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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