16 March 2012

I’m seated outside the Bridgetown cottage called “Uncle Scotty’s.”   It’s autumn now, and the leaves are starting to fall from some of the trees, but they don’t turn beautiful colors like ours do in Utah.  It’s beautiful, though, beyond words.  There’s a gentle breeze, cool, but not cold this morning, and a song on the air from the great variety of singing birds always present.  Dropping off the back of this property is a deep valley, and on the other side a steep hillside, so that the trees against the brown earth and few homes on the hill opposite are displayed before me like a picture.  I have at my disposal a little glass patio table with 4 lawn chairs.  The back yard from the neighbor to the left is fully visible, but no one seems ever to be there.  I have my giant locust tree before me, in whose branches live several birds of different kinds, always darting about and chattering to each other.  There are few flies or other bugs now, so that we may leave the doors open if we like until the sun is full up and hot.  Last night we went to the top of our hill here on Blechenden Street, and stood, looking at the Milky Way, which could almost be caught in our hands, it seemed so close.  What beauty God has created around us!  It seems almost as if even the appearance of man with his crude ways would defile it!  “The natural man is an enemy to God.”  It seems almost ironic that the opposite should be true!  I can understand how men without the light of the Gospel could become worshippers of the earth.

We came to Bridgetown on Thursday and went over to Stuarts, hoping to have a discussion after missing them both times we were here in February.  We caught them at home, but he is a big African man with a big African voice and a powerful testimony of God and his Pentecostal religion.  The sofa where we sat made us kind of shrink into it, and as I looked at my husband, after about 45 minutes, a “shrinking” little man in comparison, struggling in his kind and obliging way to get in a word edgewise, I thought, “We are not going to be able to teach the Truth here,” and I closed up my Book of Mormon, and put it away.  But Elder Ashby, seeing that, suddenly got an opportunity, and he pushed his way in, making his point and capturing their attention.  Soon he was sitting up on the edge of that sofa with fire in his eyes, and the next thing I knew, he was even on his feet!  He was quoting scriptures that Spencer Stuart knows, and inviting him to use his great knowledge  of the Bible in a different way—to prove the Book of Mormon!  As we knelt in prayer at the close, I was amazed, because he had actually committed to read!  I’m so proud of my husband, who is really a giant spiritually.  (I hope in the Resurrection, he will be blessed with a little more bulk!  And I, a little less!)

President Smibert called us just before we came here to sound us out a little.  He is thinking about moving us here permanently, considering the desires of President Ellefson for this branch.  But as we prayed and considered, we thought of all the people in Albany we are teaching, both as investigators and members, not to mention the Institute class and the Young Adults we are working with.  Yes, we have the Stuarts here, and the Lakes, but the Lakes don’t seem to be progressing.  (We gave a lesson there yesterday.)  There are very few members here in Bridgetown, which is the main reason they need a couple, but it also works against us!  There aren’t a lot of referrals here!  Bro. Mullen has a neighbor whom we met last month, but he’s away now with his daughter up north somewhere.  We just feel we could be a lot more effective in Albany full-time, if we have to give up one or the other.  We told Pres. Smibert we would be willing to do whatever he says, though.  Apparently, it’s costing the mission too much to rent this cottage once a month.  Oh, how I will hate giving up this place, if it comes to that.  And to give up Albany, OH!  How could we stand to leave the friends we’ve made there!  Such dear people who seem to need us, even with all their problems! 

We called the President back and suggested that he give us a 3 or 4-month preparation time if he decides to send us here, putting two of the young missionaries here for the time being, and let us have time to prepare the members in Albany for our leaving, and time to tie up some things that we are working on there.  He said thanks, he would think about it and pray some more.  A group of new missionaries will arrive here in WA on Wednesday, so if the President decides to put them in a new flat here in Bridgetown, this may be the last time we are allowed to stay here in the cottage.

One couple here in Bridgetown, the Whites, have just moved to Mandura.  Everyone here is very sad.  She was the Relief Society President.  One of the few remaining sisters who could be a wonderful replacement is not allowed to have callers or visitors from the church, else she suffers the consequences at home.  She’s the Gospel Doctrine teacher.  That leaves 4 active sisters.  One is the Primary president, and two more the teachers and music.  One is 90 years old.

A group of ring-necked parrots lives in this neighborhood.  Two of them just landed on our little patio table.  I have moved into the house now, and as soon as I moved to get my camera, they lifted into the nearby trees and were joined by several others in their play.  The whole south side of the cottage is glass, windows from floor to ceiling, even in the bedrooms, so that the outside can be brought inside with the mere opening of the drapes or blinds.