Letter from Mom & Ruben

Hi all you interested parties,

Missionary work has continued since our last official post at the end
of APRIL!!!!! I kept thinking it hadn't been that long since I sat
down to write, but sure enough it has been.
We have managed to stay pretty busy. We finished giving after baptism
lessons to all of the people we had on our recent convert list. At
least the ones we could find that haven't gone back to their old
churches or been antied. We have a couple of young families we are
trying to work with right now. They both have agreed to have us come
but they can't quite find the time to fit us in. I'm thinking of just
showing up about 7:30 in the evening with some dessert and trapping
them. The fathers in both families have been baptized in the the last
couple of years but never progressed in the priesthood and we really
NEED priesthood members under seventy-five in the Greenwood ward.

Elder Garnica is still the ward mission leader. I guess the stake
leaders told the new bishop to release him and get a ward member but
now they have backed off since they can't even find enough men to
staff the rest of the callings. I'm pretty happy about that 'cause we
teach the Gospel Principals class and I enjoy doing that a lot.

We are still driving back and forth to Greenville for all Zone get
togethers. It is fun seeing all of the Elders and learning about how
mission work is done. On Tues. we all got called to repentance in no
uncertain terms, actually in a very loud very stern voice by our
president, President McConkie. That was new and different. We are
not being obedient to our 30 min. lunch rule. During some of the
training I get bored because very little of it relates to what we do,
so I take my KINDLE (the most awesome invention of the 21st century).
I guess the President noticed me reading it and later challenged me,
asking "what were you reading in the last meeting?" boy oh boy was I
happy to report 'Temples, Where Heaven meets Earth' by Truman G.
Madsen". I dodged a bullet there, what if I had been reading one of my
extra curricular books! I would have been embarrassed!

You all know that Grandma and Grandpa Miller and Ann came to visit us
in May. We played hooky and went to Charleston for a day and a half.
What an interesting city with lots and lots of history. It was
founded before New Orleans, in 1670. So there is revolutionary war
history and of course the civil war started there. We toured the city
in a horse drawn bus, rode a boat out to tour Ft. Sumter and went and
toured a working plantation (sort of). We also ate in two great
restaurants, one famous for its fish and the other for barbeque.
What we do in the west is called grilling. Bar-b-que and grilling are
completely different cooking methods, I never knew!

Some other words and phrases I have learned, in the grocery store I
was directed to the buggies. Grocery carts to you! And one day I got
on an elevator at the hospital and one of the riders looked at me and
told me to "mash the button" blank stare from me until I finally came
to and realized mash and push mean the same thing. If someone tells
you to 'cut it off,' that means turn off something. And if they say
"Cut off the hose pipe" that means turn off the hose, not get a
hacksaw. And you didn't know I was learning a foreign language, did
you?

One Thursday I got a message from John Emmett. I thought that was a
little strange until I listened and found out he was only sixty miles
away in Augusta, Ga. We went down on Fri. morning to have breakfast
with him, and He treated us. Nice to have nephews with employment!
We are perfectly willing to drive out of our mission to see relatives,
come on down. We stayed in Augusta for a couple of hours to see the
town. This is the location of the Masters Golf tournament, but you
can't catch more than a glimpse of the golf course they play it on.
It is a very snooty place!

Now I am going to let you in on one of those super secret gospel
legends you have never heard of, and yet your very salvation MAY
depend upon knowing this. You have heard of the Olympic Organizing
Committee, the O.O.C., I know. But are you aware that there exists a
Celestial Kingdom Organizing Committee, the C.K.O.C., and it is not in
SLC as you might suspect it would be. Now I have your attention,
don't I? It has been organized right here in Greenwood S.C. Surprise!
There are five or six women here who can tell you exactly on which
level of the Celestial Kingdom you will be assigned, depending on
which transgressions of the culture of the church, you may have
committed. Culture and doctrine seem to be very mixed here and despite
my best efforts to teach the difference I'm not having much success.
Wearing pants to church (very low level), men wearing facial hair or
colored shirts to church (oh, oh) drinking caffinated beverages (my
particular downfall. I know I am going to have a lot of friends and
family on the level I have been assigned to). In fact the mission
president mentioned the "blue shirts of apostasy" just the other day!
In case you're wondering about your level, "its a secret". I only know
mine because one of the secret sisters was so shocked by my
transgression, she blurted out my level when she caught me red handed
filling my cup at the diet coke dispenser when out to dinner with the
single adult family home evening group. Right there in front of her,
I didn't even try to hide it! Really the members here are so great
and so generous with us. Sometimes I just have to laugh at some of
the stuff people believe about Mormons, even the members. No wonder
the non-members have some strange ideas. (I know, I know, the whole
family knows I'm probably not going to make it anywhere near the
Celestial Kingdom anyway! Boy do I have the C.K.O.C. fooled. I tried
to tell them I'm not nearly this nice in my real life, but they won't
believe me, and assigned me to a level I could never have made if they
knew the real me). One nice thing about leaving home, you can be
whoever you want to be, no baggage!

