Our Missionary Week - Never a Dull Moment! 9-9-2017

This week has got to be one of the most diverse of our mission! 

Monday afternoon was a rest day after Sister Blanchard arrived home from Utah. She was very happy with the funeral and the visit with the family, but very glad to be home in Coshocton! And the rest was needed for we had a busy week!

Tuesday morning early we headed for New Albany for our zone conference where we learned that we are now a Facebook mission and so began training on what we can, should and cannot do with Facebook.  It is going to be a great tool to add to our ways of connecting with people.  We are blessed!

During our zone conference, President Welker called to tell us that a homebound single sister in our branch needed help getting a new refrigerator.  So instead of making her go to Zanesville to Lowes the next day, we slipped out of Zone conference and with a bunch of phone calls to her back and forth, found one she liked online, and called Lowes in Zanesville, bought it and then arranged for it to be delivered the next day.  Then we went back to Zone Conference.

We drove home from zone conference that evening, emptied her fridge and took it all to the church to be stored.  We then went back Wednesday day to be there when the truck arrived with the new fridge, helped the installers and then brought all her food back. 

That day was also Kim’s birthday, and after getting the fridge installed we went to lunch at the English Ivy, a restaurant that we had wanted to try for a while. We then indulged our birthday outing with a trip to Witts, the most delicious frozen custard! YUM!

That night we taught our institute class and after our lesson and discussion about the Temptations of Christ, we provided a little party to celebrate Sister Blanchard’s birthday and our 40^th wedding anniversary.  It was fun to celebrate with these special friends! Kim’s mom’s funeral was the day of our anniversary, so this was the first that we got to celebrate.

Thursday, Sister Blanchard volunteered at the Coshocton County Job Expo that was held at the Lake Park Pavilion. She got to meet some wonderful people and do something she feels passionate about!

Also, by way of service, after the Expo on Thursday afternoon we went to a widow’s way out in Frazeysburg to take some straw that she needed and then take inventory of all of her farm equipment that she is wanting/needing to sell.  Her daughter who is a member of our branch just moved here from Oregon to live with her nonmember widow mother, but her husband is still in Oregon, so she asked and we have offered to help support these ladies and clean out some of the items her aging mother would like to sell on her mini farm.

Friday we spent preparing and learning more about the Self Reliance class that we have been asked to facilitate.  It is a 12 week class that will be taught every Thursday night beginning next week, September 14^th.  We are excited, but will need some time to get everything organized.  The Church does everything so well, we will not be teachers, only facilitators which helps, and the materials are very comprehensive.

That evening we had dinner at the monthly Elks Fish Fry where we meet more wonderful people! 

Saturday morning drove to Zanesville to watch a self-reliance workshop in action and see how the facilitator job works.  They did a great job, and that helped.  We met with Sister Glaser, the stake specialist for a while after the workshop to just go over the materials.  Each workshop is 2 hours.

We then headed for Danville to attend the Weaver’s Farm and Furniture Customer Appreciation Day.  Brother and Sister Weaver are one of three Amish families that joined the church several years ago.  After they joined the church, their Amish community shunned them and they lost their business.  So with our Stake President’s help, they began another business and we felt we should go and support them. We were so impressed with the beautiful quality furniture!  It is exquisite!

And we purchased a beautiful Amish clock as our 40^th Wedding Anniversary gift to us! 
 It will be an heirloom treasure for us forever!

And then last but not least, we had dinner at the Catholic Church festival as invited guests of a man who attends the interfaith Bible Study with Paul and his wife who we met at the dulcimer festival.   They are a wonderful Catholic couple and she loves family history and plays the dulcimer.  Her musical group played at the festival.  We got to meet their pastor and some incredible people who have family in Utah.  Some great seeds planted there!

Then we came home and made salad, garlic bread, carrot cake and bought lasagna for the 25 people that we will be feeding after church on Sunday! Whew!

We asked our local newspaper if we could have a little write up about us serving here in Coshocton and they not only said yes but they put us on the second page! The article takes up about 1/4 of the page! We have had three phone calls from people and many people stop us in town telling us that they saw our pictures in the paper!  Cool!

So we have done some of everything, from hauling straw, to job expos, to buying a fridge, to visiting the Catholic festival, to an Amish store and Fish Fry- and then some!

Our calling is MLS – Member Leadership Support. We do many things to help the members, the non-members and community that we live in.  Our Branch president is so stretched, it is nice for him to be able to call on us to help with some of these things that he just cannot do.  Plus another assignment that he has given us is to help make a good name for the church in our area. So we volunteer and help with as many things as we can and meet as many people as possible. We are having a blast!  And we pray before we leave that we will be directed and placed where He wants us to be and that is certainly happening!  What tender mercies we see each day! This truly is the Lord’s work!  We love being missionaries!