May 2023

 "How Much Is An Old Pair of Shoes Worth?"

There is a saying here in the South....."It's been a minute".  The time frame can be anywhere from a literal minute, hours, months or years. So, we say "It's been a minute" because we are late in writing this blog and capturing all that has happened since the 3rd week of April.  We are overwhelmed with both the blessings that have become evident in our work and the challenges that we (and our women) are facing in their lives.
Reporting on the progress of MyBaby4Me...Soles and Souls  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints has invested in countless humanitarian service projects around the world, and there is a well-defined process of reporting and accountability for those investments.  In a recent meeting, the MyBaby4Me project report was shared with Elder Dale Renlund, one of the Twelve Apostles of our church leadership.  Elder Renlund summarized the meeting for all present by asking them what they would pay for an old pair of shoes? Then he recounted several occasions where athletes who had accomplished great things sold their worn shoes....and the price that those shoes sold for.  In multiple cases, millions of dollars.  And then he said to the group of leaders "And what is Char's baby worth?" In the Doctrine and Covenants 18:10 we read:   "Remember, the worth of souls is great in the sight of God." We have come to love and see the worth of each woman who joins MyBaby4Me.  One of our first women, Char, delivered a term, healthy baby boy on May 5th. We feel blessed to be supporting her and celebrate with her.  She was able to take her baby home with a full layette donated by members of the church in our Layettes with Love project. She is settled into an apartment with her partner with basic furniture and kitchen items. She is in a stable relationship with someone who (though not the biological father of this baby) has stepped up to support her and her baby. She has a FT job offer beginning at the end of July as a classroom assistant in the public school system; her baby will be able to be near her at an on-site child care center for school employees.
An Example of Striving For many of our women, it is easy to lose hope and feel like life is just too hard in the face of so many challenges.  We pray every day that we may be able to serve in a way that allows all we interact with to feel love and light and hope....to serve as our Savior Jesus Christ did when on the earth.   If ever there was someone who could be discouraged, it would be Rokeisha (with the colored shirt on in this picture).  She has been homeless for over a year.  She had pregnancy complications and couldn't work, thereby losing both her job and her housing and becoming homeless with her 11 year old son.  She put her household goods in storage so she would have the essentials for a future home, then had trouble keeping up the storage unit payments. Her storage unit was broken into and about half of her possessions were stolen, but the information she needed to file an insurance claim to replace them was also inaccessible in the storage unit because she couldn't pay the bill to access the information.   Then she delivered a baby girl who had complications and was hospitalized for over 3 months.  She returned to work at a child care center, but with only PT hours, she could not afford even the discounted rate that the child care center offered her to have her daughter there.  She and her baby and son were moving from shelters to cheap motels and sometimes sleeping in her car when we met them... it was winter and freezing here in Memphis. She pulled her son out of school to care for her baby so she would be able to work a 30 hour week.  And in all of that, she has been optimistic and had her sights set on the goal of getting housing again for her family.  This woman would work a day caring for other children, then do Door Dash deliveries with her own two children in the car to make additional money (see car). We helped support Rokeisha moving into an apartment this month...delivering to her some laundry baskets filled with new towels, soap, shampoo, toilet paper, a shower curtain, cleaning supplies, dishes, silverware, sheets, etc.  We met her at her storage unit to make the final payment before her belongings were scheduled to be sold at auction. We are working with her to find a job that will give her FT hours, which will qualify her for Child Care Assistance here in TN.  And we have identified a program that her son can attend over the summer to make up for missing the last half of the school year. We have shared hugs and tears of joy with Rokeisha and her gratitude and resilience.
Do You Know How Much Diapers Cost? We saw the need for diapers for our families early in this project with the joy they expressed when we distributed diapers and wipes from the Memphis-area MLK Day of Service Diaper Drive event.  Diapers run about $840/year for a baby, and many of our MyBaby4Me families have more than one child in diapers.  With little or no income, there is no way to buy diapers.   We have worked with the Bishop's Storehouse operations of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to find a way to meet the never-ending need for diapers. The third week of May, an entire pallet of assorted-sized diapers arrived at the NAACP offices!  We hope to continue to be able to find a way to meet this need.
Miracles Everywhere.....  We are keeping a running list of things we recognize as miracles that have happened in our work.  One small recent event was an Uber driver that came to pick up one of our families following our class and return them home.  The driver saw the MyBaby4Me Class signs in front of the building and wanted to know more.  Then that driver said, "I have a daughter with brand new twin babies.  This would be great for her!  I will tell her and get her here"!  We know that wasn't just a coincidence.   We have so many more examples....we get emotional sometimes because we know that the needs of this work are being met in so many ways.   The latest miracle happened this week.  Lynn and I were both sick (more about that at the end of this blog).  Being medical professionals and trying to be good role models, it wasn't wise for us to expose these women and children to our germs.  We have been trying to increase the capacity for volunteer help during our MyBaby4Me classes and also increase the involvement of outside presenters; we had our class covered for this week.  We had a wonderful family (a couple and their 3 children) who were scheduled to come and help.  We had a guest presenter all scheduled.  Tamara with the Extension Service was a hit with our women!  She presented on fresh fruits and vegetables available at Farmer's Markets and taught our families how to "double up" on their SNAP benefits at Farmers Markets.  Meal arrangements for the group were in place. Lynn was able to do his class reminders and the Uber/Lyft ride arrangement magic from our apartment.  And the class was a success!
