March 12, 2017

   Tonight I am truly feeling the love of my Heavenly Father as I reflect on the blessings of this past week.  We took a sweet sister who is from Korea to the monthly service project at the church where we make blankets for the homeless, and enjoyed visiting the other sisters there.  We love visiting the sisters who live in the senior living center where we are getting to know them better with each visit.
          It is so nice to have the temple open again after being closed for maintenance.  So we made the most of it, taking a sister with us, who does not drive the "beltway", and it was a great opportunity to visit with her.  But it was in the temple waiting for the session to begin that I truly felt the love of my Father in Heaven, as I was finally able to put together my thoughts for the talk I was to give on Sunday.  We were asked a couple of weeks ago, but I never felt what I should say until sitting there in the temple.  What a beautiful feeling and spirit - the peace and comfort, I am so grateful!
          We had a number of wonderful visits this week, as well - so amazing to see how we are led to certain people or are able to locate them when their address doesn't match with where the GPS takes us!  Some of the sisters have been ill, or are caring for husbands who have had surgery.

Bro.& Sis. Candland

This is Brother Candland who just had hip surgery a week ago and his wife, Sister Candland, in their beautiful home right on the Potomac River.  We found them in Nanjemoy - a story all by itself.  They were so fascinating to visit with and see their many antiques!  It was amazing just finding them, as Nanjemoy is 35 miles south of where we live!  They are wonderful, dedicated members of the church - so great to meet them!   They are almost 80 years old and have raised a family of 10 children!    This is their view out to the Potomac River and they want us to come back when the flowers are all in bloom - we hope to.            

The Candland's home on the Potomac

We saw some other very interesting sites in Nanjemoy - one we'll just call the "cat house", we missed seeing the sister who lives here, but saw plenty of her 50 or more cats around her place.

Lover of cats

Another interesting thing to see are all the churches of many different religions, and all of the old churches have a cemetery right next to them.  We saw these sites every few miles on our journey to Nanjemoy!

Churches with cemetaries next to them

                                                                     
We met a sister for lunch one day, as her husband doesn't like her to have anything to do with the church - how difficult that must be for her!  Some of the sisters we visit are in very active homes, and quite a few are part-member families, who we try to encourage to strengthen their relationship with the Savior through prayer, scripture study, and keeping the spirit in their homes the best they can.  It is such a challenge for so many of these sisters!
          So today was such a relief!  To get our talks over in both of the wards - yay!  I don't know why that is such a worry for me, but the Lord truly blessed us both.  And then we had a dinner invitation as well - the family whose mother lives with them and she is not a member.  We had a great visit with her and feel the friendship we are developing could lead to more serious discussions about religion.

Sotterley Plantation

         For our P-day we visited the Sotterley Plantation about 35 miles south of us, on the Patuxent River - one of the early plantations in America, begun in 1699, and has existed in some form or other for over 300 years.  At one time it was 7000 acres, and was one of the first plantations to import slaves from Africa.  Now they only have 100 acres but with some of the old buildings, expanded and updated over the years, as well as an original slave house.  There was a special inside tour of the plantation house this weekend, so we made the most of it!

Dining room in Plantation House

Slave house from the 1700's

Along the Patuxent River

It has been another beautiful and special week here in Southern Maryland.  In spite of the trees in bloom, we are expecting a snowstorm this week and frigid temperatures!  So I'll let you know!  Meanwhile, "Keep the Faith!" (what we had to talk about in Sacrament meeting)     Love and miss you all!