Another Round of Apartment Inspections

 which for us means a treat and some new roads to travel.

With Halloween coming up, we decided to go with that theme for the treats since the next inspections won't take place until November.

Their Halloween containers had some Halloween candy along with the note below with a "scary" door knocker and instructions to Fear Not and remember that Sweet is the work!

We try to be so clever (sometimes it works, sometimes not! :) )

On the way to Greenwood, we stopped at a cemetery in the area and were able to take a large number of pictures of tombstones which were not yet posted in Find A grave. Many of them had been entered in without a photo so it was quick for Gary to add the photo to most of them...and to correct incorrect data that had been entered as well.

One of life's heartaches for sure!

We did one other cemetery during the inspection circuit.  It was the Chester Cemetery.  We had seen this one from the train ride the weekend before and decided to make a stop there on the way to Prairie Grove, AR. It was a bit tricky to find even with our GPS but Gary persisted and we found it over the railroad tracks a couple of times on a dirt/gravel road.

It had some very old stones and some new ones although I am not sure where people would even park to attend a graveside ceremony here.

Life's endings are varied from the newborn to the 100 year old and everything in between.  How grateful I am that we know that life continues after death and each one of these people will all have the opportunity to learn about Jesus and choose to follow Him and His gospel.  And how great is the plan that makes that possible for everyone that has ever lived on this earth.

The Prairie Grove sisters have set up a Halloween Tree in their apartment and I asked for permission to take photos.  How fun it that!

The Prairie Grove sisters had an extra air fryer and rice cooker so we took those with us to share with the mission.  However, doing the Clarksville inspection later, they asked about a rice cooker.  When I mentioned that we actually just got one and an air fryer, they wanted them both--so that worked out.

Some of the signs along the way to and from Prairie Grove.....

Not exactly in agreement with this one.
He wants our spiritual heart--not the physical one that would be
used in organ donation.  (I might be sensitive to this issue since my
mom had a heart transplant in 1985.)

Butterfield Trail was the Pony Express
route through here for about 3 years.

Some of the trees have started changing colors but in the latter part of October is suppose to be the main time.  Utah is having a beautiful fall according to our friends and their Facebook posts.

While in Clarksville, they were throwing out chairs and it happened that the sisters in Ft. Smith needed new dining room chairs since they had four in their apartment.  So we grabbed four of these old ones for them.  That didn't work out quite as well as they had gotten some from the elders in Ft. Smith.  So now we have four old church chairs in our garage.  Someone will need them sometime...maybe even us.

On Friday of inspection week, we headed to Mena and then to points beyond.....it was a great day of about 250 miles so it deserves its own post.  More on that later.

"Smoosh"

On Monday evening (September 25), we had the Spanish-speaking sisters to dinner.  One of them, Sister Moesinger, is the granddaughter to one of our former zone members in Salt Lake. So, to surprise her, I asked her grandmother to ask her mother what food would she like from home.  Her mother sent two recipes to her grandmother who sent them to me.  One was for Texas Sheet cake--but we still had missionary birthday cake left so we skipped that.  The other recipe was a casserole called Smoosh.  It looked doable and something we might like so I decided to give it a try.

We loved it and I almost didn't get a picture to post.  It is made with chicken, almonds, water chestnuts, and mushrooms and other good stuff with crescent rolls rolled out on top and Swiss cheese. Sister Moesinger was touched and told us it smelled and tasted like home.

us, Sister Madden and Sister Moesinger

Sometimes it is nice when you can make someone's day a little more brighter in an unexpected way! Thanks, Sister Suzanne Moesinger (the grandmother) for your help!

Sidenote:  We asked Sister Moesinger what the name meant.  She told us that it was a dish that a family in their ward in Virginia made for their family once when her mother had just had a baby.  The kids loved it so her mom got the recipe but no name.  Sister Moesinger said that about five years ago she and her siblings decided to type up their favorite recipes as a gift for their mother.  Since she didn't know the name, they named it Smoosh.

Here is a photo she sent me of the recipe.

Sunday Zoom Call-September 24 (a bit out of order)

Elder Miller's family sent him some happy birthday glasses which they put on for part of the zoom call.  I had passed out "blowouts" (that is what they are called on the package)--the party favor where you blow and the strip up winds (and usually they make a noise but ours didn't).  We blew them all together after the closing prayer of our Zone Call on September 24 and sang happy birthday to the birthday missionaries.  Gary got a picture which I will add later.

We do a Zone Zoom call every Sunday night to check in and receive announcements, review goals and have some brief instructions. It is a nice end to Sunday.

District Meeting--September 25

Gary and I had been asked by our district leader, Elder Miller, to do a workshop in district meeting talking about improving teaching.  We decided to do part of it on the white board.  As we were talking about it, I commented that Elder Smythe and Elder Campbell (our zone leaders but also in our district) wouldn't be at the meeting and they usually write on the board because they both have good printing skills.  Jena spoke right up and said that she would be Elder Campbell's replacement because she had good printing.

So she wrote the titles for our columns before the meeting started.  During our discussion, I wrote things on the board as we went along. 

However, at one point, when we were talking about solutions, one of the missionaries was talking about things centered on being yourself while you teach and not pretending.  That started a bit of conversation during which Jena wrote on the board "Be Yourself."  She put it in the right place and it was the perfect summary of what we were saying although I am not sure anyone said those exact words.  She amazes us continually with her understanding.

She did a perfect job filling in for Elder Campbell.