Memphis and a New Year!

This blog issue will focus on our service from mid-December through the holidays to mid-January.

Happy 2023 to all!

So much has happened in the last month; we can rapidly see our blog becoming a sort of journal that we can reflect on later.  Please bear with us as we document our experiences. 

Our First Zone Conference

On December 20th, we had the opportunity to participate in our regional Zone Conference of the Arkansas Little Rock Mission.  Our zone of the mission represents 112 junior missionaries and additional senior missionary couples. President and Sister Cahoon (our mission leaders) and other senior missionary couples working in the office traveled here to the Memphis area to meet with us.  We met in Bartlett TN (at the Stake Center building on the Memphis Temple grounds).  The theme of this special Christmas Zone Conference was "Gifts of the Spirit".  We heard powerful talks based on scripture from these young missionaries Doctrine and Covenants Section 46 and Elder Marvin J. Ashton's talk "There Are Many Gifts". The music demonstrated amazing vocal and instrumental talent, and even included the beauty of ASL by a Sister Missionary during a vocal solo.  The Mission Office missionaries went all out in preparing a traditional ham Christmas Dinner for the group and then ham sandwiches to go for all of those traveling back to their areas.  We were blessed to meet with Mission leaders and other Senior Missionaries at a local BBQ restaurant the night before Zone conference, then help with the meal prep and clean up.

A Mission Christmas

We were really looking forward to Christmas Day and attending church, but received notification as we were walking out the door on Christmas morning that the pipes in our ward building had frozen and broken and there was so much water damage that church was cancelled!  The cold streak had temperatures around zero for 2-3 days....unusual for Christmas in Memphis.  We have since found out that the building has sustained significant damage which will require the entire gym floor and all the carpet to be replaced, as well as some of the sheetrock in the walls. 

We were blessed to not lose power on Christmas; we hosted another senior missionary couple from Nampa, Idaho over to our apartment for Christmas Dinner. Our children and their families gathered at our home in Gearhart.  They put up a tree there and got out Christmas linens and went on with our traditional Christmas dinner together in our absence.  We love that they did that! And are so grateful for computers with cameras and the chance to see them all.  

Water Shortage Leads to More Service Opportunities

The extreme cold taxed the electrical grid and required rolling blackouts in the Memphis area, as well as caused water mains and household plumbing to freeze and break.  The entire city of Memphis and some peripheral areas were without any water or under boil water orders for the better part of the week between Christmas and New Year's.  The need was so great that pallets of cases of water were distributed to locations where people could access them; one of those locations was the NAACP office in Memphis where MyBaby4Me is held.  We were able to help serve many, many people by unpacking pallets and cases of water and distributing them to a continual line of cars from the sidewalk in front of the NAACP building. It was quite the scene, with news cameras rolling and many volunteers participating.  https://wreg.com/news/local/naacp-gives-water-to-memphians-during-boil-order/

People were so grateful to have clean water to drink and use to prepare food to eat. In a "loaves and fishes" miracle, later in the week the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sent a semi-truck load of 18 pallets of water. About 20 young missionaries and other volunteers from the NAACP helped to unload those pallets and stack/distribute them. For those of you that wondered, there are over 2,000 bottles of water in one pallet!  In the blessing we received from our Stake President to set us apart for our mission, we were promised we would have the strength necessary to accomplish our work.  We relied on that promise with each case of water that we lifted! 

As we handed out water, our minds were directed to the scripture in John where the Savior visits with the woman at the well. He said to her "Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again; but whosoever drinketh of the water I shall give him shall never thirst. But the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up unto everlasting life.  And the woman answers, desiring but not understanding completely, "Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not...."(John 4:13-15).  Would that we all have the desire to drink of the Living Water He offers so freely to us. 

Lakeland/Arlington Building Damaged....Lakeland Ward Joins Memphis First Ward

With our ward building needing significant repairs, decisions were made to have our ward meet with the Memphis 1st Ward while assessment of the damage occurs and repairs are made.  We have attended the Memphis 1st Ward a couple of times and helped with the Ward Christmas party.  They are a small and very diverse congregation.  What a great experience it has been to see two Bishops be united and share their strong feelings that each of their wards have things to gain in this shared arrangement and to see the leadership of the auxiliaries in both wards working together.  

MLK Day of Service on January 14th, 2023 

The NAACP (along with some of our project partners) participated in a baby diaper and wipe drive leading up to the MLK holiday weekend.  In a miracle similar to what happened with the water, MyBaby4Me benefitted from donations which we distributed on a Saturday to families who came to the NAACP office. We had hundreds of cases of diapers! We had the chance to explain MyBaby4Me to each recipient and encourage their participation in classes with us.  We have already had some success in using the phone numbers and email addresses we gathered to be able to reach more women, children and families.  

We are grateful for your love, support and prayers.  We have repeatedly received spiritual promptings assuring us that we are where we should be. 

Lynn and Joell Archibald, Coordinators of MyBaby4Me

Arkansas Little Rock Mission

8929 Bristol Park Circle, Apt 102

Bartlett, TN 38133