15 and Pregnant We have another delivery coming up at the end of June and are so excited that this young woman is doing well and is carrying this baby with no problems.  She has been in school, and we missed her and her mom at class for several weeks in a row.  We were so worried about her....she hadn't been there when we presented about labor and delivery and felt she really needed that content.  Then one day, she, her mother and her grandmother walked in the door of the NAACP. We grabbed posters and our plastic pelvis and cloth placenta and were able to spend about an hour with them in a 1:1 teaching environment.  We will be having a baby shower/brunch for her mid-June and gifting her with an entire layette.  This young woman has carried embarrassment and shame about her pregnancy.  She successfully hid her pregnancy for the school year. She hadn't announced the pregnancy to any of her friends. The father of her baby is also 15 years old.  She has the total support of her mother, but not from others.  Every mom should celebrate the birth of a child!  So we will have a brunch, and balloons and cupcakes and help her feel that a new life (regardless of the circumstances) is a beautiful thing.
Learning Together We are thankful for a curriculum for MyBaby4Me that the church was gifted by a program at Ohio State University called Moms2Be.  The Moms2Be curriculum has been such a blessing, allowing us ready materials on many topics but also allowing us the flexibility to add additional topics or modify/add to what we have at hand.  As we work with our women and carefully listen, we can choose future class topics that apply to their lives and current state of knowledge.   We believe that family size is a very personal decision.  We are not anti-pregnancies or anti-large families (we Do Have One) , but there is good science about the spacing of pregnancies affecting infant mortality rates.  We wanted our women to have the best information possible about their reproductive choices and timing of a future baby.  We found and connected with a great partner here in Memphis called the "Step Ahead Foundation".  This organization funds long-acting reversible birth control methods directly to clinical providers, so that women can access them at no cost.  Their outreach staff presented to our women this month.....we had over 20 people in the room and a rich discussion and a "show and tell" where all the methods could actually be passed around the class. Several women have since made appointments through the exposure at that class. It was a win for us on a topic that we felt would be of great benefit for our moms and families.
The Arkansas Little Rock Mission and Leadership Transitions In serving with other senior missionaries, we feel like we have made life-long friends. Our mission is going through some significant transitions, with leaders and key senior missionaries leaving.  We have come to love the other Senior Missionary Couples; all are amazing people who have left home and family to dedicate 1-2 years of service.  Each of them have had gifts needed in this place at this time. Since we arrived in November, the Bolinders, Sister Baker and the Luikarts have completed their missions and gone home. Our Mission President and his wife (President and Sister Cahoon) will end their leadership service at the end of June and a new Mission President, and his family will arrive. We have loved knowing the Cahoons; our situation is a unique one where we don't report directly to them for our work with the NAACP.  They have taken such an interest in our work....wanting to meet with us and see pictures and get progress reports.  I don't know if anyone can appreciate all that falls upon the shoulders of a Mission President....responsibility for 150+ missionaries and their daily work spread across hundreds of miles and 3 states. We will miss the Cahoon's positive example and encouragement and wish them well. Cindy and Dean Luikart (UT)	Garry and Stacey Bolinder (UT)                         Sister Leslie Baker (CA)                         President and Sister Cahoon
The School Bus (AKA our Honda) We teach so that we may impact the future of our women and their families.  And we know that health status and health outcomes are better in those with more education.  One of our moms had her first baby when she was 14 and now has 6 children at age 29.  Her oldest daughters are 13 and 15.  Because this family is homeless and staying with a relative and has no transportation, the girls were not going to be able to complete the school year at the school they had been attending.  So with the help of several others, we stepped into school bus duty for the last 3 weeks of school to make sure that we "walked the walk" in communicating the value of education as a means to improve the future.  Sometimes the girls were talkative and cheerful, sometimes they fought all the way to school and home....it sure brought back memories of shuffling our own kids and the car conversations.  The girls ended the school year successfully with a dance and "graduation" ceremonies.
And in closing, COVID Just because the pandemic ended, doesn't mean that COVID is gone.  We avoided infection during the entire pandemic only for Lynn to test positive just before Memorial Day weekend.  We each have had 4 doses of COVID-19 Vaccine and managed to make it through by staying home in isolation with lots of cold/cough medicine, fluids and rest.  We were so thankful for our cozy apartment and being able to recover.....and for others who stepped into manage our MyBaby4Me groups in our absence.  Now we have had both vaccine and infection, we should be good for the rest of our mission! We are grateful for your love and support. Until next month, Lynn and Joell

