Halloween in Cannonville for all the Grandkids
31 October 2010
Halloweeney, Halloweeney!!!
This is the weekend that our family has gone to Mexico for many, many years. These past 4 or 5 years we’ve chosen to go to Cannonville instead. However, we have one evening Mexico style with Mexican food, including shrimp as we had on the beach in Mexico. Of course a piñata had to be included in the festivities. From what we hear the fun is still going on this year. We’re so glad that the kids have chosen to keep this tradition alive. AND it’s been good we’ve been busy and haven’t had too much time to think about all the fun they are having without us.
Oh, by the way when in Mexico the little kids would come by your place and say “Halloweeney, Halloweeney”, or “tricky, tricky.”
Today was our Stake Conference in the Carrollton Stake. Elder Johnson of the Quorum of Seventy was our visiting General Authority. It was a great conference and we heard many wonderful talks. In the Saturday evening session the Stake choir that did the Joseph Smith, the Prophet Cantata was asked to sing. So I participated in that. I thought it went well. From my vantage point up on the stand it was wonderful to look down over the congregation and see Tim McCauley and Paul and Katey Leatham, gave a little touch of Logandale to the evening. But it’s also nice that there are many other great and wonderful people that are our friends now too. Jack helped usher for the Sunday morning session so we were there early for this morning’s session too.
Brother Moala and his wife Sally have been serving as the director of the store house for a couple of years. He was released and was called as Bishop of the Carrollton’s Young Single’s Ward. His last day was Friday – we are really going to miss them. Jack, especially became close friends with them. Brother Moala is a big Tongan man, a gentle giant, both in body and spirit. Sally always watched out for Jack, letting him know when she had fixed lunch for the volunteers and inviting him in to join them and many other kind act.
Of course someone new always brings a different personality to the calling. Jack is getting to know them already and making fast friends. One thing that we are going to have to adjust to however is the new director’s ideas of how the Storehouse and Employment Center interact. He has closed the door and locked it!
This is a hard adjustment for our managers, especially Donna Toups, who for the past ten years has worked with Bishops and people as they have come to the store house and served them in a kind and loving way. Offering them guidance and assistance with their employment needs also. Many people coming to the storehouse have VERY limited funds and it is often impossible for them to make an additional trip.
Of course they can still go outside and enter from our outside door. Interestingly enough a lot of people don’t know about the employment center. We have always tried to have job postings prepared, some of the jobs you could get quickly, not requiring highly specialized skills. Sometimes we would have these to give out to those who might be interested in the storehouse. So we’ll see how things go.
There are quite a few of the volunteers working at the storehouse who would come over and see us if they had any slack time, some of them we have helped find employment, others continue working on it. So this past Saturday was very quiet at the Center. We didn’t see our usual people. In fact, it is in question whether we will continue to stay open on Saturday.
This past week we had a couple from Arkansas, Elder & Sister Neal, spend Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday with us. They will be opening a volunteer center in the Little Rock area so they were getting some training. Elder Nelson worked with them the better part of one day on Employer Development. I spent an afternoon with them on Career Explorations and navigating the web site. They are a delightful couple and a pleasure to work with. He is a retired attorney and she is a retired nurse.
One day a lady came in wanting some help with her sister. She shared the situation with me, it seems she can be independent for a while, a year or two and then she loses her job because of various reasons and then has to start over. We set up an appointment for the next day and the sister came in. I worked with her for a couple of hours. We anticipate that she will come in a couple times a week for a few weeks while we work together on getting her ready for a positive job search.
Saturday a man came in that has been coming to the Center for a few months. He reported that he had just got a job and came in to thank everyone for their help and assistance. He rang the bell and we all cheered, so exciting!
On the other side of that we also had a Bishop call in that has just lost his job and also a Stake Employment Specialist came by to get involved with the program from a different perspective. They both signed up for the workshops and will get going on things.
Our music group, Charlie, Dwayne & Alaina Bryner and I, have been getting together once a week and playing. We are preparing for a little concert at the Morell’s home where the four of us will play in a couple of weeks. It’s always such a treat to play together. Jack is always so good about getting some reading time in while we play.
