Weekly Letter 10-30-2022

Dear  Family and Friends,

We didn't have a very eventful week.  On our prep day we washed clothes and went to our favorite place in Oakland - WalMart. Actually there is a fun little story about WalMart.  The first day we got here we had to go get supplies. The cashier that helped us was a friendly lady originally from the Philippines.  She noticed our name tags and asked what we were doing. We had a nice conversation with her.  Now every time we go to WalMart we look for her, and that's quite often.  Our goal is to get to the point where we can have quick little visits about with her about the Church and give her a Book of Mormon.

On Tuesday we went to our orientation at the hospital for our volunteer service.  We will start our service this coming Thursday and are excited to get going. We noticed that as we were walking around the hospital a lot of people were glancing at our name tags.  In addition to the service we will be doing, we hope to have some conversations about why we are here in Oakland.

On both Wednesday and Thursday we went to different members homes for dinner.  It was kind of funny that at both appointments we had lasagna, Cesar salad, and garlic bread.  Both were very yummy. Our branch members are really nice people and they are so happy to have us here to help strengthen the branch.

We are still out looking for inactive members of the branch.  It' getting harder.  So far we have been able to contact the low-hanging fruit, those who are at home most of the day and will talk to us.  Now we are trying to contact those who work during the day and are less happy to see us.  We will just keep plugging along.  We are still delivering birthday cards and candy bars.

Friday we went back to the Friendsville Heritage Museum and Genealogical Library to help our new friend, Ina Hicks, organize a bunch of files. We found out that Ina is a Quaker. I had never met a Quaker before so I asked her a few questions about her religion. It was an interesting visit.  We will help there a couple more times before they close it down for the winter.

I gave the 5th Sunday lesson today.  It was pretty easy; we watched a video about the new Teaching In The Saviors Way with Elder Uchtdorf and gave a couple of closing remarks.  I also was called to be the Assistant Branch Clerk.  That was a suggestion we got in the MTC.  With that calling we have access to all of the branch records.

We are trying to help the young Elders as much as we can.  We have them over for dinner a couple of times a week.  We try to have refreshments for them at District Council every Friday.  We found out that Elder Hooper, who is from Rigby, has an uncle who used to live in our ward while I was Bishop. Their names were Adam and Rochelle Nield.  I don't know if any of you remember them.

Well, that's it for this week.  We love you and are grateful for your love and support..  We hope everything is going well with all of you.

Mom and Dad