Weekly Letter

Another busy week. Monday, after FHE, we got a call that a member's son had just died. He was the brother of the autistic young man that was baptized a couple of months ago. This young man was severely autistic and he had kidney and liver disease. He had been on dialysis for several months.  It was  a tender mercy that the sister missionaries felt like they needed to go visit the family after FHE and got their just a few minutes after he died.  They were able to give her comfort and visit with her until the mortuary came to pick him up.  Tuesday (or maybe Wednesday, we lose track of days) the branch president called and asked if we would go over with him and talk to the mother and help plan the funeral. I was asked to dedicate the grave and Mom was asked to give a talk on the atonement and resurrection.  The funeral was set for Saturday in a city about two hours away from us and the interment was in a cemetery about twenty plus minutes away from the mortuary.  I was asked to offer the opening prayer because the person that was supposed to give the prayer got a flat tire and didn't make if to the funeral.  Mom did a great job preaching to the gentiles (as I like to call it). It was a little strange to have a "Mormon" funeral in a protestant chapel with only less than a  handful of members of our church in attendance.  We were glad to be able to help.

We were able to help the sister missionaries teach a lesson to our friend (what they call investigators now) Daniel.  He is making great progress.  This week he attended church, came to FHE, drove down to Morgantown for Young Single Adults and had a lesson.  He was at church again today and coming over to our apartment with the missionaries to watch a YSA broadcast.  We are grateful the sister missionaries are including us when they can.

Last night we took the missionaries to a play put on by our local middle school.  One of Mom's young women was in the play and we wanted give her some support.  Her mother said she saw us there and was happy that we would come. The play was Beauty and the Beast Junior. It was well done for that level of kids.

We had some more birthdays this past week and spent some time delivering our cards and candy bars.  One of the women we visited lives in an assisted living facility and she is known for not being very friendly to visitors.  She wasn't overly nice to us but cheered up a little when she saw the candy.

Friday was District Council meeting and we were happy to be with the young missionaries again.  We had our sister missionaries over for dinner that night and then went to our missionary correlation meeting after dinner.  The only problem was our Ward Mission Leader thought our meeting was on Saturday.

Next weekend is going to be interesting.  It's Memorial Day weekend and the tourists will be here in big numbers. A lot  of the people that live on the lake are going to be putting their boats in the water. We have been warned that visitors will fill our building.  Mom won't have any branch member girls next week but should have several young women visitors.  A lot of these visitors have been here before and so they know what to expect.  We think it will be fun to have that that many people in church and are looking forward to it.

One of the Charleston West Virginia Mission Recitations is found in 3Nephi 5:13. "Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  I have been called of him to declare his word among his people, that they might have everlasting life."  It might sound like this scripture is just for missionaries, but it is for all of us that are members of His church. We declare His word by our example. We declare His by treating others kindly.  We declare His word by serving others. We declare His word by serving faithfully in our church callings.  Let us all strive to be disciples of Jesus Christ.

That's it for this week.  We love you and pray for you daily.

Love,

Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandad

Jamee and Kerry

Sister and Elder Cooper