Last year we went out to the Artisan Theater and sang in their annual Messiah Sing-along. Charlie, the Bryner’s and a couple other string players, who play regularly together, are the orchestra for the event. This year they have invited me to play the recorder with them. I’m looking forward to that; it should be a lot of fun. I have taken the flute, oboe and violin parts and figured out the parts that can be played on the recorder.
Elder Dahl, the retired attorney who works at the Center on Mondays, is involved with the self-employment aspect of what is offered. Sister Wolfley was helping him but now that she has left he has been on his own so I offered to help him if he needed. We are preparing for a Self-Employment Workshop, which probably won’t be held until the first of the year. When people sign on to ldsjobs.org they can check if they are interested in job seeking, self-employment and/or education. So I sent out 78 emails to people to see if they were interested in attending a workshop. Plus added a note on their profile indicating that they had been contacted.
We traded our P-day this week to Friday. It worked out well because when Jack checked with the MacPhearsons if they could switch the day they came in, they actually needed to trade from Thursday to Friday too. We went out to Canton for the ‘1st Monday Trade Days.’ I have been told that this event started back many years ago when people were actually trading and bartering goods. It always took place on the first Monday. However, now it has been changed to be the Friday, Saturday and Sunday before the first Monday. This was a good month for us to go, because in the summer it would just be too hot and most months the Friday before the first Monday is the also the first Friday of the month, which interferes with our Career Workshops.
We went out with Charlie and Carla and had a very enjoyable day. It is the largest swap meet you could imagine. One of those Texas things that you have to experience. We found a Texas star to put on our house in Logandale when we return and a few other little things.
That evening we were pretty tired but we Jack & I went over to the Carrollton cemetery to ‘Encounters of the Past.’ They had people dressed up in costume representing folks long past gone. They told a brief story of their lives. A fun interesting way to learn some history of some of the area, such as the first school teacher, the first mayor etc.
Well we hope you’ve all had a good week. We miss you and love you so much. Thanks for your love and support, we couldn’t do it without it. We know your prayers help sustain us.
Our love,
Dad & Mom, Grandpa & Grandma, Jack & Gaye
Elder & Sister Nelson
Halloweeney, Halloweeney!!!
This is the weekend that our family has gone to Mexico for many, many years. These past 4 or 5 years we’ve chosen to go to Cannonville instead. However, we have one evening Mexico style with Mexican food, including shrimp as we had on the beach in Mexico. Of course a piñata had to be included in the festivities. From what we hear the fun is still going on this year. We’re so glad that the kids have chosen to keep this tradition alive. AND it’s been good we’ve been busy and haven’t had too much time to think about all the fun they are having without us.
Oh, by the way when in Mexico the little kids would come by your place and say “Halloweeney, Halloweeney”, or “tricky, tricky.”
Today was our Stake Conference in the Carrollton Stake. Elder Johnson of the Quorum of Seventy was our visiting General Authority. It was a great conference and we heard many wonderful talks. In the Saturday evening session the Stake choir that did the Joseph Smith, the Prophet Cantata was asked to sing. So I participated in that. I thought it went well. From my vantage point up on the stand it was wonderful to look down over the congregation and see Tim McCauley and Paul and Katey Leatham, gave a little touch of Logandale to the evening. But it’s also nice that there are many other great and wonderful people that are our friends now too. Jack helped usher for the Sunday morning session so we were there early for this morning’s session too.
Brother Moala and his wife Sally have been serving as the director of the store house for a couple of years. He was released and was called as Bishop of the Carrollton’s Young Single’s Ward. His last day was Friday – we are really going to miss them. Jack, especially became close friends with them. Brother Moala is a big Tongan man, a gentle giant, both in body and spirit. Sally always watched out for Jack, letting him know when she had fixed lunch for the volunteers and inviting him in to join them and many other kind act.
Of course someone new always brings a different personality to the calling. Jack is getting to know them already and making fast friends. One thing that we are going to have to adjust to however is the new director’s ideas of how the Storehouse and Employment Center interact. He has closed the door and locked it!
This is a hard adjustment for our managers, especially Donna Toups, who for the past ten years has worked with Bishops and people as they have come to the store house and served them in a kind and loving way. Offering them guidance and assistance with their employment needs also. Many people coming to the storehouse have VERY limited funds and it is often impossible for them to make an additional trip.
