This is our district at the MTC with our instructor, Sister Pickard.

Our visit with the Mission President and his wife at the mission home in Alabama.

 Elder and Sister Nigh (who forgot her nametag...) with President and Sister Chibota.

 We arrived in the Alabama, Birmingham mission on Saturday, the 23rd of February. We were picked up at the airport by our branch president, Rob Boot. 

We attended our very first meetings the next morning, including correlation. We had arrived on the weekend of branch conference. The stake president showed us a video on improving reverence in Sacrament meeting. It was suggested that we rejoice in the foyer.  When we walked into the chapel, I expected the normal hum of conversations of members rejoicing in fellowship and just catching up. I was pleasantly surprised to find people talking only in hushed tones. It was quite lovely. It reminded me of other churches that I have attended where people quietly await services to begin. Is the branch that much more reverent than others I have attended, or was the Spirit of the Lord at work here?

 We have learned that the branch covers a very large area. It is more than 2 hours' travel from north to south and about an hour's travel from east to west. I guess we can plan on wearing out our car in the service of the Lord!

After meetings, we hung out at the building so that we could join the young missionaries at a teaching appointment. It was with a lovely young mother who expressed her gratitude for the things she was learning. 

Yesterday was our first preparation day. I was able to do a bit of cleaning and some laundry, including a couple of rugs from the garage entry. We decided that they were a bit heavy for the home washer, and so sought out a laundromat to accomplish that goal. We also ran a few errands, and tried to get a feel for the area.

We were able to visit an older sister in the branch in the evening. Her husband is hospitalized about an hour away, and she was feeling overwhelmed with the experience. He has a long standing illness, and she is weary. 

I am grateful to be here and look forward to finding people to serve.

Life at the MTC

 We have been at the MTC (Missionary Training Center) for a week and a half now. It is interesting. When we talk to those who are members of the same church, they are surprised that we will be serving for only a year. When we talk to those who are not members of our church they cannot believe that we are going on a mission for a whole year!

We have been called to serve in the Alabama, Birmingham mission. It is really the only mission in Alabama. We are, of course, unsure of what awaits us there. We will be supporting the branch, the mission and the young missionaries. We will likely be serving in the community as well. 

It has been suggested that we could teach classes at a community center, at a library or at the chapel. Today, we learned some fun resources and activities on the Family History page that the church has made available. We actually did a few of those exercises in our class this morning, and this afternoon as well. As family history averse as I have always been, I was surprised that I enjoyed the experiences, and can see how others would as well.

Overall, our experiences here have been quite remarkable. We have met amazing people. We have felt amazing things. But the air here is, as Elder Holland has said, "rarified". Those that we meet outside these walls will likely have questions for which we do not have the answers. I trust that God knows who they are, what their questions and fears are, and we will be led to help them in ways that will, eventually, give them what they truly seek, if they are open to the answers. I need to remember that we are on God's errand, and that the answers will ultimately come from Him.

There is more to come, and there will, no doubt, be interesting twists and turns. 

The adventure continues.

It's the Little Things

I have off of work every Monday and Friday.  Every day off, I tell myself that I will get some exercise that day, because I have the time.  Today, I decided that I would walk to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription.

I find I cannot "just take a walk" without some destination in mind, unless I have a walking companion. When I have tried to do that, I find myself constantly looking at my watch and my internal conversation goes something like this: "OK. I have been walking for five minutes.  If I turn around now, it will be a ten minute walk."  I guess I would rather talk to someone else than to myself!

So, off I go to the pharmacy.  It is a little bit more than a mile to get there.  A decent walk for a January day.  I am bundled up in my down jacket.  A scarf around my neck, a hat on my head, long johns under my jeans and a hoodie underneath my coat, just in case the wind is coming from the wrong direction.

It has been a bit of a snowy winter so far this year.  We had a blizzard on the 21st of December, with a bonus two more inches the week following Christmas.  Because of this, there is snow and ice everywhere.  I begin to wonder if a walk with snow covered or icy patches are not unexpected, and a bit chancy.  But, as I walk, I see something along the edges of the snow and ice.

Do you remember those little patches of ice, that if you step on them, crunch deliciously to the pavement?  I do!  I loved them, and always had to race ahead of my sisters on our walks to school so that I could be the one to have that pleasure!  Well, as I watched the places that I stepped along my route, I began to see them.  To one with untrained eyes, I had now become a drunkard, weaving along the sidewalk, trying to reenact that childhood pleasure!  Finding these delightful little bubbles of ice along my way has become my quest.

My musings about this walk down memory lane bring me home along a different street so that I can find the bubble ice there!  It has become clear to me that children do not walk to school anymore.  Or they do not find the fun in those ice bubbles.

It really is all about the little things.  Walks are not so bad after all!

Three sheets to the wind, or at least the box fan.

It all started when I was talking with a co-worker. It has been a fabulously mild January and she told me that her goal was to dry some laundry out on a wash line in each month of the year. She had already accomplished that for January during the New Year's holiday.

I determined that this could be a fun goal. It was 50 degrees that day as well. It was a Wednesday, and I was only working until noon. I had an errand to run, but there would certainly be a couple of hours of daylight remaining when I returned home.

