MISSIONARY MOMENT-OUR 3 NEPHITES X2

ELDERS AND PRIESTS HELPING WITH THE TREE

Dear President Albright,

Last Friday our son in Falls Church had a disastrous thing happen at their home. They are trying to sell their house in anticipation of a move to North Carolina. Lightning hit a gigantic Poplar tree in their neighbor's yard. Unfortunately the tree then fell into our son's yard. I cut up the tree, which took a half a day but the amount of wood, branches and leaves was overwhelming. We made plans to do the cleanup on Tuesday. Our son is less active and his wife is a non member. The missionaries, Elders Cheung and Hubbard, often come by and always mention that they would like to help them in any way that they could, so our son called and asked if they could help. They agreed to come and meet us at 7 a.m. If you will recall the heat index on Tuesday was 105. I got up at 4:30 a.m. and was in Falls Church at 6:30. I stood on our son's deck and looked at the carnage and volume of debris and thought , there is no way we are cleaning this up in one day. Our son had ruptured a disk in his back three weeks ago and was told not to lift anything heavier than 20 lbs. So there were just the four of us, two missionaries, a 71year old High Priest and a sixteen foot trailer. At 7 a.m. we started work with Elders Cheung and Hubbard. It was slow progress and then the miracle happened. Suddenly six Priests from the Falls Church Ward appeared. It was like the three Nephites X2. Elders Cheung and Hubbard had organized it all. We took three trailer loads to the dump and it was weighed each time to know how much to charge us. The total weight for three loads was 10,000 pounds. We finished four pizzas, three gallons of ice cream and 10 gallons of ice water by later that afternoon. As we looked out at the now pristine yard from our son's deck that evening, both he and his wife said, "how can we possibly repay them?" I said, that’s easy, go to Church next Sunday. We talked it over and decided to go as a group to their 9 AM meetings. My wife and I needed to go to express our appreciation as well as to make sure that our son and his wife did not lose their resolve. We had a great sacrament meeting and expressed our appreciation in the Priesthood meeting. Many of the members and Bishop Mason went out of their way to make our son's family feel at home for their first visit in at least a year. Thank you for allowing Elders Cheung and Hubbard to assist us and thank you for having such well organized and trained missionaries. By the way, one of the Priests invited a non-member friend. He rode with Elders Cheung, Hubbard and myself on one load to the dump and we were able to give him the first discussion. Among the priests was one who has been less active. He worked hard, seemed to be really well fellowshipped and I thought enjoyed himself. I feel it was a very productive day.

Regards,

Larry