This has been a fun week. We continue
to marvel at the faithfulness of some of the members who live in some
really challenging circumstances. On of them is Sister Griffeth. She
has been a member for at least 10 years. Last month, her husband of 17
years left her for another woman, and she has simply carried on. She
gets up at 4:00 AM to make food for a stand where her daughter sells it. Usually they are sold out by about 11:00 AM
because she is a really good cook and her prices are right. She makes
about 50 dollars a day, 6 days a week. Which is about 4 times as much
as the majority of the people make in a day.
Well, a few weeks ago, Dad and the elders quorum
president organized a work party to go to her home and do some repairs
on her home. She is tearing down one house to build another. She did
not have a good foundation in the first home. She did not have enough
lumber to build the second home from the old one and she did not have
any good zinc to cover the roof, so she has been literally living with
no roof over her head for weeks.
The men in the branch have been working on Saturdays
to get the work done and the rainy season has been pretty bad for the
past two weeks. I am amazed at her attitude. At the branch Christmas
talent show, not only did she help prepare the dinner, she also sang "O
Holy Night" for her talent.
Then, today when we went to visit one of the
shut-ins to take the Sacrament there, she and two friends were already
visiting them there. What a great sister. It is one of the faithful
few who are going to make the church grow through their examples and
kindness.
Today, Dad and I had the chance to share our
testimonies in church one last time. Later, I went to Primary and
basically did the whole sharing time because the Primary president was
there alone and she had done the lesson and opening exercises all by
herself. I read over the sharing time lesson which suggested that I
play a few measures of several primary songs and have the children guess
which song I was playing and then tell what the message in the song
said about how to prepare to return to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.
Then for singing time, I had the children divide up
and draw pictures of the words to the Christmas song "Picture a
Christmas". They only had colored chalk, but they did an excellent job
of drawing the pictures and then singing the song by looking at the
pictures they drew. The time went by so quickly that I couldn't believe
that it
was closing time so soon.
Well, I am
thinking that the Beutler family Christmas party is set for 1:00 PM on
Saturday, December 28th. If that is acceptable to everyone we will plan
that way. I expect to hear from Amy about when she will be making her
Christmas call and those who are close can skype with her, probably on
Christmas Eve around 7:00 PM if it is like last year.
By the way, Amy, when you said that you thought your release date was about the 23rd of February,
I wondered if you meant January. From my calculations it should be the
end of January when you return home, unless you extended without
telling your mother about it.
Well, time to go say goodbye to some of the people
we have grown to love. We will be home tonight in about 3 1/2 hours if
anyone wants to skype with us then.
Love, Mom and Dad
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