Snow Beautiful Snow

Becky, Kylie, Danny Murphy, President Murphy's family. Braved the snow and made it to church.
Evelyn, Luis, Christian Maldanado. Luis the dad is a member, Evelyn and Christian has the missionaries over a couple times a week. She is at church every Sunday, has no W of W problems, she is a mormon an doesn't know it. We hope and pray soon she will want to be baptized.
Selena, Anni, Mary, Kylie.
Clearing the sidewalks at church
Clearing the snow off so we can go to church.

You can tell when it has snowed during the night when you wake up in the morning to it very quiet and Serene stillness. It was so beautiful this morning. In fact the whole day was that way. It is now 4:30 pm and the snow just stopped. It has been snowing all day. I take that back, it just started snowing again. It is so beautiful with white everywhere. Too bad it doesn't stay that way. Soon the snow plows will have dropped so much sand and salt that much of it turns brown. It is pretty slick out there.

We had 21 people show up to church. Some were quite late, but never the less, they were at church. Sacrament meeting started with 12 of us. By the time Sacrament meeting was over, we had 9 more show up. The spirit was so strong. Brother Calhoon from Poughkeepsie, the High Councilor was our speaker. The snow kept the other speaker from coming to church. (It is probably the most snow we have seen in one 15 month period since we have been in Monticello. there is probably about 10 inches of snow. ) Brother Calhoon gave a wonder message on trusting in the Lord and having the faith to be motivated to action. It was awesome, especially because we have been teaching a part member family. We spent a couple hours yesterday at their home teaching about this very topic. Evelyn has had the missionaries for the past year. Her husband Luis was baptized about 10 months ago. She just isn't sure if there is a Christ and if God really wants her to be baptized. We stressed with her the importance of walking by faith, the more faith shown by her actions will be manifested in testimony of knowledge. I am so grateful for the love and interest Heavenly Father shows to us. What a blessing to have Brother Calhoon share such a powerful sweet testimony with his message. Just what Evelyn needed to hear from someone else.

Just as we were finishing Sacrament meeting and moving into the RS room for Sunday school, we discovered water dripping from the ceiling. After checking all the rooms we discovered three of them where water was dripping from light fixtures or vents. So we just grabbed some pans and bowls out of the kitchen so the water would drip in them and Doug called the Facility Management guys and they said they would send someone over to check it out.

We had planned to have a R.S. Leadership meeting with our teachers, music & visiting teaching coordinator, after church today. Sister Pyrum, the music person, was the only one at church. So we shared the cookies and punch with all who attended church today. Not something you could do if we had 100 people at church.

Doug has been at the church for the past 2 1/2 hours with Lewis the FM guy, trying to fix the water dripping problem. I'll have to wait till he gets home to inform you further on the out come. By now I'm sure the Elders are there helping too, as they are suppose to be here for dinner, and with out Doug they won't come in. Mission rules.

Let me just end with expressing my gratitude for these experiences that become memories that I can take with me forever. I will always remember a little town in New York during the winter of 2009, on a Sabbath day that it snowed immensely, but the warmth that the spirit brings is real and cherished, as my faith and testimony increased and was blessed to be surrounded by loving faithful latter-day saints and 4 investigators, as we shared the Lord's spirit in church. We could have let the water problem keep us from this sacred experience, but it wasn't to be. We were blessed.