Fun drive to Grove Hill, AL to find members.

Pres Fralick (Branch President) sent us some names of people to visit that were members of the Grove Hill Branch - about an hour away. That branch only had 15-17 attending and they closed the branch. So here we are looking for the members - only about 10 miles looked like this. The day was worth it - we met Alvin! When he answered the door, his eyes lit up when he saw our missionary name tags and said: "Come in!".  He told us he had just been praying that the Lord would send the missionaries. It was obvious he needed a connection. He joined the church in 1990 and has lived with and cared for his parents. His father passed away a couple of years ago and his mom is bedridden. Had a great visit and he said he could come to church next week! We told him that the Lord and his Branch President loved him - because they sent us to see him!

                                     

We are having a great week!  We spent Monday at the Evergreen/Conecuh County Public Library working with the director of the research room there.  She has received permission from the “board” for us to volunteer there!  Elder Price recovered her Family Search username and password for her & “wowed” her with some of the capabilities of the church site. We met the director of the library & have a “take you & your twin brother out to dinner appointment” with a 70 year old employee there.  He loaned me a book to read, & we have one to share with him:)

Tues we went to Daphne to meet with the Zone.  Elders Dixon & Moss did a terrific job training the zone!  We met many of the Elders, plus the Sr couples, Taggert, & Burgess.  Sis Burgess is anxious to learn more about using the Family Search site with some of their contacts in Pascagoula, MS so we will travel there when she is ready for us. She has spent time with the online training - but doesn’t understand well enough to help others.

Wed we spent at the Monroeville Museum & were even able to help 4 new people begin their Family History.  (3 visiting from out of state, but we will hook them up with help in those areas)  As we were leaving the museum the Sites Director told us how much they appreciate our being there to help them - he said it is very comfortable to have us there.  He invited us to a symphony at the Southern AL Community College in Monroeville.  He’s going with some friends & wants to meet up with us there:)  

Last evening we had a great appt with the Monroe Branch President, Pres. Fralick. He gave us a key to the building so we can invite people to use the family history room there. He also gave us permission to contact his sister, the only branch Family History Consultant. She stays home on Sundays to care for her bedridden brother, so we have not met her.  We want her to feel that we are working with her not taking over her calling, so we will visit her at her home this week. We offered to do whatever Pres Fralick would like us to do to strengthen the branch.

Our first time in the Old Courthouse in the Monroe Museum. (Our new home.)

This is the Monroe County Heritage Museum where we are welcome to meet & greet people and help them with their family history as many days a week as we'd like!  Because Jim & Minion Smith and Leon & Sharon Christensen preceded us as Sr. Missionaries here, the staff has welcomed us with open arms! This is the courthouse used in the movie, To Kill A Mocking Bird. The author is 92 but still lives here. Her father practiced law in this courthouse, & she watched him from this balcony! Volunteer townspeople have performed the To Kill a Mocking Bird play here in the courthouse each summer for the last 25 years!

Met SOOOO many people this week! Great fun!! Great people!!!

We arrived on a great week--the week of the play, Voices at the Crossroads, held at the Museum.  We volunteered to help, so they let us pass out the programs & usher!  So, here we are--welcoming people to their Courthouse/Museum.  Everyone was introducing themselves and then asking about us.  It gave us a chance to say that we are here for 18 mos. to serve a Family History mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the research room at the museum  & invite them to come let us help them research their family history! We probably met 200 townspeople + the church members this week.  Gave us such an opportunity to spread goodwill! We have 4 wonderful young Elders serving in our branch,

One moment in Monroeville history worth catching on video was when 10,000 people came to town for the Hog Festival!

Beautiful Singing Voices!

Mission Leadership Conference - our first one! GREAT group of leaders.

On Tues., our mission pres. invited us to a Mission Leadership Conference with all of the Zone Leaders & Sister Missionary Trainers in the mission.  Pres. Bradley Smith from Salt Lake & his wife were so gracious & excited that we are here!  When we asked him how he would like us to spend our time, he said that he trusted our inspiration on how much time we should spend supporting the young missionaries, the branches, & generally spread goodwill for the church throughout the mission!

First week-day in the field!

Monday, November 30, 2015
Wow - our first week-day of work in the mission field. How exciting. We had plans to visit at least 3 people today- but hit a snag (got to love this kind of snag). We went to Evergreen Public Library where we knew they had a Genealogy Department and met with Sherry Johnson who is in charge of that department. What a GREAT lady. Boy does she know a lot about research in the South!  By the end of our visit, which lasted until after 3 pm, she started talking about all the historical organizations in 17 Southern Alabama counties. She is going to hook us up with them, so we can learn from and also show them what familysearch.org can do to help them - as a FREE resource. I think that alone could keep us VERY busy. She is so involved, knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and seems to be excited that we will work with her 1-2 days a week. What a treat it was for us to meet her and become friends. I told her we hoped we hadn't oversold ourselve but would work hard to assist her in anyway we can. Potentially this will give us opportunities over the next year to work with many people and not only give presentations to groups but have time to work one-on-one to teach others FamilySearch. Great way to start out!!!

We are HERE! Yes - we arrived in Monroeville Friday - Nov 27.

Now the challenge of where to stay... Of course we were very comfortable Friday night in Monroeville, because we stayed - yep, you got it! at the Monroeville Walmart.  We spend the day looking for a place and when we were headed out Saturday morning to make a decision, we received a call back for this campsite. It couldn't be better located. They will have some hunters here in the next couple of weeks, but it looks like we could be the only people here for most of the 18 months! Super quiet! We are 1.5 miles from church and 15 miles from Monroeville. It looks as though our second best option would have been 35 miles from Monroeville and 26 miles from church. (Ok, I'll admit it - it does appear as though it could be cheating, because it looks more as though we are vacationing!)  Here are pictures of our "Mission Home RV" in its new home. :-)