Late March and April in Memphis

Spring in the Mid-South Spring in Memphis has been a combination of beautiful spring days and blossoms and frequent Storm Watches, Storm Warnings, Tornado Watches and Warnings.  You can bet we are glued to the television weather coverage and are listening to the nearly constant warnings from our weather radio as we hunker down during these weather events.  We did not know that there was such a thing as a "Tornado Season" here and that it is getting worse (experts say) due to global warming. This picture is right outside our front door of our apartment complex.
Tornado Damage in Wynne, AK One of the communities hit hardest by and an EF3 tornado on March 30th was Wynne, Arkansas....about 50 miles from us.  We drove to Wynne a week later to see the damage ourselves.  The High School was completely destroyed and other school buildings damaged. In the path of the tornado, homes were leveled or 2nd stories and roofs completely gone.  We saw tangled steel hanging from trees and large trees snapped like toothpicks.  There were 4 fatalities, including a young couple killed when a tree collapsed on their bed.  Looking at the devastation, it was amazing that there were not more deaths. See pictures here....yes, that is a bleacher from the football field thrown on top of a building.  The news coverage here has more pictures:   Wynne, AR storm damage live shot - YouTube
MyBaby4Me and Spring Baby Showers  This time of year it is a tradition here to have multiple community events for pregnant women and young families.  MyBaby4Me has been invited to be an exhibitor/table at several community Baby Showers.  This was our first event and it was great to meet so many pregnant women.
Guns and Barb-B-Que We were with a group of people in multiple cars to go to dinner.  Our #1 choice of southern "Q" was closed for a family emergency, so someone suggest we go to a nearby option called Fergusons.  No one said anything about the additional opportunity to have a side of machine gun with our food.  Think "Top Golf" only with guns....with a glass wall separating the food from the firing range.  We did not take advantage of the guns, but the Barb-B-Que at Fergusons was delicious.
General Conference Weekend Twice each year, we feel blessed to hear from our prophet, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and other church leaders in General Conference.  Conference sessions are broadcast throughout the world in the native language of each country.  Between the sessions of conference, the church shows a World Report of global humanitarian work. MyBaby4Me was featured in this issue of the World Report.  Click on the link below to see the footage.  If you want to skip ahead and just watch the coverage of MyBaby4Me, it begins at around 4 minutes into the program.  https://youtu.be/LFxV1tx7Zzo
MyBaby4Me Progress Report We were asked to provide information about our efforts to date, so spent some time reviewing this work.  MyBaby4Me launched on November 29th, so we are approaching a 5-month anniversary.  In that time, we have had 43 scheduled group meetings, served 30 women and partners, with 87 encounters with those individuals.  And that doesn't count all the babies and young children that accompanied them to our MyBaby4Me groups.  It is gratifying to mark progress and makes us eager to see these numbers continue to grow.
Loss of a Baby...... We wanted to share a tender story; this is not from one of our participants but from a man that we met and shared tears with.  He works PT as a security guard on a college campus and is a pastor at a church.  He noticed the Oregon license plates on our car and asked what we were doing so far from home.  We explained our mission goal of impacting infant mortality.  He then shared the story of his own baby boy who died in the first few days of life.  His wife had developed diabetes during the pregnancy, and the baby had problems after birth and did not survive.  The tears ran down his cheeks as he described the busy time with 4 women delivering close together, and his black baby being the only baby that did not live. We don't know the facts, but he felt as if his baby had received less attention than needed in comparison to the 3 white women and white babies born close to the same time. "I think he could've made it" he said quietly.  We cried too....color or the perception of a racial bias should not affect outcomes of an infant or any other person.  Doctrine and Covenants 18:10 says "Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God."  We thanked this man for sharing his painful story, expressed our sorrow to him, and committed to work even harder to improve infant outcomes.
How Do We Demonstrate Love? As we continue to meet and get to know the MyBaby4Me women, we grow in love for them.  We cry with them, laugh with them, hug them and try to encourage them with the hard things in their lives.  Sharon Eubanks devotes her life to Humanitarian Service projects overseen and coordinated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  She spoke of love in the October 2021General Conference: "Baptized members of the Church are under covenant to care for those in need.  Efforts to do so require the guidance of the Holy Spirit and a willing heart to say to the Lord:  Here am I, send me. Jesus Christ asked Peter:   'Do you love me?'  The essence of the gospel is contained in how we answer that question."
Easter  Our "home" ward held a Saturday morning breakfast and re-created a spiritual walk depicting the last week of Jesus' life and ending with the empty tomb.  It was a moving experience and helped those who participated feel of His divine love. He laid down His life for each of us and took it up again.  Because of Him, we have hope.   May we always remember and be grateful for our Savior, Jesus Christ.  It is His love that we strive each day to model. Blessings to all of you, Lynn and Joell Archibald

