Sunday, August 25, 2024

Sunday, August 25, 2024

• Zaria Fontellio blistering message about Noah
• Speakers didn't show up
• Branch Council - An event
• Diann Davey came to dinner at our house
• Diann's miracle of reading the Book of Mormon 
• Lack of faith

I woke up this morning to a message from Zaria Fontellio. She had wrote it at around 3:00 a.m. and according to the message had been up move to the night. She was very angry about how her daughters were treated by Noah at the FSY program. She sent out a long message to me, to Tina, to the FSY group and to the Relief Society group on WhatsApp. She was very angry at Noah and expressed that anger to all those groups. I was very disappointed as Noah had told me about how going to the FSY program had touched him. I wish I would have thought about it earlier, but I realize I needed to delete the messages as they were. I'm sure written in haste and obviously not in good taste. I called everyone who had access as admins to all the groups that zaria sent them out to and asked them to delete them. Wish they did. Unfortunately, several people had already read them.

Another great start to a Sunday. 

We were also having problems finding out who was supposed to speak today. Yohan had asked some people but I couldn't remember who they were. One was Elder Minor but he and his companion Elder Sandberg have got the flu. Another one that was supposed to speak did not show up. I think that was Sister Martha. Plus when we got to the church we had a water leak and there was water all over the kitchen. Anyway, we got that cleaned up. Yohan had asked a couple of other people to speak off the cuff and so we had our second meeting organized again. We had a visiting couple there today. I got to speak with them for a minute but that was about it with so much going on this morning. 

Sacrament meeting turned out to be very good. Tasha Jn Paul was asked to speak and she spoke happiness. 

Following her. Diann Davey spoke and talked a lot about being a mother and respecting motherhood. Diann is getting ready to go to England to go to the temple. She may not come back as her children who live in Jamaica want her to move back there.

Our last speaker was Mírla Santos she spoke about the sadness. She felt when her mother passed away and talked about mothers also. Which I thought was interesting because she was the only one that knew she was supposed to speak today and her and Diann spoke on the same thing. 

Odella did not show up to teach the temple class again today and so I did it. We did a little review and talked a little bit about the things that go on in the temple. It was supposed to be less than three but we only got through the very first part of it. I don't know what happened to Odella.

After church we had a branch Council and talked about the buses and I won't go into much detail but it went on too long. We talked about the literacy class but we don't get much feedback from anyone so we didn't resolve too much. And finally talked about planning a party for President Nelson's 100th birthday in 2 weeks. There were a few that got a little excited about that. 

Following the branch Council, we took sister Santos home along with Caren Kennedy. We brought Diann Davey home with us to have dinner with us. We enjoyed having her over and had a good visit. 

Diann shared a bit of her conversion to us. It was very interesting. I wish I could have recorded it. But in general she told how she was living alone. Kind of on the streets I guess. She also told us that she had never learned to read or write and at this time I think she was around 16. I can't remember the details of running into the missionaries but she said they were walking down the road and they looked at her and she happened to turn and look at them at the same time and it was like they connected. They said they had a message and would like to share it with her. She invited them to her house and they taught her about the Book of Mormon. They asked her to pray and again I can't remember exactly what happened but she told them she did not know how and so I guess they taught her and told her to thank Heavenly Father for everything they were thankful for and to ask what she desired most. At first she didn't want to do that but eventually she did and she wanted to know about the Book of Mormon. She prayed for understanding to be able to read it. When they ask her to read in Moroni 10:3 looked at it and started reading and could read every word. When the missionaries came back she had read the word ponder and didn't know what it meant. Anyway, there was a lot more detail but the missionaries taught her and she eventually accepted baptism and to this day she loves reading The Book of Mormon.

After a while we took her home and as we were driving home the gas gauge was completely empty and said we had 0 mi left to drive. I asked Tina if she had enough Faith to get us home as we had quite a ways to go. She didn't and I didn't so we stopped and got gas. I felt a little bad about my lack of faith and having to buy something on the Sabbath. I'm trying.