15th Post Sunday Nov. 15 - Sunday Nov 22

We had a interesting Sunday. We always try to decide where we should attend church, normally considering which candidates we could possible help by meeting with them. We print our list of candidates so we can review with the bishop, get the church address, and meeting times and print all this on Friday. Well we decided to go to the Baytown 1st Ward again as we have a candidate who is not making much progress. We had called the Bishop ahead of time to set up a meeting with the leadership and our candidate so we could all get on the same page. Well the church website for meeting times was wrong so we got there after sacrament meeting was over. I was feeling bad, but it turns out that was the best thing. The bishop (who was just called into the new stake presidency) walked into the building behind us so we got our candidate and had a good meeting. It was helpful as now the ward knows what we are doing and the candidate knows what he must do for himself. We were waiting in the foyer when we saw a couple of Elders we had not seen earlier, so we went over to say hello. Low and behold one of them was Elder Braithwaite who is Anna Timothy's son, our friend from Delaware (next to Sister Walker). Leona said I've been looking for you and he said I've been looking for you! He and his companion had just been transferred to the Baytown area, in fact missionaries had been pulled from that area and they were the first ones back for awhile. Anyway he had previously served in the Kingwood area and we asked if by chance he knew Perry Dobson. He said "oh yes, I have been in his home several times and he sure make a good chocolate shake." It is a small world. It was fun to be able to visit with him.

Monday we were at the Hafer Road office. We found out that Sister Lish's younger sister passed away and so she went home for the funeral. I miss her good sense of humor. There were two people who came into the center to use the computers today that were not real computer literate so I spent most of my day going between them. They need to know how/where to search for jobs and to understand the questions on job applications (one did not read English very well). After work the senior missionaries were invited to the mission home for dinner. President and Sister Hansen are such gracious people. The dinner was a farewell for Sister Higham who is leaving and a welcome to Sister Young who just arrived. It is always a good time when the seniors get together. President Hansen gave me a temple recommend interview after the evening activities were over. It was good to get to know him better, we had a good visit (and yes I did get my recommend). While I was visiting with President Hansen Leona helped Sister Hansen wash dishes. Sister Hansen told her about their mission call and family. She said that after President Hansen retired they turned in their mission papers thinking they would be going to Costa Rica because a couple from their stake was serving as mission president there and needed (ask) if they would come as proselyting missionaries. A few days before they anticipated receiving their call they got a phone call from SLC and they were told "when your call comes in the mail do not open it, just send it back" A short time after they had returned the envelope they received a call from Elder Uchtdorf (he was not in the presidency at the time) saying he was going to be in Mesa and wanted to meet them. That took place and they just visited and Elder Uchtdorf told them not to worry he just wanted to meet them! A short time later they received a call from President Monson and they were extended the call to be mission president. They then had to wait to find out what mission when their call came in the mail. They are great people and doing a great job - what a responsibility, they are on the move constantly. We had a nice evening.

Tuesday afternoon we had a woman and her brother come into the Bering building for employment help. She is in real estate and needs to find additional work. I believe her brother has a learning disability. We invited them to the career workshop on Wednesday and they said they would attend. (It was cool running this morning, in the 40's and it didn't get out of the 60's all day - very nice).

We had four show up to our career workshop this morning. A fellow we met last week (he is one step above homeless), and a young man who recently lost his job at a big shopping complex - he was the loss prevention and security manager. Also our sister and brother from yesterday came late, but we got them caught up. It was a good group and they seemed to get a lot out of the material.

Thursday and we are at the Broadway Building. There were three relatives (?) who came in this afternoon. They were young had two very small children with them and were looking for jobs. We talked about what LDS Employment does and how we could help. We only have one computer at this center so we did the best we could at showing them how to log on the new web site and get registered, where to find possible job leads and so on. We also gave them some hand outs that will be helpful for their job search. I believe many people come into the center expecting to get a big list of jobs they can go interview for. We do have some job listings and the new betajobs.lds.org web site does have jobs listed, but some want a job given to them.

Friday we only had our two brothers show up for the workshop. The sister and her brother did call back later in the day and they do want to come and finish next week. It is interesting that our nearly homeless brother rides his bike and is always early (even in the rain - it was raining this morning). Our "west Africa" husband & wife came in late this afternoon. They had not checked their email since I set it up for them 3 or 4 weeks ago, nor had they done much job searching. We logged on and they had two emails from the company that I had helped him apply for work. Of course the emails were about 3 weeks old and same with the job leads we had subsequently sent. I think they got the message about how important it is to check their email at the library or here at the center several times a week. The day flew by even though this head cold is about to do me in.

Saturday and Sunday I have not felt like doing too much so I mostly took my Contact pills to keep my nose from running off my face and slept. It has been a wonderful week with lots of interaction with various candidates. That really make us feel like we are helping. We are so blessed to be full time missionaries, how thankful we are to be here at this time in our lives. Thank you for your love and support and for the autumn leaves from Delaware and the letters from grandchildren.

Love Dad & Mom (Steve & Leona)