The Hazard of Social Life

This week Elder Whitehead has been "full of a cold" as the English would say.  He shared it with me as well.  We are in contact with so many people, and many of them sick, that it is inevitable that we would get sick as well.  We hope to be over our colds soon.  We have had a lot of cancelled appointments lately due to illness.  This too shall pass.
We are grateful for small changes.  Our primary class is getting better and we are starting to be able to use the scriptures with them more and they are beginning to ask good questions.  We challenged

Winter walk-notice bare trees, but green grass.

Watching the birds on the Manchester ship  canal.

them recently to sit through Sacrament meeting without using their tablets or phones and they are trying to do it.  We have had an unusual opportunity to visit a sister in a mental hospital.  She is some distance from her home, so she doesn't get a lot of visitors.  We were asked by the bishop to visit her.  The hospital granted us permission to visit her, but we are not allowed to talk about the church.  That is a challenge. We have tried to share some poems with her and other literature.  We brought her some quotes by George Eliot last time.  One of my favorites was this one:

"The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but the sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone."
George Eliot

Monday, we spent a quiet preparation day, but we did go for a walk, and on a few errands.  We were able to have four Gospel conversations with people.  It was nice.  We always feel better when we have tried to share the Gospel with someone.  Last week a woman we have been visiting for quite a while passed away suddenly.  She had multiple health problems, but she thought she was getting better.  We will attend her funeral tomorrow.  We needed to visit the hospital today so Elder Whitehead could give a sick baby a blessing.  The grandmother of the baby had requested it.  It was hard to find another priesthood holder to go with him.  Finally, one of the men he had called, called back and said he could go.  We found out, when we picked him up, that he was the grandmother's home teacher and he hadn't been able to get into see her.  She is less active right now.   He was the perfect choice to assist with the blessing.  It is easy to see the hand of the Lord in that experience today.  I hope that each of you are seeing the hand of the Lord in your life.