Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Once upon a midnight dreary...

Once upon a midnight dreary (maybe closer to 9:30 ish)
As I pondered weak and weary (from a long day of tracting)
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore... (old Ensigns)
Suddenly there came a beeping
And our telephone was ringing
I picked up the phone to hear my ZL on the other line...
Finally the call I dreaded
Over which I'd thought and fretted
I petitioned him to know if I was gone or had more time...
All my hopes and fears were coming
To a head - my heart was drumming
And then like a hammer falling, Quote the Elder:
"You're being transferred"

So, I'm being transferred. I'll let you know my new address as soon as I find out. Elder O'Donley is staying here in Perry. I'm kind of jealous of him; I love the people in the ward and who we're teaching. In addition, the ward is super excited about missionary work and helpful to us. They have been seeing all the investigators and less-active members we and the sisters have been bringing to church, as well as seeing success themselves as they did member missionary work and it's like a snowball effect of excitement!.

Thanks for the updates on the ages - it's tough when they keep changing (except for Mom's, of course)

Our church was great, too. It was the primary program and they did great. It was a wonderful program about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Elder O'Donley and I sang, too. (the last song of the program was "come follow me", and small groups of primary children or soloists sang the first three verses, the sisters sang verse 4, we sang verse 5, and the whole congregation sang verse 6) With exception of the 5th verse, I thought it was excellent. Steven came to church Sunday as well as Bro. and Sis. Elliot, who came to all three hours for the first time. I kind of had to play the "I'm getting transferred, it's my last Sunday" card to get them to commit to all three hours, but hey - whatever works, right? Conspicuously missing from church was Ethan (10-yrs old) and his mother (a member) Christina, who had committed to come to church and then to the baptism of an 8-yr old in our ward afterwards. That was disappointing, but I'm still pretty confident that he'll get baptized this coming monthSay congratulations to the Lays for their daughters marriage and happy birthday to Dawn for me. (invite them to church for me as well)

You Said: "I was going to mention that maybe you shouldn't mention teaching drunken gun-toting robbers. But mom took it all in stride. Thanks for relating the story. "

Sorry - I must have miscommunicated - it was actually a balance-and-speech-challenged squirrel with a water gun, and he was just on his way to borrow some things. Nothing to worry about.

Have I mentioned before that one of my dreams for my mission is to serve in the Youngstown area? The reason behind this is that they sell a really cool T-shirt there. It says "Youngstown, Ohio, 2-time defending champion - Murder capital of the USA" (and the years that Youngstown was the murder capital) and has a graphic of two crossed M-16s. I would want one for me and one to send home for Mom. I thought she would really appreciate that.

Thanks for relating again your bishop's counsel about being with your family, even on the weekends. I remember hearing about that several times, but hadn't thought about it for a while.

Sometimes all it takes is an invitation: We committed the Dahneke family to invite the boys from a less-active family to their FHE and this Sunday one of them came to church. We talked to him there and he committed to come next week and said that his parents would be fine with us visiting them. After seeing the new face at church, the seminary teacher visited their home and introduced himself, and two of the boys came to seminary yesterday!

I'm going to try to send some pictures in a sec...lets see how this goes (Note: I got an email that said - "nevermind I'll try next week". so - no pictures)

LYMNB, Elder Matthew Smith