Happy New Year/Legal Witness January 7, 2013
Dear Family and Friends,
Sister Sheffer has been singing Christmas songs anytime we go to a home that still has their decorations up. When we don't watch TV or listen to the radio we don't hear the Christmas carols, so it feels like a part of Christmas is missing. It went by so quickly. Our New Year's Eve was spent teaching an investigator. She and her daughter are planning on being baptized on Saturday the twelfth. We are praying for them.
This week was another amazing week. Sister Sheffer was asked to be the legal witness for a wedding. It started when we were asked to bless the home and family of an inactive member who had a boyfriend and twin girls. On our second visit we asked if Jason the boyfriend would be baptized he said yes. Then we asked if they would be married. He said yes. He works on an off shore platform drilling for oil and his next job would start on January third. This was Saturday December twenty-ninth, so the next time the county court house would be open was January second. We asked if they would be married on the second. Yes! Laurel was eating the phone book she was so excited. At 8:00am we met them at the court house and when they had a license in hand we called the Bishop and the Relief Society President to let them know the wedding was on. At 4:00pm they were married. It is such a joy to see the Lord's hand in people's lives.
We spent Saturday morning in the Church's welfare vineyard propagating new grapevines. To do this you find a long grape cane and dig a hole and bend the cane so part of it is buried in the dirt next to a stake where you want the new vine to grow. It was amazing how many steps it took to mark, label, wire, and prune these new starts. We loved playing in the dirt and we learned so much. Elder Sheffer has carrots and zucchini in his little garden. We may not be able to harvest anything but he didn't want to bring the seeds back home. His tomato plant is still growing an loaded with tomatoes. He has had to go out a couple of nights to tuck it in. If we get close to freezing he covers it up. It has hit 32 twice already this year.
We were dropping a bike off to the Zone Leaders and Elder Sheffer went out to the car to get something when the phone rang in his pocket. He thought that the Zone Leaders were calling to tease him and tell him he was too far away from his companion. He pulled to phone from his pocket while thinking of a clever response. He saw President Gelwix on the caller ID. While speaking as calmly as he could he rushed to his companion so she could hear. The President assigned us to mentor and train a new couple who have been assigned to Hanford, a town about twenty miles away. He said that this couple had been here one week and they were going to have an interesting assignment of going to the prisons to teach. There are several prisons in the valley; one of them is Corcoran a maximum security federal prison. We have been working with the 4th ward and one of their ward missionaries, Brother Lewis, has been going to Corcoran every Monday for about six years. He and his wife went with us to Hanford to meet with the Gunns. They are a delightful couple form Magna Utah and Elder Larry Gunn was a printer for fifty years for church publications and knew Elder Sheffer's uncle Lowell Jacobsen.
When we asked the Lewis' to come with us to Hanford and share some information with this new senior couple they asked for their name "Elder and Sister Gunn," we told them. "Well," Brother Lewis replied, "They won't allow any Gunns in the prisons."
We wish you all a Happy New Year. We have great promises in store as we live the gospel. The Lord is on thy side. God Bless, Elder and Sister Sheffer
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