Visit to Sebring Ward

The reason we needed to fill up the gas tank yesterday is because we drove to Sebring to attend the ward there.  It is a 90 minute drive and their Ward Council started at 7 am.  So we needed to leave Sarasota at 5:30 am which meant that I got up at 4 am.  Fortunately there isn't much traffic on the two lane highway to Sebring that early in the morning.

Bishop Austin decided to have Ward Council meet for 90 minutes rather than the usual 60 minutes.  He needs more time for the Ward Council members to be involved in the planning for sacrament meetings and to discuss the progress of those on the New and Returning Members list.

The Sister missionaries had an investigator, a Jewish woman, attend Sacrament Meeting.  She got to hear a report on Scout camp.  Fortunately, some of the Scouts who were assigned to speak didn't show up.  So they called on a young woman to report on the stake youth conference and then the 1st Counselor in the bishopric spoke about they importance of the ward family and Jesus Christ, our Savior.  Those messages were good for her to hear.

Following the block of meetings, we inspected the Elders' and Sisters' apartments.  An interesting story about the picture of the ties, shown below, came from Elder Stuart.  His girlfriend went to people that she considered to be leaders and asked them to donate a tie and their favorite scripture.  She then sewed the scripture on the backside of the tie and gave them to Elder Stuart for Christmas. 

We then drove back home.  I was having trouble staying awake, so I stopped at a farm entrance to walk around.  That did the trick, and we arrived back home safely.

Elder Stuart's Ties