Stepping into my house just after 2:30 pm, I delayed putting away my groceries and dashed down to the washer to throw in a set of bed linens. I washed them on a quick wash to save time. By 3:00 the sheets were washed. I went out to set up our wash line. We keep a broken post from our old croquet set in the hole to mark it. Since the ground was somewhat frozen, I was trying to move the thing back and forth to be certain it would release. It was moving, but was a bit below the level of the ground. I decided that since the post was hollow, I could just push the pole over that little broken post and it would seat around it and save me some time. So, I began pounding that pole into its place. After a few minutes of fruitless pounding, I looked at the bottom of the pole only to see that it was clogged with dirt. I had been pounding that broken post into the ground even further. Time was ticking by and the daylight would be even shorter than when I started. Struggling to find some implement that would unseat my obstacle I grabbed a pitchfork out of the shed. Surely the tines were far enough apart that I could work one in next to the post and coerce it out of the ground. Nope. Didn't work. I was feeling more anxious. Time kept on ticking away. Perhaps another yard implement. I know! The small pruning clipper. I knelt down on the frozen ground, thinking "Oh, no. Now my pants will be wet." But I was determined to not spend the time running to the basement for a pliers. (Never mind that I had probably spent 5 minutes finding tools that were not up to the task in the shed.) Fighting the urge to chance yet another failed yard tool, I finally dashed to the basement to retrieve a pliers and a screw driver. Success! I got that elusive piece of wood out of the ground and successfully seated my post for my wash line.

It was now past 3:15, and I knew that there was less than 2 hours left of daylight. My line was completely in shadow, as it is on the north of our home. There was little chance that my sheets would dry, especially since there was absolutely NO BREEZE. Perhaps if there was a breeze! My sheets could have that marvelous scent that comes only from being dried outside. I felt a glimmer of hope as I thought about the help that a breeze could bring. I knew what to do. We had a box fan in the basement. I could set that up next to my sheets and I would have what I needed to enjoy that sweet smell of success I was so desperately seeking. A few minutes later, I had that fan resting against my laundry basket and creating a lovely luffing in my sheets . Ah. This is how a sailor must feel after languishing in the doldrums.

I quietly left my well crafted project to finish making supper, secure in the knowledge that I was on my way to accomplishing my new goal.

Soon it was after 5 and the sun had set. I sauntered out to my sheets and reached up to find that they were still damp. Oh well. I could still say that I had hung my laundry out on the line in January. But the droning of the dryer reminded me of my failure to capture that beloved scent in the middle of winter.

Later in the day, when I tried to describe my escapade to my husband, I realized through the tears of laughter, that I should just be grateful that no one was there to witness my efforts. Really? A box fan?

Thank goodness my nosy neighbor lives across the street, and not in the house behind our yard. This experience could have been broadcast to the entire community.

Thank goodness it is only in cyberspace. My secret is safe.

Meet the Jetsons

I was thinking about it this morning. I am Jane Jetson. OK. I don't live in a house in the clouds, or ride around in a vehicle that moves through the air. Nor do I have a treadmill to walk the dog. But the things which always made me excited about the Jetsons was their video phones. Their wrist watch TVs. I remember Elroy sneaking a peek at his TV when in school.

This morning, I was tending to a few tasks around the house with my ipod touch in my pocket. Playing on it was a video of a TV program that I missed yesterday and wanted to at least hear. My goodness, I have become Elroy, too!

I distinctly remember a show that found Jane running to answer her "phone" with a picture to hide behind that had her hair perfectly coiffed. She was still in curlers and a bathrobe. Well, this past weekend, and nearly every weekend, my husband and I set up our laptop in the living room (where the lighting is best) so that we can "skype" with our son and daughter-in-law with the ability to see our granddaughter as she is growing up. (They live in Louisiana.)

Heaven only knows what kind of technology we will see in the future. Perhaps we will be living among the clouds and driving vehicles that zip through the air. I just do not want a boss like George had at Spacely Sprockets.

And He shall direct my path

I have been giving a lot of thought to my feet of late. I injured my feet in a fall down the stairs about a month ago. It seems that this is the most common place for me to injure myself. I have, over the years, been afflicted with injury to my knees and my feet more than in any other place in my body. Perhaps it is because they are the foundation to so many of the things that I have been asked to do in my life. I believe that all people have tremendous use of their feet and legs.

Without our legs, how could we be propelled? We do have the modern convenience of cars and busses, but we need to get ourselves to them. Although there are some among us who need to propel themselves in wheelchairs because of injury or debilitating illness, the majority of us depend upon our lower extremities to move about.

What a great gift we have in our legs and feet. They are our foundation for movement and for service.

This morning, as I drove into work, I was listening to a CD called "Charity Never Faileth". In it there is a song that includes the phrase "My feet are the Lord's feet. Without them, how could He walk with the poor?"

As my feet and my legs are the foundation for my movement and my service, as I am grounded in truth and righteousness, I will have a sure fondation for my life and my service to others.

It is my daily prayer that I will be supported in my service to others and that I will be grounded in true principles.