Rainy Days

Week of October 7-13, 2013

This has been the wettest week I have experienced since I arrived in Maryland.  There was reportedly more rainfall this week than in all of August and September.  On Monday, we were able to visit three homes before the rain began.  At the first home, the sister was "under the weather" and couldn't come to the door.  At the next house, we found out that the sister had gone on a trip to Florida with her mother, whom we had also planned to visit that day.  The last house was a sister we had visited before in August so we decided to try and catch her at home again.  Fortunately she was at home and invited us in.  While we were visiting, the rain really set in and we got pretty wet just running back to our car at the end of the visit because we didn't take our umbrellas in with us.  It was worth it though, because we enjoyed our visit very much.  She is not an active sister, but she has very good visiting teachers who keep in touch with her.  In fact she was going to go to lunch with one of them that day.  On Sunday, Sister Paoule stopped us for a minute after church to tell us that Sis. Henthorn told her we had stopped by and she really enjoyed our visit.  She said, "the dog didn't even bark at them."  I guess if the dog liked us we couldn't be that bad.  The dog barks at everyone, even the visiting teacher, which kind of hurt her when she heard that the dog didn't bark at us.  We told her that Sis. Henthorn probably didn't notice that the dog did come out towards the car barking when we arrived.  I reminded Sis. Boone that her name was Emma and she rolled down her window and talked to her while we drove up and parked.  The dog seemed satisfied and ran into the house to wait for us.

After getting semi-drenched leaving Sis. Henthorn's, we decided that the rest of the visits, which were all cold calls, could wait until tomorrow.  The rain had abated a bit by Tuesday morning, so we went out.  Of those visits, only one sister was home, Sis. Nelia Gaspar from the Philippines.  We were really there to try and meet her daughter who is not active.  Nelia and her husband attend church and are a very nice couple.  Nelia invited us in and we had an enjoyable visit.  She asked if we would like a little ice cream before we left.  Although we try not to accept meals from the members because they are often called upon to feed the young elders, we accepted her offer.  She brought out a couple containers of ice cream that she bought at an Asian market.  One was mango flavor and the other was ube flavor.  The ube ice cream is very bright purple.  I thought it might be some kind of berry, but chose instead to sample the mango ice cream.  It was very good.  She said "you have to try the ube too" so we sampled that also.  I was pleasantly surprised by the flavor.  It is kind of hard to describe the flavor, but I would say it tasted similar to toasted coconut.  She told us ube is a root plant.  Some people call it a yam, but it is a purple variety.  We then presented a short spiritual thought and had a prayer.  She asked if we would please come back.  She called out as we got in the car "call first".  I think she wants to make sure she has time to cook something for us when we come again.  She is a dear sister.

Bishop's Storehouse

On Wednesday, the 9th, we had made a commitment to help out at the Bishop's Storehouse in Upper Marlboro, about an hour away.  The rain was back in full force.  We were happy to be doing service of some sort that would keep us out of the rain.  We enjoyed the time we spent there helping sort and bag produce, stock shelves, and help patrons who came to fill food orders from their Bishops.  We also helped put tags by all of the commodities so that they could conduct inventory the next morning.  We told them that we had enjoyed our day very much and would be willing to come and help out again, even with inventory the next day if they needed more help.  Before we left, they said they would like to take us up on our offer to help with inventory, so we drove back in the rain on Thursday and did that.  On Wednesday we were there from 8:30 until about 2:30 so we thought it would be a long day Thursday also, but we were only there from 8:00 until about 11:00.

We concluded Wednesday with a telephone conference call with the Mission President and most of the senior missionaries who joined in.  Most of the conversation really didn't have much to do with our work in the southern part of Maryland, but we stayed on until the end anyway, about an hour.  They discussed having another outing for the senior missionaries soon.  So far we have only been to one of the activities, the getting-to-know-you barbecue at the Mission Home.  They have also had an activity to attend a Washington Nationals baseball game.  We didn't go because baseball isn't really that fun for us unless we are watching our own boys and it is also at night.  They next had a sailing activity on the Chesapeake.  Neither of us are big on boating, so we didn't go to that either.  Part of the reason is that we have to drive so much farther to all of those activities than everyone else and then we end up getting home very late.  I know the social gatherings are important to help us find fellowship with the other missionaries, but we choose safety first.  Next weekend they are meeting at the Mission Home again (over an hour away) at 9:30 in the morning to car pool out to Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, which is another hour drive.  Then we would have the two-hour drive home.  This one is earlier in the day and sounds like fun.  They are going to just drive around and see the beautiful fall foliage and then have lunch together at the Town's Inn in Harper's Ferry.  Some of the places are currently shut down because of the government fiasco in Congress but the town is so anxious to have visitors and the business they generate that they said they will be more lenient with parking in areas that are normally not allowed to get people to come into town.  Sis. Boone's daughter is coming on the 24th to visit for a few days, so I don't think we will be going.

Because we worked at the Storehouse on Thursday, we determined to go to the Temple on Friday as long as the traffic wouldn't be horrible.  The only problem is there is really no way to know until you get in it.  There is a radio station that reports the traffic conditions several times an hour and alerts the public if there have been any accidents.  I was more interested in finding out if the trucker demonstration was actually going to take place.  There had been conversations going around on Facebook and on some websites about the "Truckers to Shut Down America" drive that truckers were talking about doing on October 11 through the 13th.  When we mentioned our concern at the Storehouse on Thursday, Bro. Bryson said "oh no, I heard that was only a hoax."  So we decided to try to go to the Temple.  

Friday morning news reports from the radio station were that the truckers were starting out on the Virginia side of the Washington Beltway and would be looping around in waves on the inner loop throughout the day.  Earlier reports said something like 10,000 truckers were going to be involved.  Even though Saturday reportedly had more participation, it turned out that only about 30 truckers were driving around Friday displaying the signs and flashing lights to indicate their support of the complaints against the way Congress and the White House were handling the government shutdown and other public concerns.  They tried to slow traffic by driving together in all lanes of traffic but decided they had better not go in the fast lane that they were not legally allowed to be in.  Just the fact that they only drove the speed limit was probably hindrance enough, and of course the rain also helped their cause.  Most people go 10 miles over and a lot go at least 15 miles over the speed limit.  We drove to the temple without too much delay and attended the 11:00 and 1:00 sessions.  This time we ran into Bro. Adams (Lamar).  He said he is in good health and doing well. 

Going back home was slower going.  It was raining really hard and we encountered more truckers, but we made it home safely.

Sunday night we had to drive over to Indian Head (about 30 minutes away) to meet with the Elders, the 1st Counselor in the Bishopric, the Relief Society President, and the High Priest Group Leader.  We discussed the members of the ward who need more help and received another list, AAARGH.  In two and a half hours we only made it through the letter G, not even halfway through the list.  We are going to meet again Wednesday night to discuss the rest.  This has been somewhat helpful in identifying some more members who have moved or are not interested in our visits.  By the time we left to come home, it was dark.  I was very nervous because we were in a less populated, densely forested area of Maryland where deer love to hang out.  There were a few who watched us through the living room window from the front yard while we were having our meeting.  I reminded Sis. Boone that I am very nervous about traveling at night especially since Verlin's accident.  I am glad that she was the driver.  I just prayed that we would not encounter any deer and was grateful that we did not.