Civil War Battle

I'm glad you are learning that you CAN have fun in Relief Society. You crack me up. That's fun that you got to talk to Rick before he left. But I sent Rick a postcard that will hopefully meet him in Honduras :) Silly Boy. I hope I get to talk to him on Christmas, too.

So I got to see a little Civil War battle reenactment this weekend. We drove by the park along the river, and I wondered what was with the tents and campfires in the park, and we found out that's what it was, they had cannons and everything. The cannon fire shook our windows all weekend. Did you know that even though they weren't firing off any cannonballs, just the explosion from the powder can still take your arm off?

We've been doing a lot of service this week, and I've enjoyed it. We've been helping the Red Cross more than usual, and just people in the ward and it's been fun and we have gotten to know some of the members here better. It's amazing how much I've learned to love serving others! I think we get to help paint a deck in a couple days.

We are teaching a guy named Ty and he's building his own airplane and when it's done he's going to fly to Alabama and stay there. That's where he's from originally and he's going to move back. He says that that's one of the things that is keeping him from joining the church right now. He's afraid of how the church down there will treat him - he's black and he grew up with segregation and everything, and he's just worried about how things will work out when he moves back to Alabama. We had a really good talk with him last week and I think he's beginning to realize that it's not about the ward that he'll be moving into - salvation is an individual matter, and the truth is the truth, no matter what anyone else says or does. So I hope things will go better with him now. He's an amazing guy.

Well, I better get going. Love you all!

~Melissa