Week 10  4 July 2016

WISHING ALL OUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS A HAPPY DAY!!

We love this country and pray for a blessing on her and her people each day. The Lord has promised this land protection from all those who would do her harm. The only reason this blessing will be denied is if this nation turns away from God and becomes a nation of wickedness and abominations.

DINNER INVITATION

David and Audrey Hollis kindly invited the Elders and Elder Martin and me to dinner and fed us a delicious meal. Left to right: David Hollis, Elders, Lane, 3 younger children, Kayla (friend), Audrey Hollis and Aaron (son). The Hollis family are expecting their eldest son, Elder Bodee Hancock, to return from his mission in three weeks. They will all be going out west to meet him. There is a great deal of excitement as they prepare for his homecoming. Kayla, his "special" friend is investigating the church and reading the Book of Mormon. She is a fantastic lady.

SAXAPHONE PLAYER

To our surprise our Elder Rawlins plays the saxophone. Aaron, who also plays the sax, brought his instrument out for Elder Rawlins to play a few notes!! Who knew?

PRIDE OF INDIA

This gorgeous "Pride of India" tree stands at the entrance to our chapel. They grow all over North Carolina. Here, they are known as the "Crepe Myrtle". The blossoms are white, pink or purple as in this photo.

MISSIONARY WORK

It has been a very busy week. The 4th July was so hot that Lane and I spent the day inside. We only ventured out to have lunch! Later in the evening we went with Brother Dyion and Deborah Skipper to administer a blessing to Charles Pritchard who was in the Hannover Regional Medical Center. Tuesday we had a wonderful 2 hour visit with Sister Betty Rose who lives in our complex and works at Walmart in Wilmington. She helped us go through the ward list and learn a little more about some members we don't know. Wednesday we had our Missionary Zone Meeting in Wilmington. We enjoy these meetings because we get to associate with all the missionaries and seniors in 4 different districts. In the afternoon we had a good visit with Janet and David Baldree, the mother and father of Eric Shipman. Later in the week we visited a daughter of one of our older members, Sister Roseman. Rebecca Roseman received us graciously and we learned about her life. She is a single mom of two daughters and has her own business cleaning homes on Baldhead Island. These are holiday homes which rent out, during the summer, for up to $8000 a week! She and her team go in on Saturdays and Sundays to clean and get the condos ready for the next set of holiday makers. We will visit her again. We had many calls or visits (probably 12) to people on our list, but either got no answer, a disconnected number or no-one was home when we arrived. Friday we returned to the hospital to vist Charles. We found him ready to go home with his wife Denise. We visited with them for about an hour and then headed home. Saturday we had a wonderful lunch with Dora and Itch Hoshiyama who we have been visiting on and off. We also found the Randall Child family home and were able to get to know them. Brother Randall had very bad burns on his hand and it looked extremely painful. He had burnt it on a grill. Daughter Kallie was also there and Brother Paul Allen, a neighbor and member also dropped by so we had a lovely visit with everyone. We had visited them before but only found their daughter Paige home. At that time we had a heart to heart with her. She is at college but has not been to church because of work obligations. She was at work that day but her mom told us she loved our visit and felt that the Lord had sent us to her!! We felt so good to hear that. We hope we can make a difference in the lives of all our Leland ward members. There are so many good folk here and we feel as though they are all our family and we want to help them in any way we can. 

Today our hearts are in Utah where our grandson Austin, gave his farewell talk in church. He is entering the MTC on Wednesday and going to serve a mission in Russia. Go with courage, serve with distinction and return with honor, Elder Thornton! We will be praying for your success! We miss all our family and friends and hope you are all well.

Love from Elder and Sister Martin.