Of course they can still go outside and enter from our outside door. Interestingly enough a lot of people don’t know about the employment center. We have always tried to have job postings prepared, some of the jobs you could get quickly, not requiring highly specialized skills. Sometimes we would have these to give out to those who might be interested in the storehouse. So we’ll see how things go.
There are quite a few of the volunteers working at the storehouse who would come over and see us if they had any slack time, some of them we have helped find employment, others continue working on it. So this past Saturday was very quiet at the Center. We didn’t see our usual people. In fact, it is in question whether we will continue to stay open on Saturday.
This past week we had a couple from Arkansas, Elder & Sister Neal, spend Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday with us. They will be opening a volunteer center in the Little Rock area so they were getting some training. Elder Nelson worked with them the better part of one day on Employer Development. I spent an afternoon with them on Career Explorations and navigating the web site. They are a delightful couple and a pleasure to work with. He is a retired attorney and she is a retired nurse.
One day a lady came in wanting some help with her sister. She shared the situation with me, it seems she can be independent for a while, a year or two and then she loses her job because of various reasons and then has to start over. We set up an appointment for the next day and the sister came in. I worked with her for a couple of hours. We anticipate that she will come in a couple times a week for a few weeks while we work together on getting her ready for a positive job search.
Saturday a man came in that has been coming to the Center for a few months. He reported that he had just got a job and came in to thank everyone for their help and assistance. He rang the bell and we all cheered, so exciting!
On the other side of that we also had a Bishop call in that has just lost his job and also a Stake Employment Specialist came by to get involved with the program from a different perspective. They both signed up for the workshops and will get going on things.
Our music group, Charlie, Dwayne & Alaina Bryner and I, have been getting together once a week and playing. We are preparing for a little concert at the Morell’s home where the four of us will play in a couple of weeks. It’s always such a treat to play together. Jack is always so good about getting some reading time in while we play.
Last year we went out to the Artisan Theater and sang in their annual Messiah Sing-along. Charlie, the Bryner’s and a couple other string players, who play regularly together, are the orchestra for the event. This year they have invited me to play the recorder with them. I’m looking forward to that; it should be a lot of fun. I have taken the flute, oboe and violin parts and figured out the parts that can be played on the recorder.
Elder Dahl, the retired attorney who works at the Center on Mondays, is involved with the self-employment aspect of what is offered. Sister Wolfley was helping him but now that she has left he has been on his own so I offered to help him if he needed. We are preparing for a Self-Employment Workshop, which probably won’t be held until the first of the year. When people sign on to ldsjobs.org they can check if they are interested in job seeking, self-employment and/or education. So I sent out 78 emails to people to see if they were interested in attending a workshop. Plus added a note on their profile indicating that they had been contacted.
We traded our P-day this week to Friday. It worked out well because when Jack checked with the MacPhearsons if they could switch the day they came in, they actually needed to trade from Thursday to Friday too. We went out to Canton for the ‘1st Monday Trade Days.’ I have been told that this event started back many years ago when people were actually trading and bartering goods. It always took place on the first Monday. However, now it has been changed to be the Friday, Saturday and Sunday before the first Monday. This was a good month for us to go, because in the summer it would just be too hot and most months the Friday before the first Monday is the also the first Friday of the month, which interferes with our Career Workshops.
We went out with Charlie and Carla and had a very enjoyable day. It is the largest swap meet you could imagine. One of those Texas things that you have to experience. We found a Texas star to put on our house in Logandale when we return and a few other little things.
That evening we were pretty tired but we Jack & I went over to the Carrollton cemetery to ‘Encounters of the Past.’ They had people dressed up in costume representing folks long past gone. They told a brief story of their lives. A fun interesting way to learn some history of some of the area, such as the first school teacher, the first mayor etc.
Well we hope you’ve all had a good week. We miss you and love you so much. Thanks for your love and support, we couldn’t do it without it. We know your prayers help sustain us.
Our love,
Dad & Mom, Grandpa & Grandma, Jack & Gaye
Elder & Sister Nelson
Encounter from the Past, the Dallas Lawman
The Scarlet Fever that took so many
An Early School Teacher in Dallas
A young life cut short by the Fever
Jack n Gaye
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