 

She Came To Us.......

She Came To Us....

She arrived late to our group that day (almost an hour late) due to car problems. It was her first time participating in MyBaby4Me. She looked sad and worn, and her clothes were dirty.  She asked if she could talk to us privately after class. She is living in a shelter. She is a mom of 5 and admitted she was "hanging with the wrong people" during her most recent pregnancy.  She delivered a baby girl more than 6 months ago....small, too early, and with cocaine in her blood stream.  She immediately lost custody of all 5 children to child welfare, including her newborn daughter.  She came to class hoping for a miracle....that we could help her find housing, find a job, and prove that she was no longer using drugs....all in time for a court hearing on May 12th to try and get custody of her children back.  Her oldest daughter is 18 and also pregnant; she came with her to MyBaby4Me and is living in the shelter with her mother.  She has a 15-year-old daughter that delivered a baby a week earlier.  She has weekly supervised visits with her own baby (now 7 months old).  She wasn't able to support her teen during the delivery of her grandbaby and hadn't yet seen her first grandchild. 

To conclude that interaction, Lynn helped jump-start a dead battery on her vehicle, then had to help push her vehicle backwards into the street because the reverse gear on the vehicle didn't work. We laughed at the "other duties as assigned" part of the experience. 

We went home that day feeling overwhelmed and wondering if we could make a difference in the face of all of these challenges. After prayerful consideration, we acknowledged that she came to us, wanting a better life, seeking help.  She had a glimmer of hope in the mother she wanted to be.  And supporting her would support not only her, but her daughters and their babies. SHE was the face of MyBaby4Me.  SHE (and others like her) was the reason we needed to do all we could here in Memphis during our mission. 

It has been an eventful month with MyBaby4Me here in Memphis.  We have gone from having no participants come to our groups, to having a few participants, to having a roomful!  These women have names that sparkle like jewels.... unusual combinations of consonants and vowels. Each name is unique and special and represent the women we have come to know and love.   We are grateful to be reaching more women and their partners and their babies/children, but more participation has come with different challenges to address (arranging transportation, choosing topics and preparing content with the needs of those who might come, planning for the quantities of food needed when we don't know if 2 or 20 will show up, and making sure their children also are provided enriching activities while their moms are engaged). 

