On Friday we received our schedules that we will have for the six months we are here and we were also told which branch we will be attending and working with while we are here.  We will be working the morning shifts on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.  We also work the mid day shift on Wednesday and the night shift on Friday so those will be long days.  We are off on Thursday and Saturday.  All the six-month temple missionaries are off on Thursday and everyone has another day off during the week.

Those of us who have Saturday off are the ones who were assigned to the distant wards or branches.  We weren’t assigned to the most distant branch because one of the missionary couples asked if they could go to that branch.  They have connections in that city and wanted to go there.  Their branch is 152 miles northeast of Palmyra.  We were assigned to the Norwich Branch, which is 140 miles southeast of Palmyra – the second most distant branch from Palmyra.  It is actually in the New York Utica mission but it is still within the temple district.  There is one other branch 140 miles southwest of Palmyra but all but 10 miles of the drive is freeway driving.  Two-thirds of our drive is on back roads.  That’s great if you want to see some beautiful country but having to get up at 4:45 in the morning in order to get to the branch for a 9:00 A.M. sacrament meeting, counterbalances the beautiful scenery.

We visited our branch the first time today and thanks to our GPS we were able drive right to the meetinghouse.  There were about 25 people at sacrament meeting, 11 in the gospel doctrine class and nine brethren in priesthood meeting.  That isn’t nine in the high priest group.  That is nine total priesthood holders.  I think there were three in the primary today and two teenagers.  The branch president has only one counselor and a clerk (who wasn’t there today).  The sad thing is that two of the strongest couples/families are moving this summer.  When they leave, the branch will lose the one counselor to the branch president, the Elders Quorum president, the organist, the gospel doctrine teacher and the Relief Society president.  That is a big hit.  I hope we can do something to soften the blow to the branch when they leave.  We are truly back in the mission field and I am a little excited for this challenge.

Instead of getting up early on Sunday morning and driving to Norwich, we will probably go down on Saturday a few times and stay in a hotel.  Cooperstown, home of the baseball hall of fame, is 30 miles east of Norwich and Colesville, the site of the second organized branch of the church is 30 miles south.  Harmony, Pennsylvania, the site of the restoration of the Aaronic priesthood, is another 20 miles south of Colesville.  Since we have Saturday off, we have some sights we can go see and then go on to Norwich.   I was very touched by the sweet spirit in testimony meeting.  They are small in numbers but strong in faith.