Wow, Time is Flying! Next Week is our 8 month Anniversary! First Two Weeks of 2018 1-14-2018

Wow, two weeks into the new year! How time flies!

We were saddened to have the passing of President Monson on January 2^nd.  We enjoyed watching President Monson’s funeral, it was a beautiful service! He was an incredible man and what a legacy of service that he leaves.  For our invitation to act the other day for our institute class, we invited each member of the class to do one service for one person each day, and then anonymously they wrote about what they did in their journals.

We look forward this Tuesday to hearing the announcement that President Nelson will make announcing the new Prophet.  We love him so much and already feel that he is the Prophet! 

How blessed we are to have living prophets today to lead and guide us!

For New Years Eve we went to the Jacobs’ with the Pearce’s (the new branch presidency and wives)  and had a fun dinner and played Trains, a new game that was a lot of fun!  Paul made gumbo, and Becky made ham loaf, macaroni and cheese and Missy brought dessert. Sisters Hall and Humpherys were able to come for a bit and they are always delightful.  We had a very nice evening! We got into bed long before midnight, which was also a fun New Years Eve treat!

We are now experiencing winter!  Two nights ago we had from 6 – 8 inches of snow and  freezing rain, and it is cold!  The first two weeks of the month were soooo cold, below zero many mornings, and with the wind chill, it made it feel so much colder!  I wear my thermal garments, a long sleeved t-shirt, wool tights and layers above that. Thank heavens that we have our new car with heated seats, what a blessing! And we also do not have to be out in it like the young missionaries, another blessing!  It would be a huge motivating factor to make teaching appointments if we had to be out tracting! 

Our sister missionaries, Sister Hall and Sister Humpheries continue to amaze and astound.  They are meeting the standards of excellence every week and then beyond, which is 5 new investigators, 2 people at church and a person preparing for baptism. They have only knocked on 5 doors in the month that they have been here, and are teaching all of the time! Tom Janicki is on date to be baptized this next weekend and he passed his interview today and it is wonderful to see the light that has come into his life! He has been studying the church for years with many sets of Elders, and is finally giving up his chewing tobacco and making the commitment to follow the Lord into the waters of baptism. This is exciting!

The Sister Missionaries here have really changed out missionary work!  We are so much more involved with them and do a lot with them.  They, of course, cannot teach a single man without a third female present, so often both of us with go with them or they will bring their investigators here for a discussion.  And they are teaching all the time!  Often we will have one to three appointments with them each day! We can’t do all of them because we have so much of our own work to do, but they keep us hopping! We also give rides to them and their investigators, feed them, arrange for all of their meals with branch members, and even yesterday we went with them to an appointment to teach a single fellow. Even though it was very cold and very snowy, he said that the people in his home were “not believers” and that we could just take a walk while the sister taught him, it was incredible.  We got to snap a few photos during this discussion, which was fabulous, but quite cold! Had we known we would be outside the whole time, we would have bundled up even more!

We have been helping Vickie Arnold and Rachel Daily move, and it has been a mess for them.  We went on the 4th and helped pack boxes and boxes.  Then this past Wednesday, we went and helped load the U-Haul truck with all of the boxes that we packed.  They had hired a company to come and move the heavy items and the furniture, but the company backed out, so they are still in two places, here and Mansfield, which is a mess.  They asked us to pray for them and we certainly will.  We had arranged with the senior missionaries, the Prices, to have a crew in Mansfield on Thursday evening when the truck we had loaded arrived and it was a great crew.  They had it all done in about an hour!  Two sets of missionaries, one sisters and one elders, plus the RS presidency and a member of the bishopric, so that was a great way for them to be introduced into the ward in Mansfield, plus the church is just about 5 minutes away! Wahoo!

We continue to teach our institute class, and we love it. We get to choose which lessons and how fast we cover the material, so we are going very slowly and with lots of participation and discussion.  Last week’s lesson was on the Sabbath.

 We finished with the self-reliance class at the end of December and that was as incredible program.  We have offered to any and all in our group, any remediation that they would like to help them along.
Our sister missionaries had their pictures in the paper, and now both have been invited because of their athletic abilities to help at Kids America! We got permission from our mission president for Sister Humpherys to coach kid's soccer on Monday nights for 6 weeks, and Sister Hall to help with a women's league for a few weeks. The Lord works in many ways to let people know that the Church has sent missionaries to Coshocton!

We cannot believe that in just one month our mission will be half over!  It just has been such an incredible experience!  Each day is a new and exciting adventure! We love the Lord and appreciate the opportunity to serve Him as missionaries! What a blessing it has been to us and hopefully the people in our Coshocton branch and community!