The Grandchildren Visit

Hi Y’all,

Thanks for all the visits and phone calls from all of you. It really lifts our spirits. We love seeing the children and how they are growing. It is amazing all the things we have accomplished in the last couple of months. Thanks for all your help and the fun times!!!!!

March was beautiful here. Our Azalea hedges in our backyard were out in all their glorious pink.

We have a week out of every 6 or so that we are home and can catch-up with our lives. It is the only week we can spend some time with family here at the house. Jennifer and her children (Hayley, Andrew, Parker, Becca and Olivia) drove here from Denver at the end of March and we were able to go some places and see some great things. There is a park down the street from us that the children loved!! Every morning while Dad and I did our office work they spent playing on the equipment. They even did some missionary work!

The Natural Science Museum here is really interesting. They have an area with alligators and it was fun to see them in their tank and watch them when they are fed. They have a tank with a huge albino cat fish and then a section with a two-headed snake. We even saw some paddle fish – which I have never seen before.

They also had an exhibit of Walter Inglis Anderson’s work. He is Mississippi’s most outstanding artist. His sea-life watercolors are wonderful. He had a gallery on the coast when Katrina hit and most of it was destroyed.

We enjoyed some time at the town of Canton, made frozen fruit cups for the missionaries, visited the Mississippi Coast, had lunch at Hamils and played games. We spent a day at Vicksburg touring the Civil War Park and had a picnic dinner with Bishop Wallace and family of the Vicksburg Ward who was a missionary companion of our son-in-law John Walton.

Parker Walton bore his testimony in the Jackson Branch on Sunday morning and the new converts were so impressed. Jen’s children doubled the primary that day.

We enjoyed watching conference with them on the next Saturday and then they had to drive home on Sunday. It was wonderful having them here and showing them where we live and what we are doing. The children were GREAT!

Andrea called us on Conference Sunday to recite to us the 3rd Article of Faith. That’s pretty impressive for a 3 year old!!!

We were at the Jackson Branch for Fast and Testimony meeting. A young man named Eddie Hill, who came to church for the first time with the missionaries, got up to bear his testimony. He said that he had investigated other churches and when the missionaries stopped him on the street and talked to him he was impressed that this church practices what they preach - when people are members of the church they live and do the things they are taught. He said “Here these young men didn’t know me from a can of paint, yet they shared the truths with me.” He and his wife Jenny were baptized on the 14th of April.

Easter was a beautiful day. It was sunny and 65 degrees. We went to church at the Madison Ward. They had a men’s chorus sing and the speaker was a reactivated member who talked about forgiveness and how it has been an important part of his reactivation and life as a member.

March and April bring great color to Mississippi. Iris, Azaleas, Daffodils, beautiful pink and white Dogwood trees, and lots of colorful flowering fruit trees are all in bloom. With this beauty around us comes allergies for the missionaries.

The last zone conference I told the missionaries a story about some of the first missionaries in Mississippi. I thought I would pass it along to you.
It was told by George Albert Smith:

“When I was in the mission field first, I went into a section of country where the hymn, Do What Is Right” was apparently known to the community. Two humble missionaries, after walking until late in the afternoon in the sun, in the heat of the summer, came to a small house that was at the bottom of a hill. When the missionaries arrived, they found friends who invited them in to partake of their meager refreshment. And then they were asked to go outside in the cool of the afternoon shade, on one of those comfortable, open southern porches between two rooms and sing some hymns. The people were not members of the Church but they enjoyed Latter-day Saint hymns.

The missionaries had been threatened in that section. One of the men who had threatened them had kept watch of the road and in that way learned when they arrived. He sent word to his associates who saddled their horses and took their guns, and rode to the top of the hill overlooking the little house. The missionaries knew nothing about it; they did not know that right over their heads, not very far away, were a considerable number of armed horsemen. But they had the Spirit of the Lord, and as they sat there in the cool of the afternoon and sang hymns, the one hymn that seemed to be prepared for the occasion was, “Do What Is Right”. Their voices went out into the quiet air. They had sung one verse when the leader of the mob took off his hat. They sang another verse, and he got off his horse, and the others got off their horses. By the time the last verse had been sung, those men were repentant. Upon advice of their leader, they rode away without making their presence known. The leader was so impressed with what he heard the missionaries sing that he said to his associates: “We made a mistake. These are not the kind of men we thought they were. Wicked men can’t sing like angels and these men sing like angels. They must be servants of the Lord.”

The result was that this man became converted to the Church and later baptized.” President George Albert Smith said, “And I never hear that hymn sung but I think of that very unusual experience when two missionaries, under the influence of the Spirit of God, turned the arms of the adversary away from them and brought repentance into the minds of those who had come to destroy them.”

We know some of our missionaries have been protected because they were doing the right things.

