creek. 

Sister Housman said she did yard work with a machete in Hawaii all the time.

this is the huge burn pile from the stuff we cut down.

Meanwhile Br. Sneed and Elder Quincy worked on this ramp.

This is a memorial garden Sister Perry made in her back yard.  This is something people do a lot around here.

Leveling this driveway, putting in some culverts,  and bringing in gravel will be a future project.

Our last district meeting before transfers. The only picture I have of our whole district.

On the way to the Morales'.  They made it back from Guatemala!  Antonio is getting a Social Security card this week!  We're going to help clean up the disaster their house was when they got home later today.

A pond with great lily pads I admired on our way to visit a new member Saturday.

One of the swap meets in Cleveland.  This one sells ponies and goats.

Last few things Saturday; hanging this mirror and putting up the shower curtain. 

Logan graduated from Preschool on Thursday night.  We didn't get to go because the Elders needed us to go to eat with them at a single women's house.  Luckily Nicole is really good at taking pictures.

Surprises and another Funeral/Baptism Saturday

We think we have conquered the bed bug problem and have moved our mattress back onto our boxsprings!  2 nights of sleeping in our bedroom have been heavenly! 
Elder Quincy has worked really hard all week and has finished one project, almost finished the second and is about half way through with the third.  He's a legend around here.  Br. Roberts tells everyone that Elder Quincy can fix anything! 

We have another great investigator we helped the Sisters teach this week.  He's older than us.  He's been studying lots of religions and thought he'd never need to go to a church to get close to God.  He said that when he came to our church and as he's been reading he has felt something that's surprised him.  He loves coming to our church and feels like its helping him to get closer to God.   He'll make a great member!
Our sweet Sister Mary Jernigen died early Wednesday morning. Today was the first Sunday in months without seeing her!  I really missed her!  Her viewing was Friday and the funeral was Saturday.
We went straight from the funeral Saturday to Timothy's baptism.  We got to see Sister Smith!  Timothy's brother baptized him and his Mom and Dad came!!  It was great! 

After the baptism we went to Kylie's (Tammy's granddaughter) birthday party.  I love that family!  The 2 preschool teachers we see every Thursday came with their families. That was really fun!  I think we need to teach one of them. 

After the party we picked up the Sisters and went to dinner at the Hodges.  They always have soo much food and are not happy if you don't eat tons.  Luckily she is an amazing cook. So even thought I was too full to do it, with our mattress out of the way, I did yoga for the first time in 3 weeks on Saturday night!  One busy Saturday!
Today has been great!  Elder Quincy confirmed Timothy.  He taught the 11 year olds in Primary and then he gave a blessing to an investigator after the block. Another surprise was that we had a Missionary Fireside tonight.  David Archuleta was down here for Time Out For Women. His sister is serving in our mission.  Our mission president arranged for him to come and give us a fireside.  It was amazing!  He not only sings so beautifully, but he has a beautiful testimony that was so wonderful to hear. I never thought I'd be seeing David Archuleta on my mission!
Another surprise is that the church didn't charge us for the month of December. Some kind of mix up because of our trip home for a week to help with Joni's baby. So we only have 2 more mission payments!  Its hard to believe its a new month tomorrow!  Can May really be here already? 
I've done some calculating and I think we've lost 12 members of the ward since we got here!  The Bishop has done 36 funerals in the 5 years he's been bishop of this ward.  So if you look at the 8 months we've been here; 12 is a third of the deaths!  Luckily we've had more baptisms than deaths!  So the size of the ward is still growing!  The Bishop was showing numbers in the 5th Sunday adult meeting today.  There are 564 people in the ward, and 14 of them have submitted family names for ordinances.  Of those 12, 7 of them are people who have been baptized since we got here!  And Timothy found a name the day before he got baptized!  I'm kind of proud of our awesome converts!  Its amazing how much joy they have brought me!

I had to add this picture of the darling Kinsly, who is 5 months old and had her first ponytail!

When Br. Sneed and Elder Quincy showed up to work at the Rudolphs one morning the found their dog like this and running into the fence, etc.  They saved her after they took pictures.

Here's the bathroom with the toilet and vanity in.

I loved these pictures of a younger Mary at her funeral!

Tim and Brian Foote.

The whole family with 'Aunt Sandy'.

I love that missionaries get to come back for baptisms!

Cute Kylie!

Elder Quincy helped the Perrys put the boards around the porch and put new boards on it.

This is the first half of the ramp.

Jessica Becker (a new convert) was so excited to see Sister Smith at the fireside tonight!

One super Sabbath!

After last week's tirade I decided to start with the positive!  We had the best Sunday!  Timothy decided he wants to be baptized on Saturday and he brought his mom to church with him!  Bridget, who has been attending church for a couple of months, but "wasn't ready for the lesson yet", said she wants to get ready to get baptized and is ready for the lessons!  Christina's divorce is going to be final on May 3rd, then she has to wait 30 days and can be married, and then be baptized a week later!!  We had 7 investigators at church!  Steven Mason passed the sacrament for the first time!  He really needed very little help.  Sister Jernigen was still breathing yesterday.  Elder Quincy and Br. Howland gave her a blessing of release.  We had the Elders with us and Shannon Watson.  We sang her favorite hymn for her; "How Great Thou Art" It was sweet!  She hasn't eaten anything all week.  I'm not sure what's keeping her here!  After that we took the Elders to the Broadway ward (an hour south) so Elder Brinkerhoff could baptize a sister there.  We had a great Sunday!

This is the super bed bug killer with a 5 star rating on Amazon we've been using. 

We got this plastic cover for the box springs.

Tile is in.

Elder Quincy got a morning off to go fishing.

This is the wood floor he's installing for Br. England.

Vanessa before her baptism.

Its much more diverse ward down in Broadway ward.

Just 2 little bed bugs this morning.  We have hopes of being able to be back in our bedroom soon.

Sister White's homecoming.  Sister Fisher in the middle!  My 2 favorite missionaries!

Firsts this week; spending lots of time without my companion, so doing lots of visits alone.  Its not as fun that way, but he's been so busy! Getting into to visit the Perdues (6th try worked) and having them set up a Family Home Evening with their neighbors with us!  Driving an hour to visit someone and then being too scared to walk past their dog to go in the house.  (Elder Quincy said that he wouldn't walk past that dog either)  Have I mentioned that Elder Quincy is the dog whisperer?  People are amazed that he can get us past their killer dogs without being attacked. 
This mission time goes by way too fast!  We are really having a great adventure!