Friday, August 28, 2015

April 2015

We went down to Roscoe Village to check out some more of the shops there.  Since we had not eaten any lunch we decided to try the Medberry Café. We ordered a pulled pork sandwich that we shared.  It was yummy! 



That evening we headed back to the church for the quarterly branch FHE.  It was not well attended, but it was fun to visit and learn a gospel message about the resurrection with those that were able to come. One family is assigned to take care of the evening events. After the lesson we played a fun game that is something like name that tune.  Bro. Jacobs had top hits from the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, Country, Elvis, and the Beatles.  The team that got the most correct obviously were the winners.  Our team did well on the practice run, Elder Pedersen’s team stunk, but we stunk on the real competition.   The person giving the clues was from your own team.  They could not hum or sing they could only make the sound “doot” to the tune.  It was really hard.  We laughed so hard at the ones trying to make sounds of the tune.  Elder Pedersen was on a different team than Sister Pedersen and he did a good job of impersonating Elvis and the Beatles, but it was hard.  He didn’t know most of the songs and it was hard for him to remember the tune of the ones he did, but it was fun.  Afterwards we had rice krispie treats.
Elder Pedersen was off to help at Habitat again.  He finally finished putting the bathroom sub-floor back down. We went for our scheduled visit with a less-active family in the afternoon, but they were not home so we went up to the church to practice the piano and do indexing.  We also ordered a headstone for Heather.  

Now she has a headstome and a footstone!!!

After our time of practicing and other things at the church we headed back down the hill and decided to stop at the family's home to see if anyone would answer.  The mother answered, but didn’t invite us in.  She visited with us on the porch and we made another appointment for Friday afternoon.  The elders are going to come with us. In  the evening we had an appointment to teach  a  single mom a discussion along with the elders.  It went pretty well.  Sister Pedersen was entertaining her 2 year old son who is a cute little guy full of energy. Eventually Elder Pedersen helped entertain him while the elders taught the discussion. We invited her to watch conference and the women’s conference.  We hope that she will.  She is really trying to be a good mom and person, but she doesn’t take time to study and pray about the things we teach her and she doesn’t want to make a mistake so she chooses not to make a decision. She did say she would come to church.


Moving an investigator family, the  Lyons!!
Their apartment!

















Started raining so we rented a U-Haul.  AZ license plates!


Finally everything is inside 7 hours later!


















Hurried home to clean up and headed off with the elders to have dinner with the Binks family! Italian meal with berry pie and ice cream for dessert.  Yum!!!

Easter weekend with Jasen & Janae and their kids!  What a fun weekend!!

Andrew in the candy store!!!

Fishing in our Pond!!

Andrew & Cole!

Cole!

Dad & son!!!

Dad & daughters!! Madelynn hooked one!!!

Jasen's catch!!



Over the river!!!

The Easter Bunny found them in Ohio!!!




Zone Training at the Newark building on utilizing ward councils in hastening missionary work!



P-day Activities!
President Welker overseeing the brake pad installation!!
Planting "taters" at the Welkers!!!  Dirty fun!

Sister Pedersen needed work clothes to help plant taters so Sister Welker fixed her up!!


Elder Larsen cuttin' taters!!

































Working hard!!
















Still at it!!!


All done!!! Yeah!!!

Senior Social in Dayton at the Wright Patterson Air Force Museum

After a wonderful lunch in a local ward building and some instructions from President Daines we headed over to the Museum to wonder around and look at all the displays!

President & Sister Daines are standing next to us.
Elder & Sister Brower-she is Kathy O'Meara's cousin.  He is the area Doctor.






This exhibit was very entertaining!



Elder Pedersen served in the AF from Dec. 1970-Sep. 1974 & was stationed @ March AFB in CA!!!



This is the plane (Boxcar) that dropped the second nuclear bomb over Japan that ended World War II.
Our First Community 3rd Friday Dinner/Game night!

Chili!


Dirty marbles!


Hello Korie!















Service Project at Sister Mizer's



Sister Hall got attacked!!




Sister Mizer
Monday evening we visited with a part member family, Terrie & Chip Klein.  They were married at a very young age & have been married for 36 years. We had a very nice visit with them.  Chip’s father passed away recently so we discussed his feelings of now being the Patriarch of his family.

 Wednesday the Halls invited the elders and us to their home for breakfast because we have our Zone meetings in the building that they would attend if they weren’t assigned to help the branch.  So at 7am we headed over to Heath and had a lovely breakfast and visit before our meeting.