Our branch in Collins Mississippi has a membership of about 150 with an attendance of about 45. We have 2 single senior sisters who are assigned to that branch and they are doing a great job of increasing activity and membership. They are living in an old home which is the childhood home of Gerald McRaney. He is an actor – was in Simon and Simon and he is married to Delta Burke. They live on Gerald McRaney Street and everyone knows where it is because there is a big historical plaque outside the home. They get lots of visitors and many chances to talk about the church

April 14th Catherine and Matt came to see us for a few days. They had a break between trials and so they traveled with us to Columbia Mississippi where we spoke on Sunday. They helped us with some computer problems and organization. We love having them whenever we can get them.

April 18-19th we had our Senior Conference here at the mission home. We had lots of food, fun games and 8 hours of training. We have 8 GREAT senior couples and 4 single senior sisters. All of them have had at least one baptism while they have been here

Sister Crystal Perry from our stake at home, has been here about 9 weeks. She is a great missionary!!! She came out ready to work, and she and her companion are doing well

The third weekend in April we had the unusual opportunity to travel outside of our mission (with permission) for a joint coordinating council meeting with the stake presidents in both Mississippi and all of Louisiana. We met in Baton Rouge, Louisiana for the meeting and had the special chance to attend the temple there with our spouses. We had a good visit with Ole and Joyce Christensen, former members of the Oak Hills and Rock Creek Wards in the 80’s. He currently serves as a stake president near Baton Rouge. On the way to the meeting we took a few extra hours to walk through the French Quarter in New Orleans, and we drove through the still-abandoned, vast areas of flooding from Katrina nearly two years ago. We also visited some beautiful old antebellum plantations and mansions along the Mississippi River.

On April 24th we had 9 elders leave for home, but their flights were delayed. They were to leave at about 9:00 in the morning, but their flights didn’t leave until that evening. We were trying to keep them occupied as well as get the mission home ready for 9 new elders that came in the day. One of the elders leaving for home was Elder McFarland from the Medford area, and Mike Duncan is his bishop.

We traveled to Pascagoula MS on the 29th and then spoke in Church the next day. They have a beautiful chapel there which had been flooded with 5 feet of water during Hurricane Katrina. The people there are wonderful and friendly, and it was fun to get to know them at the Linger Longer they had for us. Bishop Taylor has had a lot of responsibility keeping his ward together since the Hurricane, he is great!

On May 7th Diana and Brett and Andrea and Cameron came for a week. We did all the visitor things. We had a great time at the coast where Andrea and Cameron loved the soft warm sand. It isn’t like the sand at the Oregon Coast that is usually wet. The sand here is like Hawaii. The beaches have been cleaned up and there are more and more people playing there. Some of the homes are being rebuilt and they are going to be beautiful! They spent Parker’s birthday and Mother’s Day with us.
Thanks for your help with the computer Brett and the cooking Diana and Andrea.

Mother’s Day was great. I love talking to all of you. Mom received many “Happy Mother’s Day” greetings from the missionaries and 4 of them even wrote her a poem.
At church that day in the branch, one of only 3 teenaged boys spoke. He had a great talk and then at the end he read a poem that he had written for his mom. We were so impressed because there aren’t many 16 year olds that would do that.

We are still eating different foods. We had alligator the other night, and Crawfish Etouffee is really good. People have Crawfish Boils here all the time, and it reminds us of the times we caught crawdads (or crawfish) at Honeyman and boiled them and ate them.

Red Beans and Rice are a big thing here so I thought I would send you a recipe:

RED BEANS AND RICE

1 pound red beans (Camellia)

½ stick butter
1 large onion
1 pound smoked sausage
3 stalks celery, chopped
½ pound ham chunks
6 cloves garlic, chopped
Salt and pepper
2 bay leaves
2 cups rice
1 piece salt pork

Rinse beans; cover with water in large saucepan and soak for 30 minutes or longer. Add onion, celery, garlic, bay leaves, and salt meat. Bring to a medium simmer and cook for 2 hours, stirring often. When beans are getting soft, take out about one cup of beans (just beans, not water) and mash them. Add mashed beans back to the pot. Add butter and stir until melted. Cook another 2 hours. Add water, if necessary, during cooking time. Cut sausage and ham to desired size and add the beans; season to taste. Simmer for 30-40 minutes. Serve over rice.
It’s very good! The missionaries love it!!

The Magnolias are blooming….The big white blossoms pop out all over the tall old trees. It’s a beautiful time here…but we know the hot weather is just around the corner.

We found a cut cross stitch saying in a restaurant here that says it all:

"IT’S HARD TO BE HUMBLE
WHEN YOU’RE FROM
MISSISSIPPI"

That’s about all for now…Thanks again to all of you for your support.

Love to y’all,

Mom and Dad