PEACE BY THE RIVER

The river across the road after a rain.

Just looked at the weather and in the next 10 days 8 of them will be thunderstorms. 

Today is Lily’s 8^th birthday.  Where did the time go?  We loved having her here for a few days and getting to know her sweet spirit and fun ways.  She has such a fun wit and is always ready for whatever.  She is loved by her family and we love her so much.  She gives you the idea she is shy and quiet but she is by no means that way.  She is full of mischief and is a joy to be around.  She loves her Father in Heaven and her Savior.  She will always try to choose the right.

Elder Bayles spent time P-Day cleaning our laundry room on his hands and knees.  Gotta love that guy.  Can’t figure out why I didn’t do it when we moved in.  It was very yucky.

We took a member to the pharmacy, doctor’s office, bank, Dollar General, and Ingles.  Their car is still not repaired.  We had home evening with our group but one of them was taken by ambulance to emergency.   That evening we went to RS to hear about a Jewish member’s conversion and then made tree of life pins.  It was a busy but great day.

While waiting for the Dr's. appointments to get over,  we drove around Andrews.  The magnolia trees were so beautiful.  The blossoms are huge, the size of a dinner plate.

notice the bug

We went to visit a member in Georgia and she said she would sell us their motor home so we could get all our stuff home.  It’s a fair price and the toilet is included.  They even added some chairs.  Lucy’s feeling badly so we’ll just go with her.

On our morning walk we see some fun things.

church on Main St

view toward our house

Tiffani calls this a Red Neck House boat

We were invited to a sweet member’s home who had been in Georgia for the past 2½  years.  She is an amazing woman.  She is 83 years old and going strong.  She can do any kind of art.  She paints on gourds and that is what we went to buy.  It was so hard to make a decision.  They were all so beautiful.  She carves animals, quilts, makes baskets; you name it, she does it, including remodeling her home.  We didn’t expect it but she fed us a yummy lunch of taco salad.  She is so good to everyone.  It is way up a mountain on a dirt road.  We were always sorry the weather was bad or that we didn’t have time to take you to where we teach some of our people.  The tiny dirt roads up a mountain are our favorites, although that is what Clint said was causing our window to crack even more.  

what is at the bottom of the mountain

They are coming from Silva to fix the window in that we don’t have the repair place here.  It was over $700 at the Buick place and our insurance will cover all but &$100 at  the place they gave us. 

We had dinner at Mickey Tuell’s.   It was such a wonderful evening.  I have never, not even in Taiwan seen such rain.  It was a tornado watch and later, on the way home we saw many trees down.  The wind was really blowing.  70mph.

We made 11 doctor apts for the third week in July.  Should be a busy week.  We haven’t seen a doctor for 18 months so all the parts need checking.
We were invited to dinner at a part-member home.  He has attended church for years and is from SLC but said he was going to be baptized.  He's so much closer. They live in an extremely beautiful home up in the mountains.  They are great and we had a lovely time.
  At 9:00 we headed to one of our investigator's home.  Their son is a member at BYU but they are not but they have testimonies  They say they will be baptized but will not give a date.  They are a great family.  It''s so frustrating to have people who know it but won't do it.  We love them so much and just want them to have what we do.   We got home at 11:00.  Our time is winding down and we still have so much to do.
We had a phone call to say that Pres. Craven's daughter just had a stillborn so Sis. Craven flew out to be with her.  We love the Cravens.  We also got a call that after 2 days Kristin and the kids finally caught a flight home.  Yea!
Saturday we had dinner by the river with Jeff and Cori.  He cooked the entire meal (all but dessert) in one pan.  It was huge.

Part of the back garden; there's one in the front too.

 We love being with them. They are going to be very hard to leave.  We taught about service to others and helping but not enabling.  He is just so good.
Sunday was a great day as usual. The horrible part was that I was awakened by a clicking sound only to find that a cockroach was crawling up my arm.  I think it was 6 feet long.  It was horrible.  This is the second time a roach has crawled on me in our bed.  It's disgusting.
The best part of the day was being in the room when Elder Bayles conferred the Aaronic  Priesthood and the office of priest on our new member.  The Spirit was tangible.  Many tears were shed. What a beautiful day.
After church Marlene had us for dinner at the church.  She really put on a spread.  She had  other couples there and a sister.  We had such an enjoyable time.  I love Elder Bayles.
Only in the mountains can you see this. (Fortunately,Sister Bayles was not using this particular facility).

Fri. Aug 3rd   We stayed at Br. Garmon's all forenoon.  We also done our washing.  In the afternoon we went to Mr. Furr's to get our mail but the mail carrier had forgot it, so we went back to Bro. Garmons & he let us take two of his horses & we rode to Carriker & got our mail.  I received three letters, one from Annie, Evan and Aunt Ann.  We got back to Bro. Garmon's about 7 P.M.
Tues. Aug 7th  We started out again this morning in good time.  On acct of the bridge being washed out we walked the creek and after going a little farther we came to a watermelon patch & after asking  the lady for one we had a big feast of watermelon.  After walking all day we got to Bro. J.F. Kearn's at five P.M.  We walked out of our way about ten miles.