Until We Meet Again

https://www.deseret.com/faith/2020/9/5/21424548/covid-19-birmingham-temple-president-mormon-latter-day-saint-pandemic

So - there I was on a Friday evening last January sitting in the back of the locker room in the Birmingham Alabama Temple as it filled with missionaries waiting for the 6:00 endowment session. Having arrived in the mission just two days before, Karen and I knew less than 10 people in the entire state. We hadn’t even been to church yet. Being new and not entirely sure what to expect, we went into the temple early and were dressed and ready to go with plenty of time to spare.

The Birmingham Temple is relatively small. It might be described as compact. As there is no chapel in which to wait for an upcoming session, the locker room was a bit crowded with waiting missionaries and other temple patrons. As I looked for an out of the way place in the locker room where I could wait I noticed two chairs in the back of the room.  One was already occupied and in a moment I was sitting in the other.

The gentleman in the other chair was about my age with a haircut similar to mine. We talked for a bit, the normal stuff you talk about when getting to know someone, and eventually swapped names. He said his name was Gary Pettus. Not being the quickest horse on the racetrack it took me a minute to process and then I asked if he was President Pettus, the temple president. I learned that indeed he was.

In the following weeks, before the temple was closed in March due to Covid-19, Karen and I had several opportunities to work with President and Sister Pettus in the temple. We grew to love them in a very short time. It was President Pettus who set us apart as ordinance workers in the Birmingham Temple in support of the Alabama Birmingham Mission Vision which includes temple and family history work as an integral part of missionary work.

The thing that makes this memory special to me is that before I knew President Pettus as a temple president I got to know him first as Gary Pettus – a really nice guy who made me feel welcome in his part of the world.

 *************

One of the many reasons we are grateful to be members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is because we have the privilege and opportunity to work with people like President and Sister Pettus.  Our prayers are with the their family during these challenging times.

Out and About

Civil War Era Ironworks

As our assignment now is to help with missionary housing we have the opportunity to drive more around the northern half of Alabama. We are in the process of opening two apartments in the Huntsville area and one in Demopolis, the distance between them being about about 200 miles. 

Although the list of things needed is rather extensive, as much as possible we try to find and use items that are portable. Most everything to furnish an apartment for two missionaries will fit in the back of a pickup truck.  These were destined a week ago for an apartment in Hueytown (hometown of the Alabama Gang).

Furnishings for one apartment.

Needless to say, a measure of the church's commitment to missionary work is demonstrated in the effort it takes to procure, furnish and maintain missionary housing. 

On our way back from Demopolis this past week we saw a sign for the Tannehill Ironworks Historical State Park and went to see what is there. The original ironworks date from before the Civil War and this site was a major producer of iron during the war. It is a beautiful park with a big campground and a lot of historical buildings. Here are more pictures:

It's hard to believe that we have now passed our six month mark. If the next six are like the previous six we have absolutely no idea what to expect. 

More Mission Miracles:

1.

We were former contacting a little bit ago, we called someone that hadn't been taught and scheduled to call to share a quick message. She gave us her cell phone number to call because we had apparently called her home phone but we didn’t think much of it. Anyway, we call for our spiritual thought, and then we got to talking about the love of God. And she out of nowhere says that she’s always loved missionaries calling her, because she was baptized when she was 19 into our church. That was like 40 years ago. We had no idea. But she said that she is so happy we called, and that the phone number we called the first time she never answers, but she did when we called because she felt something tell her to. Isn’t that awesome? That's what she said straight to us. We're gonna help her find her baptismal record. I love being a missionary.

2.

And then, we had another miracle......
We had 16 scheduled lessons on Saturday. We had a lesson scheduled for every hour of the day. Unfortunately a few fell through, but we have been speechless and in awe at how much we have been blessed.

3.

