Lopez family

 Gracie Lopez lives with her father Jose (in his 80's) and brother Antonio. Kay found out over a year ago they had a clogged drain and had the missionaries living in one of their houses on property for free. Kay offered to unclog it. Instead of being a 1 hour job, it was a 4 day job. The drain was so clogged and had turned to cement. He had to replace pipe, rip open the floor and replace the whole sub floor, floor and flooring in the bathroom. We went on several visits and I sat with Jose, talking to him and helped Kay with the building project when needed. Jose has not been to church in at least 20 years. We invited him to church. He said he believes. Stake President Bartlett is his home teacher. Fast forward. Kay was asked to look at their washer and Kay sentenced it to death. Fast forward. After visiting Betty Hall in the hospital, 

We visited them. Jose said he did not remember Bishop but he was dressed different now (suit). When we reminded them of the work he did.... they remembered. We told them Kay was the new bishop and they were honored we came to tell them. We invited them to church, they declined but we felt good about the visit. Jose took our phone number down and asked the Bishop to leave with a word of prayer.

7/27/14 The next Sunday, I noticed Kay pleased, looking back into the audience . I turned around to see what was happening and didn't see anything. Sacrament meeting ended 15 min early so Brother Fankhauser said the Bishop wanted to say something. Kay stood at the pulpit and said “just a minute” he got off the stand, walked to the very back row of the overflow and hugged Jose Lopez. HE CAME!!!! then Kay got back to the pulpit and said “I love you Brother Lopez” then he talked about scout camp and the outstanding leaders of these boys he got to know this week.  

giving a ride to another church

I was driving Kay's truck home from church, alone and passed by a foreign woman with a 4 year old boy in a suit and a baby in her arms.  I turned around and asked if they would like a ride somewhere.  She looked into the truck and said she would.

She climbed in and I found out she was from Napal, going to church.  I drove her to the church about 3 miles away... a long walk in the heat of June 1 with 2 kids in tow.

She asked me where I lived, I told her and said I live with Karen people.  She pointed to my skirt and said "I know"  shd said her son was telling her he was tired and she was praying that someone would help her.  I stopped and she looked into the truck, recognized my skirt (hand woven) from the Karen people and knew it would be safe.  I told her I was a Mormon and if she wanted a ride to my church, 5 would take her.  She thanked me and was off to her church.

New friends from Saudi Arabia

 
 I met some women visiting for a few months from Saudi Arabia.  They have been exercising at Curves and I see them about 1 time a week.  They have been taking English lessons so are getting better and better at speaking English.   They will be going home next month and I asked them if they had been in an American home.  They said no, so we arranged for a lunch.  They brought their brother who has been attending Creighton and is their driver and translator.   When we saw the wonderful food they brought, we stopped making some of ours and had a nice lunch, visit and tour of the house and yard area.  They were very kind and we learned about Mohammed and Muslem beliefs and they learned a bit about Mormons.  I had them go to Mormon.org to get an overview.  Maybe we will visit Saudi Arabia some day….. you never know.          

 

       

 

                                  

 

                 

A babe is born

Tuesday I went to visit Felicia’s mom who was tending the kids while she was in the hospital and Felicia answered the door! Her mom had some unexpected things come up and couldn’t tend, so her C-section was put off until Wednesday.  I picked up grandma Tuesday night and picked Felicia up at 9AM Wednesday and we had a bouncing baby girl!  President Wilkinson thought he was visiting a mother and baby but came at the perfect  time… 30 min before the surgery.   When I told Felicia her Dr, Dr Besse is a Mormon she said “Shut UP” which now means “I don’t believe it”.  Both men were able to give her a priesthood blessing.  When Dr Besse found out she was sleeping on an air mattress on the floor he said we needed to get her off the floor sooooo   I called Open Door Mission and through some miracles… kindnesses,  employees agreeing to stay late, picking up grandma and the kids,  being allowed to use grandma’s id, bending some rules… we were able to get her a bed, stove, mats for the kids to sleep on, a dresser and a chair. It was a rewarding day.  Lauren said if I spend 20 hours a week on church service including my 6 hour temple shift, we should apply to be local missionaries... we will hit that goal this week for sure.

  She still needs a kitchen table and washer/dryer but we did good!

Conestoga Branch AP Overnight Campout

I (Janae) decided to organize the men to go to the Fathers and Sons AP camp out. Kay said if I organize it, he would execute the orders (he did a great job).  For the past several years one dad and one son had gone from our tiny branch (Sacrament meeting attendance is 30-70).

 We provided the hotdogs, smores and chips and asked Brother Caverhill (one of the many who live outside the boundries) to make dutch oven potatoes.  He added a peach cobbler to the mix. Saturday, Kay made Mountain Man breakfast to supplement the doughnuts the stake provided.

We went around in our normal interactions with branch members asking if they wanted to go Camping.   

We had a black  member come that had never been camping, 

2 young black brothers (I visit teach their inactive mother) they had never been camping or near an open fire (see marshmallow sticky hands pic).

A 23 year old tattoo laden inactive son of  one of our home teaching  ladies

3 boys that don't have dad's in the home that come to scouts

one boy whos dad works night shift

a father and 3 sons who joined the church last April

a student father (graduating) and his 2 sons

The branch Pres and wife showed up for dinner

Kay and Bro Caverhill I will call the "anchors"

.= 19!

Kay and I went to the church and picked up the 10 sleeping bags, 2 lg tents and mats and had an errand to run near the camp ground 40 min away so staked out a place for our branch and Seth's ward (2 families came from his)

all in all it was a huge success!  Everyone had a great time and we had a large group there

 The Aaronic Priesthood Camp out was held at Two Rivers Camp Ground.