End of Summer

Hi to Everyone,

Well, we survived our 1st Ohio summer and it was very nice.   We really enjoyed it.   We never did have those "dog days" of summer that you hear about.   The 1st week of June we had a few days in the 90's and then not again until the 2nd week of Sept.   The rest of the time the temps were very pleasant.   We also had lots of rain and several tornado warnings.   The natives from here say they think we are going to have a very hard winter because of it and also because the last 2 winters have been so mild.   I hope they are wrong but the trees have been turning for a month now and it is really getting colorful with all the trees beginning to be yellow, orange and red.

Our service project for the ward this year was to participate in a project called A Partnership for a Revolution.   It was an attempt by many organizations, both civic and religious, to help the poor kids in the county get ready for school.   Ashtabula county is the poorest one in Ohio and so they wanted to help them with school supplies, haircuts, physicals and socks and underwear.   Our ward took on the socks and underwear part of the project.   They were planning on serving 500 kids but that day the people started lining up at the fairgrounds before 7 am.   It didn't open until 1 pm and by then the line was a mile long.   They figured more than 1500 families lined up for it.   We thought we would run out of socks and underwear but we didn't.   It was like the loaves and fishes in the bible.   We ran out of a few of the biggest and smallest sizes but when we left at the end of the day we still had 3 totes full of socks and underwear.   We couldn't believe it.   Just seemed like no matter how many we passed out the table was still full.   It was a wonderful project because it involved so many in the ward.   They plan to do it again next year.

The middle of September Shayne M Bowen of the Seventy came for a mission conference.  It was wonderful to go and spend a day being taught by him and also associating with all the othe missionaries.   That was the 2 days in Sept. when the temps were about 96 degrees so that part was not so great.   But 2 days later the temps were down in the 40's in the day and everyone was freezing.   What a change in just 2 days.   Right now we are enjoying perfect fall weather.

Today is transfers and we are losing our favorite Sister missionary.   She has been with us since about a month after we got here.   Our other Sister who has only been here 12 weeks is going to be training so we will be getting another new sister right out of the MTC.   Our 2 Elders are staying thankgoodness.   We really like both of them and hated the thought of either one going.    The work is going slow here.   Hard to find investigators that last more than a few lessons but we did have a baptism a couple weeks ago of 2 sisters who are 10 and 15.   The mom and dad are working on getting themselves ready for baptism in Nov.   They have a smoking habit that they need to overcome first.   We are also having some success in reactivating a few less actives.  

We hope you are all doing well.   Keep in tough.   Our mission is really going fast.   We have less than a year now.   It will be great to be home but I know it is going to be hard to leave here.   We love this area and especially the people.   

Love,     Elder and Sister Banks