Tom's Week

 The first week of June was filled with inspiration, travel and excitement.  Sunday evening we attended a Stake wide zone conference hosted by our mission president who will be returning home in July.  He and his wife are great and wonderful examples of Christ-like love and are well loved by missions and members.  We received simple but profound guidance on how we can be a disciple of Christ.  The mission president's wife shared an interesting story of how to share the gospel.  She does a lot of shopping at Sam's Club and usually has time to visit with people and obtain referrals; but on this particular day she was pressed for time and was literally running down the aisles.  As she was rushing out to the car to unload her purchases she felt prompted to say something to the man who was helping her; initially she felt time would not allow this interchange.  But the spirit won and she simply asked:  "Are you religious?"  Yes was his response.  "Do you attend a church?"  No, but I am looking.  "Would you like to come to my church?"  Yes.  So she got his contact info and passed that onto the missionaries.  This whole process was about 30 seconds.  And, the missionaries contacted the man that day, taught him, committed him to baptism and later baptized him.  30 seconds was all it took.

After the conference, Tom drove the truck to Mt Vernon, MO and spent the night at the Iowa Fox's new home.  The next morning he drove 25 miles to the middle of nowhere to pick up a borrowed stock trailer and proceeded to the old Iowa Fox home.  There he helped with the last minute items so the Budget rental truck could be loaded Tuesday evening.  That was an amazing feat of charity; over 10 people from church showed up to help load; we almost had more people than were needed; and Jonathan did a fantastic job of filling every space with something.  And when all was done, there was room for everything!

Wednesday morning we finalized the packing of last minute items and loaded the livestock; the four cows, two calves and eight lambs were packed into the borrowed stock trailer. The 10 chickens road in the bed of the pickup truck and one unhappy cat road in the cab with me and David.  Kristy had the remaining 4-5 lambs and the goat in their trailer, two dogs and three cats plus three children in her van.  We left Norwalk about 1pm and  and arrived in Mt Vernon about 7pm.  We were all happy to be there and the animals were most appreciative to be set free into a green pasture.  Jonathan remained behind with Miriam to help friends load all there farm equipment onto a flatbed trailer.  He did not leave until after 5pm with the 24 foot van towing his car (he arrived around midnight, but then I wasn't awake to greet him).

 

At the last minute Sandy decided to join us at Mt Vernon and arrived about the same time we did.  She brought dinner with her too, so we were especially happy to see her.  The children were excited to be in their new home and explore its newness.

Thursday was a down day getting ready for the help that was scheduled to unload the van on Friday.  But there was plenty to do.  Then around 10am Friday morning the help started to arrive.  10-12 people showed up and in less than 90 minutes the work was done.  I love wards with younger people!  If we have a work party like this in Mountain Home, the average age is about 60; here it was closer to 35.

Sandy and I helped get some items set up and then hit the road for home; with an Andy's Custard on the way you know where I took a short break.

I was up early Saturday to participate in a 5 k run in Gassville; this is the third year I have run this race.  It is a low budget event and this year had the most runners/walkers, about 35.  I was really impressed with my time of 30 minutes and 10 seconds and claimed 1st in my age bracket (over 50) - but then there were only two of us!  Then home to help clean the chapel and mow the lawn.  Life is never dull for the Foxes!