Clay update: Yesterday morning we taught him the word of wisdom and we were NERVOUS. He has quite a few habits that don't see eye-to-eye with the word of wisdom and we weren't sure what he would think of this commandment. Nevertheless, we were so full of faith because he KNOWS the Book of Mormon is true and he KNOWS that Joseph Smith, Russell M. Nelson, and everyone in between are Prophets of God. So we started going over the word of wisdom pamphlet with him. After we read the first page he said, "Sisters, this is just another confirmation to me that I'm on the right path. Last night I decided that I need to clean up my habits so I resolved to quit smoking and I dumped out all my alcohol. As far as coffee, I can go without that just fine." WHAT A MIRACLE. Clay then asked us for another Book of Mormon (again) because he's given away the last 5 that we've given him to his friends and family. He told us that his wife and one of their friends are going to start reading the Book of Mormon and that they'll soon be ready to meet with us!

Bridges Over Untroubled Waters

Horton Mill Bridge

This past week we discovered that Alabama is home to several covered bridges, some within an hour of Birmingham and at least three still passable by automobile. As we were driving home after finding an apartment in Huntsville for incoming missionaries we noticed a sign on the highway for the first of three bridges along the "Covered Bridge Trail".

 At 330 feet the Swann Bridge is the longest covered bridge in Alabama. It was built in 1933.

Swann Bridge

The second bridge we came to was the Old Easley Bridge which was built in 1930 and spans 95 feet. It looked like the best preserved of the three. 

Easley Bridge

The last bridge along the trail was the Horton Mill Bridge.  It was built in 1934 and stands 70 feet above the river bed. This is the highest covered bridge in Alabama and is about 220 feet long.   

Horton Mill Bridge

These bridges are a beautiful and interesting part of the history of the area.  In case any are wondering - we drove over all three bridges and lived to tell the tale. 

There are 23 missionaries scheduled to arrive next week and only 2 are returning home. We are still anxiously engaged in the work of finding suitable housing for the new arrivals.

Mission Miracles:

Awesome miracle. We were contacting some people who had been dropped in the past. One guy we called very nicely rejected us. And instead of just accepting the rejection and hanging up the phone I was prompted to invite him to go to the church's websites if he ever had questions. So I did, and I also told him about family history and familysearch.org. President I kid you not... he was ecstatic when I mentioned family history. He didn't even know we did that as part of our missionary work and he said hes been trying to get into it because he knows nothing about his dads side. This phone call went from almost ending after a short minute to a 20 minute conversation because I listened to the spirit and brought up family history. He's so excited about it! What a blessing! I absolutely love the mission vision. Every part if it.

*******************************************************************************

Another busy busy week!!! We found 6 new people to teach! 5 were found on Facebook. There is a new day dawning in missionary work and it is going to flood the whole earth!

Moundville

There is not  a lot to report on this week, but on our way home from taking some things out to the Elders in Tuscaloosa we drove back by way of Moundville, Alabama.  It is believed to be the site of the largest native American settlement north of Mexico City.  Of course the museum was closed, but it was nice to have the grounds all to ourselves while we were there. These signs tell a little about it.

The site is located on a bluff overlooking the Black Warrior River. It would have been something to see in it's day. 

We have a three week break now before the next batch of missionaries arrive, mostly on re-assignment.  We hope to help find suitable housing for them. 

Mission Miracle:

This week was a tiring week. We had a lot of referrals this week and we organized them into categories, based off where they live, and we got a lot of Book of Mormons to deliver. We did our first Bible study request this week and it went very well. After we finished she asked us out of no where if there was a book we would recommend that brings us peace and comfort. We looked at each other like we just won a million dollars. We recommended her the Book of Mormon and she was excited to get reading it.

Zoom Conference

President And Sister Allred

There was a three day mission wide Zone Conference via Zoom this week which allowed for more than 6 hours of instruction and interaction for the nearly 200 missionaries still in the field in the Alabama Birmingham Mission.  It would be nice to meet together in person, but this format also has it's advantages in that it will free up time for President and Sister Allred to interview and meet with missionaries in other settings. President Allred talked about how this is a transitional time for missionary work and that many of the skills developed over the last couple of months will still be useful regardless of the direction the world takes.  

 Things are slowly starting to open up with baptisms and teaching allowed for small groups in the church building. 

We had a very moving experience this past week. In fact, two of them.

