Hello from the East Coast. . . . We had another great week..

Monday we picked up Tigi for our regular outing and decided to take her to one of my favorite places for lunch "5 Guys", which became one of her favorites too. We then took her to the SS office to clear up some paper work, it seems there is so much to do to catch her up on all her medical and paperwork.. but we love helping her..   

 Tigi

That afternoon we went to visit Sister Rodriquez who lives in the building next to ours.  What a sweet lady, the only problem was that she only spoke Spanish and we didn't. But she was so excited to have us there and talked a mile a minute and we nodded our heads and smiled a lot.  She is from Guatemala and is gathering items to send down there.. and I told her that I wanted to visit there and she was so excited.. I really don't know how much she understood, but what a precious lady.. We got hugs as we left and a big gracias.  

Tuesday we had our last outing as a district with Sister Brown (my old companion) and Sister Larsen and Elder and Sister Knight.. We all met at the Green Turtle in Bowie and had a wonderful time.. The food was great and the conversation was fun.  The Knights are from Provo, Utah and he used to be professor at BYU.  He has also been a tour guide for many church history tours, so he is really fun to talk to.  After lunch we headed out to try and catch some sisters home and have visits.. We made 3 attempts and had 2 visits, great day.

L-R Sister Brown, Sister Knight, Me, Sister Wege, Elder Knight, Sister Larsen

 

Weds. was our family history center morning and I got to help a man with his work. He had gone to the cemetery and had names and dates to put in of his family and I really could help him.. He was so happy and so was I. We then went to the temple and had a wonderful session there.  After our temple session we went to Holy Cross Hospital to visit with Shirley, she has been sick for about 2 months and really didn't look very good.. She said she just wanted to go home and sleep.. I sure hope they find out what is causing he illness.

Thursday morning we attended a zone training with the young missionaries.. they had asked us to come so they could say goodbye to me.. They are all so neat and it will be hard to say my final goodbyes to them.  I assured them I would see them at a couple of the events at the visitors center that are coming up..

We then picked up Sharon and went to visit Barbara our favorite Thursday lady. We took birthday treats and cards to celebrate her birthday with her. We then made a couple more visits.. One which was very strange.  Mary is very paranoid and suffers from schizophrenia and is sure that the government is trying to spy on her, so she has all her windows covered in tin foil and curtains over every window and doorway.. It is really dark in her house so she guided us to places to sit.. She asked us all to hold hands and to feel of each others spirit while we were there (can I just say . . .YIKES) Siste Wege was giggling the whole time. At one point she asked me to go over by her bed and get a bag hanging on the wall.. When I gave it to her, she pulled out some musical instruments.. bells and shaker balls and then asked me to go get the gong and mallet also hanging on the other wall.. Well. . . then she said we were all going to play our musical instruments  while we were singing.. we thought Sharon was going to faint.. so we sang I am a child of God and I played the gong and the others had their musical instruments.. Sister Wege couldn't stop giggling.. Mary has a cockatiel named Ashley that danced and bounced it's head as Mary sang.. Ashley poo-pooed .. we were all just in shell shock at this point.. We asked if she would like to say a prayer before we left and she readily agreed and we were out of there.

 Sister Wege spent some time this past weekend with her daughter Jenny and Jenny's boyfriend who were in town for the weekend from Louisiana, so I decided to head down to southern Maryland and visit friends.. What a fun time I had.. Bonnie had invited me to stay with her and Gary and they were such great host's.  On Friday evening we were invited to a birthday dinner for Tom the husband of a friend from Lexington Park, the most southern tip of Maryland.  There were 16 of us at the Olive Garden and what a fun time.. It was fun to see many of the friends I had made when I served down there.. On Saturday, Bonnie had arranged for a group of friends from the Waldorf area to join us for lunch at Cafe Rio.. since I had lived in that area and served in the 2 wards there for 7 1/2 month.  I was so excited to see everyone.. After lunch we drove around some of St. Mary's county, which is Amish territory and I got some pictures of Amish wagons and carts.. I had a fantastic two days and I'm so glad I decided to go down to my old stomping grounds and spend a couple of very special days.

 The birthday dinner on Friday evening,,

 

 Some of my friends and Me on Saturday..

 

Amish country

 Bonnie playing on her new piano

 

Bonnie and Garys home, where I stayed 

We had a wonderful Sunday:

• Left home at 7:30 for our first meeting
• Great church meetings
• Went to a baptism for a cute 8 year old boy
• Called on 11 sisters.. visited with 3
• Had a wonderful dinner with Craig (the gourmet chef) and Ann. Since it was my last time at their house along with Elder Gillespe (who leaves this week)..we each got to choose something we wanted for dinner.. so this was the menu.
• Chicken Picata (my favorite)
• Pot roast, mashed potatoes and gravy (Elder Gillespe's favorite
• Carrots and broccoli
• Spaghetti squash
• Chicken with a citrus sauce
• Collared greens
• Rolls
• Carrot cake for dessert           
• What a feast.. Such an awesome couple, who have us all over for dinner every month.. 4 young elders and 4 senior missionaries..

We have a busy week planned for the coming week with lots going on.. Have a wonderful week and I'll drop in next Sunday again.. Only 2 more weeks here in DC..