Last week-end I used some of my skills from my former life helping to
put on a wedding reception for an older couple. The groom is from
this ward and the bride used to be. He didn't realize until she moved
away how much he liked her. So now they are married and he moved to
where she lives. They came here the day after their wedding in the
N.C. temple. She had informed one of her friends here that they were
coming to visit and would like to have a reception. My friend, the
member they told is eighty and having health problems, so I told her
we could do it, I would help her and the Relief Society Pres. pitched
in too. It turned out well, about 30 people attended and the bride and
groom seemed to have a good time. (another tip from the field, if
someone plans and puts on a free reception for you it will be
appreciated if you say thank-you and help clean up.) Poor Elder
Garnica, he was the only husband of the three women so he did all the
tables and chairs.(while the groom moved from chair to chair trying to
stay out of Rubens way) He wishes I would quit volunteering! Anyway,
now I am famous for cheesecake, it was totally worth it.

Last week our district got whitewashed! (all of the elders got
transffered out at the same time, FYI) One of them was quite
disobedient, and our district leader couldn't seem to motivate him to
improve so they all left. We really liked them all and will miss
them. We are sort of tickled because the naughty one is now in the
mission office with the President! The elder is a great gospel
teacher but couldn't find the energy to keep the rules about working
and being on time etc. I'll bet that gets fixed!

Now we have two new sets of missionaries. One companionship are
sisters! The ward is very excited about that, they still talk about
the last set of sisters who served here and that was 5 years ago!
Sister Tiechert is from Mackey ID. and Sister Jepson (she's green) is
from San Jose, CA. Yes! Sister Tiechert's great-grandmother is the
artist who did so much of the church art that we use in our buildings.
Elder Garbrick from Roseville CA is our new district leader and his
green companion is Elder Nelson from Pinedale WY. ( Sister Tiechert
and Elder Nelson both grew up on cattle ranches!) Our last bunch of
missionaries were all kind of quiet and not to outgoing. That is not
going to be a problem with this bunch! I expect baptisms will pickup.
(Elder Garnicas ears were tired after driving Elder Garbrick and
Sister Tiechert home in the truck from Greenville) These two
missionaries are already having quite the competition.

As you can tell, we are having our share of challenges and more than
our share of blessings. We love being here, we love serving the Lord
(although we know we are unprofitable) we love each other and we love
and miss all of you!

By the way! The letter writing contest was great! We received lots of
letters and I got lots of birthday cards! BUT, two of my
grandchildren didn't write, honey and papa are sad about that. They
can redeem themselves in July, the 22nd is Papas birthday and it is
awesome to get cards and letters. So ALLIE AND GARRETT
REPENT!!!!!!!!!!

Contest Winners

Tori grand prize over 15, Cami grand prize over 12, Kate grand prize
over 10 all received $15 gift cards to Coldstone
Parker grand prize over 7 plus prize for first letter received
$15 gift card to Coldstone
plus $5
Andrew, Margaret, Paige and Anna grand prize winners
all received TOY STORY coloring sets


Love to all of you, THE GOSPEL IS TRUE
HONEY AND PAPA, KATHY AND RUBEN, ELDER AND SISTER GARNICA


PS new names, just in time - LOCDOGG, CHARCIE, DAYLIAHA, ZAVIES