Challenges

Challenges, challenges,,,the world of missionary work is filled with challenges. We live and are assigned to a ward in south central Kentucky near the Tennessee border. The poverty rate here is almost 25%, the activity rate in the ward is about 25% and not getting better. The home teaching rate is closer to 20% when it is done and many of the members have not seen a home teacher in years.

One story....We visited a couple with a six year old son. They live in a single-wide trailer along the narrow main highway between Celina TN and Tompkinsville KY, about 4 miles from the TN border. The trailer is on a property in the back of a house that belongs to the father of the husband. It is a trash heap with can, logs, old chairs and other miscellaneous pieces of junk all over. We knocked on the door of the trailer, a dog started barking and we could hear a noise at the door. It was their six year old son. Finally the mother came to the door and welcomed us in. We were met by an unkept house that looked like the outside. The boy was playing a karate type game on an old tv and the father was in the bedroom. We talked with the mother for a few minutes and then the father came out and took over the TV game and started playing it while we talked to the mother. I tried to engage the father in a little conversation, but he was not to be deterred from his game.

I asked him about his work and he said he did a little of everything whenever it came up. They are apparently on welfare of some sort and he does not really try to find a full time job. My thoughts went to the six year old and what he was learning from this couple. The mother is a little slow in comprehension and is not quite as normal as the average person. The fathers seems to be quicker and more normal, but has decided to remain in the life style he has become accustomed to. It is, as one person put it, pitiful.

I am convinced that the welfare system we have is creating more people to be on welfare. It will destroy our country. The father is not interested in the Church...too complicated to explain, just know the parents of both a husband and wife can influence the children's choice about the Church