Pocohantas Arkansas and Armadillos 

We took a day "off" to celebrate President's Day with a trip to visit another missionary couple serving in Pocahontas, Arkansas.  The Bolinder's gave us a royal tour of a part of their mission area.  

We started with breakfast at Hillbilly Junction in Maynard, Arkansas then drove to two state parks with large natural springs. Elder Bolinder is a big fan or armadillos, so we were on the lookout for a live armadillo on the country roads. Armadillos don't move rapidly, so are more often seen as roadkill on the 2 lane highways in rural Arkansas. He also told us stories of going catfish "noodling" with the local residents while on their mission.  We had a great time with the Bolinders!   We ended the day at the Eddie Mae Herron Center in Pocahontas; we had a chance to sit down and talk with the Center's Executive Director and members of their Board of Directors.  The mission of the Eddie Mae Herron Center is to help individuals, communities, and organizations to identify, protect, and preserve the history and to foster widespread appreciation of and respect for the African American culture. School segregation in the south occurred in our lifetime, and Eddie Mae Herron was the teacher in this one-room schoolhouse for black children only until 1964. Pat Johnson, the Executive Director of the Center shared her personal story of growing up in the south and being a student forced to attend this same school. She has a passion for preserving history so that others may learn from it.  She had just spent the weekend hosting a crew from National Geographic who filmed interviews and events at the center for Black History month.  Ms. Johnson was eager to hear of MyBaby4Me and gave us great insights that will help increase our effectiveness with our outreach.

 

 

We Love our Extension Service Partners!

During the 3rd week of February, we were happy to host a program assistant from the Tennessee Extension Service at our MyBaby4Me groups.  Tamara prepared a main dish for class participants, all the while teaching them about healthy nutrition for them during pregnancies and for their families.  All of us got a sample of the food she prepared, and "freebies" related to our discussion.  She was such a great fit with MyBaby4Me women!  We are excited to have her return in April to teach us more and bring more things for our women to help them focus on eating well.  

Memphis Channel 13 News Interview about MyBaby4Me

The first Thursday in March we got a call shortly after arriving at the NAACP office that Channel 13 reporters were coming to film our MyBaby4Me group and interview participants!  No stress there.....as Lynn said later "I didn't dress for a TV camera".  We never quite know who will show up for our group and how things will go. But thanks to our NAACP leader, the lights and cameras and reporter arrived, women arrived, and all was successful.  The story was great exposure for MyBaby4Me; we raced home that night to watch the 5 PM news and see the story.  Immediately after the news ended, our MyBaby4Me phone rang with a woman who was 9 weeks pregnant and interested in participating!  She and her fiancé have attended every week since then and are a great addition to our classes.  

See the news story here:  

Memphis NAACP branch partners with local church, provides resource for expecting mothers | News | fox13memphis.com

University of Tennessee Medical Students Bring Skills and Energy to MyBaby4Me

Janie and Lane saved the day!  These medical students attended a couple of our classes as volunteers and expressed a desire to help teach a curriculum topic.  So we planned a discussion on Reproductive Health and a fun Bingo game that would work for the group.  We had so many women that brought children to our group that day that one of the students was on the floor with the little ones and the other ran the lesson.  We couldn't have been successful without them.  

"Layettes with Love"

It hasn't taken us long to see that the majority of the women we work with have few resources to prepare for their baby.  We want them to feel hope instead of despair when they give birth and have the basics to care for a newborn.  Added to this, we have members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the Memphis area who are eager to support MyBaby4Me.  Through inspiration, we prepared a basic layette list and began our "Layettes with Love" project.  The leaders of the church in the area have the layette list and assemble the layettes with donations from members at the ward level.  Then, when we have a woman who has participated with us and is ready to deliver the layette is presented to her.  We have been able to provide 2 layettes to women this month and it is moving to see the love from the givers and the appreciation from our women. Forgive us for sharing so many pictures here....we think this is an amazing thing......