Brother & Sister Hall
Zone meeting was awesome as usual. Elder Rawlings, one of the Zone leaders, reminded us that the Savior never forgot His purpose and we need to remember our purpose and why we are here; enduring to the end by living the gospel, helping to gather Israel through missionary work. Sister Ure, a sister leader, reminded us that we need to be bold in extending an invitation to our investigators. Elder Couch, the other Zone leader, reminded us that as we are more obedient we will yield more fruit.

At institute we got a good laugh from Sister Little.  She is an active, divorced sister that has a concern about an eternal companion.  She is in her mid-60s and very independent.  She expressed an idea about, “what if I meet my eternal companion in the spirit world, and he would probably be a neanderthal caveman, how will that marriage take place?”  President Welker jokingly said, “your caveman will just pull you around by the hair to the Temple, to which she quickly replied, “that will be the first divorce in the spirit world.”

We attended the Columbus, Ohio Temple 8pm session and then we cleaned the temple afterward. While waiting for the others in our group to dress Sister Pedersen began polite conversation with a counselor in the temple presidency, President Dean.   She asked if he lived close to the temple.  He said that they lived about 10 minutes away depending on the traffic, but that they lived for many years in Wooster, OH.  She asked him if he knew a man by the name of Butch.  At first he said “no” and after he thought about it for a while he remembered a man in the ward by that name. He went to the computer and there are only 2 members of the church with his exact name and he found him in Florida.  He gave her his name and number. (Bill Osborne, an inactive member of the branch, joined the church because of Butch’s example & wanted to find Butch to let him know.)


Elder Pedersen called Sister Little to inquire about a family that lives behind her and she had given an invitation to dinner. She told us that they were having a huge garage sale in the neighborhood.  We hurried over only to discover that the neighbors had closed up their things, but Elder Pedersen found a treasure next door.   
Check it out!  Elder Pedersen practicing his golf skills!!
Trying to keep up with Obama.  We found a few cereal bowls, a couple of serving platters, a hot pad and mitt, puzzles for the kids, and a couple of cloth napkins.  We spent a total of $5.







We called Heather Page to come to see Tyler’s art at the High School Art Show. We had fun with Heather and her kids, especially Elder Pedersen.










This is our big Primary putting their CTR beads on their string.  We had an awesome day today.  They were all very well behaved.




Monday, August 24, 2015

March 2015

Burr!!  84ºF in Mesa   -19ºF in Ohio!
Woke up our first morning to this beautiful scene!  We are suppose to drive in this?

We are serving as member and leadership support missionaries in the small branch here. We are trying to become familiar with the area, but the snow is slowing us down.
We met our Mission President and his wife and the mission staff at the mission office in Powell when we arrived.  Elder Byington gave us the keys to our home and sent us on our way.  The elders serving in the area met us at Walmart and directed us to our "cottage in the woods."  Thank goodness!!


On P-day the first week in March our elders invited us to tour the Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum in Roscoe Village.  It was very interesting.  It was raining that day so we took our umbrella inside. They have special areas to keep them, so when we left Elder Pedersen forgot ours and we had to return the next day in hopes that it would still be there as they were already closed when we remembered it.  Fortunately is was right where he left it.




These stones were found in the Hopewell Indian Earthworks in Newark, Ohio.
On these stones is an engraving of Moses and the tablets and the hieroglyphics are reformed Egyptian!!!






Our first Transfers Meeting was on March 4.  We were not able to attend because Elder Pedersen wasn't feeling well and he took too many Zinc lozenges and that made matters worse.

We had stake conference on March 7th & 8th and the full-time missionaries were asked to sing so we went over to the Stake Center in New Albany twice this week also.

Rome Italy Temple Artist Rendition

Elder Gordon Smith of the Seventy was here for Stake Conference and he shared several great stories from his life.  One that we will share occurred when he was serving as a Senator from Oregon.  He did say that he has since sworn off of politics.  His secretary said that he had a phone call and wondered if he would want to take it. She said an Elder Uchtdorf was calling.  He said I'll take that call.  Elder Uchtdorf said he needed some help getting equal religious rights for members of the church in Italy.  Elder Smith visited with the Ambassador from Italy and discussed the matter with him.  The Ambassador suggested that he contact the Secretary of the Interior so he did and setup an appointment.  He then reported the appointed time to Elder Uchtdorf and Elder Uchtdorf said I'll meet you there.  So off to Rome they went.  When the secretary arrived her assistant was with her.  They explained why they were there and the assistant told them that he had been to SLC and toured Temple Square.  He said that two young women from Italy were he & his wife's tour guides and that he was very impressed with them and their government should do all they could to promote the development of this caliber of people.  Then he wondered if it were possible to have a building like that in their city to which Elder Uchtdorf responded, we will start on that tomorrow.  After Senator Smith was called to the Seventy and Elder Uchtdorf was called to be an Apostle and to be in the First Presidency, the Temple in Rome was announced and President Uchtdorf gave Elder Smith a thumbs up from the stand.  Heavenly Father truly is directing this work! 