Hazel Green Apartment (outside)

Hazel Green Apartment (inside)

One load, that's all.

Elder Mecham and Elder Nielson

On Tuesday we helped move stuff from an apartment that needed to be closed in Hazel Green, Alabama to a Sister's apartment in Huntsville where it is being stored until July when another apartment will be available in the Huntsville area. 

Saturday found us taking some furnishings out west to Tuscaloosa to an apartment there that is currently empty but will be used when 15 more missionaries arrive this coming week. 

Of course in both cases we had plenty of help from the local Elders. 

 

One interesting thing that we've noticed here is that there are many intersections where the name of the road depends on the direction you are turning. That and there are some really good street names.

We would like to take a moment this week end to remember those who have served and, in some cases, given their lives in service to their country.

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."

John 15:13

Magnolias

Magnolias are in blossom now!

We have turtle sightings nearly every day in the park where we walk. Can you spot the wildlife  in these pictures?

Most of the critters blend in well with the surroundings, but not this duck. 

 

We see it in the same spot on the creek every day.  Not a hint of camo or any sign it is worried about being seen. He is always alone and always at the same bend of the creek, usually sitting on a log.

Here are close ups of the pictures above for those having trouble finding animals in them.  

This was transfer week, but not a normal transfer week. Missionaries flew in Tuesday and Friday and some flew home on Thursday for a net gain of about 18. Here are some from the Tuesday group in the mission home waiting for orientation. 

We made two trips to Moody, Alabama this week to help resolve a bed bug problem in an apartment there and are trying to help get things ready for 15 more missionaries coming in two weeks. 

We have a feeling that this is a historical time that future historians will look back at to try to make sense of events that make no sense to those living through them.  The key thing right now is to not get distracted by distracting things and lose sight of what really is important.  When the right thing is easy to say and hard to do it means that it is now time to do hard things.

The mission miracle is that baptisms and teaching in small groups is again allowed in church buildings.

What is this?

Can you guess what the above picture is of and where it was taken? 

The first person to answer correctly will win an autographed copy of an even better picture suitable for framing. To show we are serious, here is the picture that you can win:

First Prize picture of Snapping Turtle

The only thing necessary to claim the prize will be for you to download, print and autograph the picture. What could be easier? Keep those guesses coming in.

This big guy was in the creek flowing through the park where we walk. As you can tell from the picture he blends into his surroundings quite well.  It is very exciting to see a real, live snapping turtle in it's natural habitat. We asked a man who walked by about it and he said that this was the first one he had ever seen in the park. Coincidentally, it was the first one we had seen there as well.  To get an idea of the size of this monster imagine a yard stick laid next to it.  Now imagine taking a reading from the yard stick and saying to yourself, "Wow, is it actually that big?" Well, yes, it was actually that big!  

Our current assignment is to help get apartments ready for the 24 missionaries coming in this week and to help find other housing as more come over the course of the summer.  On Thursday we ran some things up to Tuscaloosa to prepare open apartments there. Four Elders met us to help open the apartments and carry stuff in.  

Elder Rout, Wiseman, Jaszkowiak and Fife

We sure do love the missionaries. They seem to be holding up well in challenging circumstances.

On Saturday we hiked about a mile in to Caney Creek Falls about an hour and a half away. There are some amazingly beautiful water falls here in Alabama. It felt good to get outside, stretch our legs, breathe fresh air and convert sunlight into vitamin D. 

No problem at all doing the social distance thing here. There wasn't another soul around until we were hiking out. We imagine in the summer it will be quite busy with people swimming and playing in the water, but it was cool enough Saturday that we had it all to ourselves for awhile. Here are a few more pictures. The large leaves are on a type of Magnolia tree that have a tropical look. 

So, how about the picture at the top of the page? It was taken looking up into this tree. The light showing in the middle of the picture is actually coming in through a hole about 20 feet up the tree. We see a lot of hollow trees here and wonder how some of them are still standing. Don't worry if you weren't able to guess what it was. The consolation prize is an autographed picture of a turtle. Feel free to download and autograph at your leisure.