  

Challenges and Miracles

Our mission this far has been a combination of overcoming barriers and then recognizing the hand of the Lord blessing us as we work. How true that is of life in general!   We have had so many experiences where a resource or solution presented itself just as it seemed we couldn't move forward.  People who have been put in our path who could provide exactly what was needed. Donations of cribs and furniture and diapers and car seats for those who need them. Willing hands, strong backs and trucks to move those things. We have the blessing of an inspired Mission President and his wife, who express total confidence and support in us.  We have the benefit of leadership and mentorship in Elder Beheshti, who was responsible for setting up my Baby4Me and seeing the potential of this model.  We love working with Vickie Terry, the NAACP Executive Director here in Memphis. We are committed to helping where and when we can. 

King Benjamin gives this inspired counsel to his people in Mosiah 4:16-20

"And also, ye yourselves will succor those that stand in need of your succor; ye will administer of your substance unto him that standeth in need; and ye will not suffer that the beggar putteth up his petition to you in vain and turn him out to perish.

Perhaps thou shalt say:  The man has brought upon himself his misery; therefore, I will stay my hand, and will not give unto him of my food, nor impart unto him of my substance; that he may not suffer, for his punishments are just-

But I say unto you, O man, whosoever doeth this the same; hath great cause to repent and except he repenteth of that which he hath done, he perisheth forever, and hath no interest in the kingdom of God.

For behold, are we not all beggars?  Do we not al depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have, for both food and raiment, and for gold, and for silver, and for all the riches which we have of every kind?" 

Missing our children and their families and so many dear friends while we are away. We are ever grateful for your support and encouragement.  

Lynn and Joell Archibald

Coordinators of MyBaby4Me, Memphis

MyBaby4Me Classes are Happening!

Women are coming to our classes.... some pregnant, some recently delivered and some grandparents parenting infants and toddlers! We are breaking bread together and enjoying a meal at each class, teaching and learning new information, sharing life experiences, and coming back week after week for more. These women are animated and loud (and sometimes funny) while they try to talk over each other. Lynn and I sometimes feel that we are in a room with people who speak some language other than the English we know. They share freely, and some of their experiences and life stories are painful to hear. They are courageous and resilient and beautiful. We have grown to love each of them. And when they bring their babies or toddlers, we see the beauty and depth of their attachment to their family and their desire to be better for their children. All of it inspires us to want to help and support and lift them in any way we can. We provide free transportation to and from classes if they need it. They receive groceries to help make it through the coming week each time they come to class. They go home with diapers that have been donated and a Kroger gift card every week. We have also been blessed with the support and help of volunteers who are 1st and 2nd year medical students at the University of Tennessee. This next class is focusing on eating well during pregnancy with a guest presenter from the Extension Service.

So far, these women are all single women and single parents.  One is 29 years old and just had her 6th baby (with her first being born when she was 14).  Another woman has 7 daughters with the most recent being 4-month-old twin girls.  We have a young woman pregnant for the first time who was hospitalized last week with pre-term labor contractions; we are trying to support her while she tries to maintain bedrest; her mother is incarcerated and she really doesn't have other options for support. We did a quick home visit and diaper drop off this morning to a mom with a 3-week-old who is breastfeeding like a champ!  All of them have pieces of our heart as we support them in being the best moms possible to these precious babies.

Facebook Group Launch for MyBaby4Me  

We have had the amazing expertise of Area Communications Specialists for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints to set up a MyBaby4Me Facebook Group.... see it at MyBaby4Me | Memphis | Facebook. You can get a sense of our classes and special events from the things we post.

Evaluating Impact of MyBaby4Me

A timely gift came our way for project evaluation for MyBaby4Me.  The University of Memphis and Dr. Miriam Clark's services have been offered at no cost to help us implement data gathering, class evaluation and participant outcomes.  Dr. Clark is a PhD research scientist who specializes in Prevention Science. Her background could not be a better fit for a new project like MyBaby4Me.  Between Dr. Clark and Max Putnam (a U of T Med Student), we are refining the data we are gathering in our efforts with MyBaby4Me participants.  Paired with birth and baby outcomes, we hope to have powerful data over the long term to help sustain the project. We continually recognize that when we have a need, we are blessed with resources to meet that need that go beyond what we expect. 

