2. The Elders at Zone Conference Elder Moorecroft is the one making the face.
3. Port Alfred Elders on top of the Hill in the Township
4. All the Elders & Elder & Sister Lapray at Dinner at the O'Dell's
5. Elders having fun in our Kitchen before Dinner
6. Elder O'Dell Baptizing our newest member last Saturday.
December 15, 2010
Dear Family, Friends & Loved Ones,
It is now Saturday December 12 and almost time for Christmas. We know that all of you are busy getting ready for this wonderful holiday. It is the hardest time of our mission, to be away from home and our families at this time of the year. Especially since we have such wonderful families. Please know that we love you and are so proud of each of you!
Well we met for the 1st time in our new chapel on Sunday November 2nd. It is not finished BUT it is really nice & big. I know that all of our members are so thankful for it and that it is so nice compared to what they have had in the past. It is still a long way from being completed but it is still really nice. It will probably (hopefully) be completed sometime in January as we will be working with a new budget for the year. I have gone down many morning at 5:30 & 6 am to try and get things more organized etc so we can function better. Getting into a new and bigger and nicer facility is one of my many goals that I want to accomplish while Sister O I are serving here in Port Alfred SA.
Sister O and I have had several opportunities to go on teaching appointments we both really enjoy this. It is such a great experience. Sister O and I had the opportunity to visit a lady and her family who are members in Grahamstown. Her husband is not a member but seems like such a great person. We met her at the youth camp that we attened several months ago at Hogsback. It was about 11/2 hours drive from Port Alford. We picked up our 2 Zone leaders in Grahamstown as they wanted to go there and visit them also. They have some game animals on their ranch but we didn't drive around to see their ranch. Maybe next time. We visited for several hours and had a very nice lunch with them. The Zone Leaders were Elder Moorecroft from Jo Burg & Elder Oleole from Hawaii. The La Prays want to visit them so maybe we will visit them again.
On Monday after Thanksgiving we got together with 7 couples in the Grahamstown chapel. It was so nice and fun to be with 6 other senior couples. Not only to enjoy there company but to enjoy our traditional American Thanksgiving dinner. I guess it seems funny or odd that you miss things like that when you have had it a part of your life for so many years, and at 73 that is quite a few years.
The Zone leaders usually stay at the Elders flat with them but since there are already 4 Elders in this flat there wasn't room. So the Zone leaders stayed with us for 2 nights along with the La Prays for one night, so we had a house full. Elder La Pray & I took them golfing on a Friday afternoon. We walked and the wives drove a cart around. Elder Moorecroft is getting good but Elder Oleole must have lost about 15 golf balls and most were on his drive from the tee box. Sister O & I got to go on missionary splits with them. We were with Elder Labala & Oleole it was great and we loved it.
We had a baptism a few weeks ago of an 8 year old. She was baptized by her father Patrick Nteyi. The girls name is Meihle Nteyi. It is so great to be able to have the father baptize his own children. It is such a blessing to have the Priesthood in your home and be able to do this, He was not able to confirm her and bestow the Gift of the Holy Ghost but I'm sure he will in time.
Monday is normally our P-Day but we didn't have it because of a change in our schedule, we went to East London for a quarterly zone conference. We were there for 3 days. Zone conference was Tuesday and we had a Christmas P-Day on Wednesday with 3 Zones. We had Elder Watson of the 70 with us for our Zone Conference on Tuesday. He is a counselor in our area presidency. What a wonderful man he is. We have been so blessed by being given the opportunity to personally meet so many general authorities. Elder Watson is so down to earth to visit with and was so personable with each of us. We had 4 senior couples that had dinner with Elder & Sister Watson & Pres. & Sister Probst. Elder Watson was the personal secretary for the last 3 prophets and first presidency. As I said, what a great man and interesting person to be able to talk and visit with. What a great experience for both Sister O and myself. Sister Watson heard that I liked fireballs and she gave me a handful. She was such a fun lady to sit by and talk with. Her son Tyler Watson is a very good friend with Mark Larson and she said both Mark and Tyler said for her to give Sister O a BIG hug! And she did. She and Sister O had a great time talking at dinner.
On Wednesday we had a 3 Zone P-Day There were 60 Elders. The part I got to attend was great. They showed a movie called "Gifted Hands" (it was a true story). I didn't get to see much. They had a talent show form the Elders but I didn't get to see much of this either. They also showed a video of all the pictures taken this last year in the mission. I didn't get to see this either. We will get a copy of this and I can see it later. I was out most of the time with Elder Jones getting the food for the lunch Pizza and the orange bowl from Mc Donald's, they furnish a large cooler of orange drink with ice and 100 cups for free. They do this for large groups and church groups. It is really a good orange drink. Then I had to pick up 30 large pizzas at Romans. This took a while as it is quite a distance away. Then we all sang a number of Christmas carols as Pres. Probst read a Christmas story about the life of Christ. The singing of the carols was very beautiful as we have some very talented singers in the elders. We started the P-Day at 9:30am and it lasted until 3:30pm. We got home about 6pm.
On Saturday I spent most of the day at our new church as I had the 4 Elders there and we hung the new blinds on all the windows. There is eleven windows. We also hung a new beautiful outside sign on the church. We also hung a lot of pictures etc. on the inside. The new blinds really add a lot of beauty to our new chapel and adds so much. We will be so excited when it is all completed.
Well it is time to close again. Please know how much we love and miss all of you and how proud we are of our families. I don't know why we have been so blessed, but we have and give thanks to each of you. We will really miss you at this special time of year. Families are always special but even more so at Christmas season.
We Love you and all our friends!
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL !!
LOVE ELDER & SISTER O'DELL
MOM & DAD, LINDA & WOODY
GRANDMA & GRANDPA
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