This week was another adventure filled one! We began the week with visiting members of
the branch and then Monday night were invited to President and Sister Welkers (branch president and wife) for dinner to correlate branch business and celebrate Elder Robison’s #19th birthday.
Elder Robison and Elder Cobabe are the two Elders serving as missionaries also
here in Coshocton. Sister Welker served smoked duck and turkey and all the
fixins. I got to bring spinach salad ingredients, but used fresh spinach from
their garden – yum!
We LOVE eating at
her table about as much as she loves cooking!
Later that night we got a call from Elder Robison saying that
Elder Cobabe, his companion was very sick and was being taken by ambulance to
the hospital. Well the hospital here in
town we find out later is not that great, and he should have gone to the
hospital in the neighboring town of Zanesville, because even though he had appendicitis,
he was sent home saying it was just gastritis.
Well Wednesday night after feeling horrible for two days, our mission doctors
met him at the Zanesville hospital where they found his appendix were in
trouble and performed an emergency 2 a.m. appendectomy! I am glad we persisted and called our mission
doctors!
Wednesday morning Elder Blanchard went to his first men’s
interfaith Bible Study that he had been invited to attend during the Dulcimer
Festival. He was warmly welcomed by each of the other men who attended which
includes at least two preachers, one Baptist, Mennonite, Catholic, Methodist
and Pentecostal- about 10 – 13 normally attend. Elder Blanchard, though nervous
not knowing what to expect, wowed them with some wonderful insights from the
Gospel he learned from Elder Bednar. He
will be attending this each Wednesday morning!
Wednesday morning also was our district meeting in Mt.
Vernon about an hour away and we usually take the elders with us, but of course
they didn’t go. We are always amazed at
these young missionaries, they are so knowledgeable about the gospel and have
fabulous dedication to their missionary call! We come away uplifted and taught!
That evening we again taught institute. Usually about 10 – 13 branch members attend and
we are studying the New Testament. So now
we tell all of our new Ohio friends that we teach “Bible Study” as part of what
we do as missionaries. We are having fun
teaching together! We love having the
Bible videos to supplement our lesson and we love teaching “in the Savior’s
Way/ Come Follow Me”!
In fact one of the people in the Come Follow Me training
videos, Elder Price, is in our mission.
He is the one in the segment who talks about “filling your pockets”. It was so great to meet him and hear his
testimony about those training videos!
None were scripted, just spirit filled!
We have noticed of late that we have been having headaches
and not feeling quite as well as we usually do, and thought that maybe our 175
year building with ancient pipes, peeling (probably lead) paint, contaminated
water and mold might be attributing to part of that. Duh! So we decided to
prayerfully begin searching for perhaps a healthier place to live. Well miraculously that day we found three
really great options. When we went into the third place we knew that it is the
home we need to have. It is brand new,
never lived in before and is in a neighborhood with great people. We believe
with all of our hearts that we were supposed to live in Roscoe Village at this
time, because of the people that we have met (one has studied the church, one
has a child that moved to SLC and plans to visit and the other is now
dissatisfied with her pastor and does not feel that we are supposed to be happy
in this life) but now is the time to go.
So we met with the real estate agent and phoned our mission leaders and
all is coming together for us to move hopefully this next week. It is a little senior community on a former
golf course!
We watch the miracles that happen around us and we just marvel that we get to be a part of all that is happening! The Lord is truly hastening His work!
And then Thursday night we went to dinner with a sister in
our branch who has really had some trials in her life, but she told us of her
conversion and it was a wonderful evening.
Friday morning we packed up and headed to Columbus to meet
our new mission president and wife, President and Sister Stratford, and we
loved them! We listened to them bear
their testimonies, teach about what they have planned for the mission and
invited us to go fish and “hunt” as Jeremiah 16:16 invites.
6 ¶ Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord,
and they shall fish them; and after will I send for many hunters, and they
shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes
of the rocks.
And then the highlight of the week, we left the second we
were finished at the “Meet the Mission” and drove like mad to Virginia where
Ryan and Katie were waiting for us for her birthday date! We had received “permission” from President
Daines and Stratford (they don’t need to give us permission, just need to know
when we are out of the mission boundaries and when we return). We got out of the meeting late and there were
some traffic issues, so we arrived about 11:00 and Katie was asleep but we got
to visit with Ryan and that was wonderful and then catch a little shut eye
before our big day on Saturday.
She got to pick everything we did! As soon as she woke up we
got to meet Bee Bee, her Hatchimal that we had heard so much about. Then we had
breakfast, Katie went swimming, to Burger King for hot dogs, to Barnes and Noble
(Katie’s favorite store) and then to the craft store to buy all of the
components for a nest for her hatchimal.
Katie is so creative, it was a joy to watch her in action, and the nest
was a masterpiece!
We had “birthday cake” birthday cake Oreos and a candle and
played together, snuggled, took videos and then sadly it was 5 p.m. and we had
to say goodbye to get back to Ohio. Oh it was so hard to leave! It was a delightful 19 hours! But we so appreciate Ryan sharing his special
weekend with Katie with us for a fabulous birthday date!
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