We have been out trying to meet the members of the branch concentrating on the less-actives.  We met Sister Parsons, a sweet home bound member.  She joined the church because of the example of a school administrator. You never know who is watching.
Happiness is the mobility of a wheelchair!!!

Our first Ohio Restaurant experience was at Bob Evans.  It is a popular Ohio Restaurant
with a down home atmosphere and home cooking.

Elder Pedersen waiting to enjoy his steak & mushrooms!

The District

Elder Larsen, Elder Johnson, Sister LeBaron, Sister Carter, Elder Young, Sister Young, Sister Pedersen, Elder Oringdulph, Elder Pedersen, Elder Mortensen, Elder Ray, Elder Jardine-District Leader 
Most Wednesdays we have district meetings in Zanesville-about a 45 minute drive. After discussing our investigators, we reviewed how important attending church is to renew our baptismal covenants so we feel the spirit and come closer to Christ.
In our second meeting this month after discussing our investigators, we discussed that we are teaching people by the spirit not lessons. We need to bare testimony often.  Our Heavenly Father loves us and we need to listen, love and care for those we meet. Our message is of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. The Book of Mormon has the power to change lives. Satan wins if we give up.
In our third meeting we discussed how we are accountable to Heavenly Father and our vision needs to be His vision for His children.  When we partake of the Sacrament we are embraced by the grace of the atonement and sanctified.  Don't deny yourselves the blessings that come from worthily partaking of this sacred ordinance.  It is the only ordinance that we partake of for ourselves over and over again.  We love these missionaries and they are great representatives of Jesus Christ. We also got to attend a temple session with our Zone this month.  It was a wonderful experience to be in the temple with these awesome young missionaries.

Enjoying treats after District Meeting!

P-day this week started with cleaning and laundry-Elder Pedersen was really good driving the vacuum cleaner around our little cottage while Sister Pedersen did the laundry.

Love the small closet door!


After that we went over to help the Welkers clean their canned beef and store them-all 94 of them.  They butchered a 700 lb. steer on Saturday.  We also helped them clean up some of the other pots & pans they used to process their beef.  We stayed all afternoon.  We got to use the internet there while Shirley prepared dinner for us.  She stewed some of the fresh beef with gravy and mashed potatoes, home canned green beans, and home canned beets.  They are so self-sufficient.  In a couple of weeks they are going to slaughter 3 hogs and process them for freezing and canning. Then their huge garden goes in & after that more canning. That is if the ground gets dry soon.


Since we are here to serve the community as well as members of the branch we went out in search of ways to serve. First we stopped by the Animal Shelter and met with Chris Sturtz, Ivey, & Jr.  Chris gave us a tour of the facility.  Elder Pedersen met her and her husband the first week we were here.  Next we stopped by the Chamber of Commerce, then the library, and on to Habitat for Humanity.  The director, John, wasn't in so the secretary made an appointment for Elder Pedersen to meet with him on Thursday afternoon.  On Friday Elder Pedersen began helping out at this home on 9th St. He helps out most Tuesdays & Fridays if we are not at other mission or branch activities.


Elder Pedersen tearing out rotted bathroom floor!!!
He is good for it!!

While Elder Pedersen was working at Habitat, Sister Pedersen went up to the Chapel to help the elders and the Welkers clean.
Sister Pedersen mopping the entry!

Elder Johnson cleaning the  fridge!

Sister Welker mopping the men's room!


Elder Larsen setting-up the chapel!!














Saturday morning, March 28, we woke up to 16ºF temps and a dusting of snow.  Off to the hill top chapel to have our Easter egg hunt.  We had a great turn out for our small little branch.  The kids had fun making chicks while Gary and the elders hid the eggs (the Easter bunnies).  The snow, nor the freezing temperature slowed them down at all.  Then they played games before heading home. 

Elder Pedersen talking about the meaning of Easter!











That evening Sister Pedersen rode over to Zanesville with Sister Welker to watch the Women's broadcast.  Before the broadcast we had a dinner and tied quilts for the homeless. Elder Pedersen went
home teaching with President Welker.