Tuesday, February 12, 2013

On The Road Again....

Sorry it has been so long..but we have been into some back country of the South and very busy and tired!  I have kept a long in Word since I didn't have an Internet connection.  So here is several days experiences...



10 February 2013
 
OK…Well, We have been on the road since early Thursday morning.  We have driven a lot of miles.  The first day was so beautiful.  The sky was blue and easy was the way.  We went through Price Utah.  The mountains were red as can be.  We stayed the first night in Farmington, NM.  The next night we stayed in Amarillo, TX.  It was neat to come into Texas, my home state.  Yesterday we drove to Shawnee, OK.  It was a short day because we were weary.  We try and stop about every two hours and walk around a bit and get some fresh water.  By the time we stop we are tired.  Yesterday it was raining and very windy.   We spent hours looking for motels down the road.  It is tedious indeed.  We have changed our path several times.  My cousin Shirley Joiner in Nacogdoches, Texas,  on my Godsey family line, sent some information about some neat places to stop in North Carolina and Virginia.  Apparently they are putting up some new headstones in c cemetery in North Carolina for some early Godseys.  And there in Virginia on Gwynn’s Island is where to Godseys were in the early 1600s.  Wow…to see where this family lived will be such a blessing.  The family line was blocked for so many years to me until I discovered the Grandmother’s real name of Arrissa.  These people are so nice.  I am so blessed to meet them.  Shirley says she has lots of information for me.
Chad’s family has been really sick with the flu these past couple of weeks.  Makayah is still sick.  Bless her little heart.  It has been such turmoil for them moving and having a sick family.  Our prayers are so with them. Jaden is picking up some.  I am proud of him.  He has had a major change in his life.  We called down the angels to support him and help him.  I love that boy so much!  Cambreea has been really sick also.  I hope they all get better soon.

Our three days in SLC at the Church Office Bldg. was amazing. We learned so much.  We got to see every step that these images that we will be taking go through to be on the computer to be searched.  It is amazing what the Church does to make these images the best possible.  But it doesn’t surprise me because it is the work of the Lord.  We got trained personally by the people in charge of this department.  They were so kind.  We trained in the software and the hardware of the camera.  We learned how to be very, very careful of the focus and pixels.  They scan every image that comes in, and they will return images for re-take.  The Spirit was very strong there.  They let us leave a day early because of a storm coming in on Friday.  We were certainly blessed by leaving that day earlier…the road has been made clear for us.  It is so testimony building.  We are excited to get to our mission field.


We haven’t been able to study the scriptures like we did last week and we miss that.  But we read the Book of Mormon each day.  When we are in the middle of nowhere, we have been listening to Gone with the Wind.  It is 49 hour book and we are about a third through it.  It is a good listen.

This morning at breakfast we got asked about our name tags.  I explained.  The gentleman ask if there was a church there in Shawnee.  I didn’t know but went to our room to check it out…nothing of the Church in Shawnee, OK.  I thought I had some pass-a-long cards, but couldn’t find them in the car…I know I brought some.  So I got a Book of Mormon out to give him.  He saw the book and said…”oh Mormons”.  I bore my testimony of Jesus Christ and his ministry among the Nephites.  He said he would read it.  He was real nice.  Now I don’t know what will become of that,  but I felt impressed to leave the Book of Mormon with him.  I wasn’t that hard of a thing to do.  I pray that the man will read at least part of it.
 

11 February 2013

We saw my sister yesterday.  It was a cool reception, but so nice to talk to her.  She doesn’t look very healthy and I worry about her.  She is just there so by herself.  She is so lonely.  She is always in my prayers.   We then drove on down to Maypearl, Texas to see my cousin Dave Hughes and his wife.  We called and told them that we would check into our hotel and then drive out to see them, but Dave was so offended at us not staying with them!  So we cancelled the hotel and accepted their hospitality.  They have a very beautiful home and made us feel so welcomed.  It was a nice visit.  We talked of family history and exchanged information.  Dave made us a wonderful breakfast and we sat and talked.  We left with a thought from the Bible…Malachi 3:4-5 about Elijah.  We then ask them if they would like a Book of Mormon, and they said they would!  So we chatted a little bit about it and bore our testimony.  I felt the Spirit there.  So we have placed 3 Books of Mormon so far…yeah!
We are now on our way to Nacogdoches Texas to see my cousin Shirley Joiner about the Godseys.  As we are driving through here, I see all these familiar town names that are in my family history!  It is so amazing to see where they walked and lived.  I am in awe.


We come in and out of phone service around our travels here in Texas.  There is just so much open space.

Our ward at home got a new Bishop yesterday.  It is Michael Dunbar, Brent Boyle, and Bro. Rhodes.  That should be a good thing.

12 February 2013

We had a most interesting day yesterday!  We got to Nacogdoches to meet my cousin Shirley Godsey Joiner.  She is such a really wonderful person.  Her husband is in the early stages of Altimzers.   They were just real fine people.  They took us to lunch and then we talked about family history.  It was raining so we didn’t go out to any cemeteries.   She has boxes and boxes and notebooks full of genealogy.  Her father was Raymond Godsey and his father was a brother to my great grandfather Samuel Godsey.  Raymond never knew much about his father as he rode away on a horse when he was real young.  He was an only child.  He ask his daughter, Shirley, to search and find out all she could of the Godsey family.  She took his request very seriously, and has searched all her life on the Godsey family.  She is even the leader of a DNA project on the Godseys.  They seem to have come from northern Germany where the Vikings were.  She had some old cards that my grandmother’s sister had written.  That really ties Henry Lee Godsey into my Samuel Godsey’s family.  She is going to make copies of this big notebook on the Godsey’s for me.  We were then invited to go out to her great granddaughter’s 15th birthday party in the evening.  I tell you..we went now into the hicks to this party.  It was a family party with maybe 4 generations together.  It was down some old muddy roads…in the hicks.  They were Creig’s first meeting of some real East Texas hillbillies!  And hillbillies they were. There was this little old lady that came over to meet us and I put my hand out to shake her hand and she said flatly…”Honey, the Lord didn’t give me hands to shake but arms to hug”  and she gave me a big hug, and Creig too.  They all hugged.  Any family that is anyone’s family is their family!.  The teenagers and kids were all so very polite, they said “yes, Mam and no Mam” to all adults.  They were especially polite to their grandparents and great grandparents.  It was so much like home for me!  It was just delightful!  We got back to our motel about 9 p.m.  We were so tired!

We have just passed into Louisiana.  It is raining real hard.  We heard on the TV this morning that Amarillo is having a snow storm.  I tell you…the Lord has really paved the way for our travel!  It is such a testimony builder.  All ya’ll that read this know that the Lord is with us and we are safe. He is answering your prayers…please keep praying for us.
Oh, I wanted to comment on some pictures I saw of the Godseys.  They had really dark auburn hair.  


Oh, I wanted to comment on some pictures I saw of the Godseys.  They had really dark auburn hair.  They had the look of my father, and my Aunt Kathryn and my sister and my sister’s boy Matthew.  It is totally amazing.  Shirley looks a lot like my Aunt Kathryn and my sister.  It is just such a wonderful blessings to be able to meet these nice people…my kinfolk.
Well, we are in a real down pouring of rain!  I will type more later.

We passed into Mississippi during a down pour!  And crossed the Mississippi River!
We made it into Meridian, Mississippi about an hour ago.  We went to the motel we had reservations for and it was a dump.  We were tired of the dumpy motels of the past few days, so we went across the street to the Hilton Gardens and splurged!  Oh My, what luxury!

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