The Tyre Nichols case in Memphis

On January 7th, Memphis police members of the SCORPION unit pulled over a young black man for a traffic stop.  During the unfolding traffic stop, that young man was beaten by multiple officers and died from a result of his injuries. Tyre Nichols was only a few blocks from the home where he lived with his mother and stepfather and could be heard calling out for his mother as he was beaten. The investigation done following the death resulted in the firing of 6 Memphis police officers as well as terminations by Memphis Fire for other emergency responders who failed to take action at the scene.  2nd degree murder charges have been filed against 5 officers (who are all black). The Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in our Neighborhoods (SCORPION) Unit was disbanded by the Memphis Police Chief following the death of Tyre Nichols. 

It has been hard to see the pain in Memphis. It is different to watch the news unfold firsthand in real life and not just on a screen from far away. As one person said, "It is bad enough when a black man loses his life because of police brutality, but it is worse when black police do this to one of their own." The NAACP and its leaders (Vickie Terry and Van Turner) were interviewed multiple times by local and national news outlets. Director Terry has a close personal relationship with the Memphis Police Chief. There were press conferences at the NAACP office and another at a large nearby church. Other city NAACP leaders as well as national NAACP leaders came to Memphis during the response to Tyre's death. There were threats called into the NAACP office, which resulted in Memphis officers coming to take statements from the staff. We grieved with the parents of this 29-year-old young man who left this life at the hands of others. It was a relief that protests in Memphis occurred without further violence. There are many policy actions now being considered by the Memphis City and Shelby County leaders as well as in the Tennessee legislature to prevent such tragic outcomes in the future.

Ice Storm in Memphis

During the week of January 30th-February 3rd, the mid-South was hit with freezing temperatures and an ice storm that took several days to thaw. This picture is of a tree right outside our apartment; if you look closely, you can see how beautiful it was when drops of rain froze as ice droplets that looked like miniature crystal ornaments hanging from branches. Schools were closed and our classes were cancelled..... the sidewalks and roads were like an ice-rink! Beautiful but treacherous. Once everything thawed, temps went up to over 70 degrees. The weather changes are an interesting experience!

Working with Leaders and Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the Mid-South

We were invited by the bishop of the Collierville 2nd Ward to present to ward members about MyBaby4Me during their 5th Sunday lesson in January. We presented again to the Stake Communication Committee of the Memphis North Stake on February 1st. We were included by leaders of the Memphis Stake in their Stake Conference on February 4th and 5th. We were invited to attend the Ward Conference of the Memphis Inner-City Group (smaller than a ward or a branch) on February 7th. The Memphis Inner-City group meets in a beautifully remodeled strip-mall space; that was a new experience for us. We are scheduled to present again the first week of March to the Lakeland Ward Empty Nesters group. We have been able to share the beginning of this project and the beauty of the deepening of relationships between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and the NAACP. In each setting we are able to meet many who are interested in and have resources to contribute to MyBaby4Me and can facilitate the success of the project. We are grateful to be spiritually fed by the environments we find ourselves in as well as meeting those who are placed in our paths for a purpose.

Valentine's Day and Lynn's Birthday

Lynn was his parent's little Valentine, so Valentine's Day is always a celebration.  We received love in the form of home-made sugar cookies with sprinkles by precious grandsons, a big box of candy from Bruce's' Candy in Cannon Beach, and other yummy food, treats and birthday/valentine wishes.  It has always been a tradition in our family for us to call and sing happy birthday to our children on their big day; the roles were reversed this year with our kids calling and singing to their dad!  What sweet music that was for us.  We went out to dinner on 2 days to celebrate, then held a MyBaby4Me class on Valentines Day and celebrated the women we are working with.  

We are grateful for our mission call and the service opportunities it has brought to our lives. As we study the life of Jesus Christ as recorded in the New Testament, we pray that we can bring a portion of his example to the women we come in contact with.  

As we received our mission call, we chose Alma 1:30 from the Book of Mormon as our mission scripture:

"And thus, in their prosperous circumstances, they did not send away any who were naked, or that were hungry, or that were athirst, or that were sick, or that had not been nourished, and they did not set their hearts upon riches; therefore they were liberal to all, both old and young, both bond and free, both male and female, whether out of the church or in the church, having no respect to persons as to those who stood in need."  

We strive to live up to the principles in that scripture.

Love,

Elder and Sister/Lynn and Joell Archibald

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