More news stories

We had a nice Christmas. Mom and Dad came down and we had everyone else at our house. Luckily the storms cooperated and they were able to sneak through in between. We have a lot of snow and it has been very cold.

Here are some links to recent news stories about Cally, Jed and Harvey. Currently the birth father's attorney has filed to have the Idaho custody ruling enforced in Utah. Obviously we are working to prevent that. The Idaho legislature convenes this week and we have assurances from several legislators that they will be investigating.

Dec. 22
http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695238175,00.html


Dec. 27
http://www.cdapress.com/articles/2007/12/28/news/news02.txt


Dec. 29
http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695239852,00.html

More Vacation Pictures

These two pictures are from the Space Center in Houston. The first one is the old mission control that was used for all the Apollo missions. The current mission control is in the same building, but they don't take tours through that part. The second picture is a complete Saturn V rocket that they have on display. The capsule on top is from Apollo 17, if I remember right.

-Newel

Vacation Pictures

Here are some pictures from our vacation. We got back late last night after an uneventful trip back home. The weather forecast was for thundershowers but it was sunny and clear all the way back.

The first picture shows Isaac and James manning the guns on the Battleship Texas, which we visited in Houston.

The second picture is the family in front of the Manatee tank at the Dallas World Aquarium.

-Newel

Samuel's Mission e-mail December 24, 2007

Everyone:

I'm not sure when you'll be getting this e-mail. As for me, right now it is a nice, warm, sunny Christmas eve that feels a lot like mid-September to me. All the trees are still green, you can walk around outside in short sleeves and feel just fine, and it just overall feels nothing like the Christmas season.

Anyways, starting with Tuesday last week, we visited Karla again. She's doing all right. Her oldes son, Brandon, was asking some questions about baptism that we answered, and we've taught her everything she needs to know. We want to get the whole family there, though, and she's quite honestly not ready to be baptized yet, so we've still got some work to do. We also visited Anne and dropped by some less-actives named the Diaz family.

On Wednseday I was on splits with Elder Backenstoss, one of my zone leaders, down in his area in Hawthorn. It was a good day, and some good work was done back in my area, too.

On Thursday we visited Karla and did some service for her (we kind of tutor her kids some). We also visited some other people, but I don't remember who it was.

On Friday we had our district meeting, and we did our planning since we hadn't done it on Thursday. We called our referrals that we still hadn't been able to contact and were able to deliver one of the items one of them had requested.

On Saturday we had our normal correlation meetings, tracted a bit, and talked with Miguel's sister, who isn't a member.

On Sunday we had our normal church meetings, we visited Karla because she hadn't come to church (she had had to drive her husband to pick something up for his work). We also visited Santos, who is a recent convert in the Spanish 6th ward.

Well, that's it for now. I'd like to close with the words of one of the less-sung Christmas songs in our hymnbook:

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play
and wild and sweet the words repeat
of peace on earth good will to men

I thought how as the day had come
the belfries of all Christendom
had tolled along th'unbroken song
of peace on earth good will to men

And in despair I bowed my head
"There is no peace on earth," I said
"For hate is strong and mocks the song
of peace on earth good will to men."

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep
"God is not dead nor doth he sleep!
The wrong shall fail the right prevail
with peace on earth good will to men."

Then ringing, singing on its way
the world revolved from night to day
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime
of peace on earth good will to men.

--Hymn #214 (I think)

Elder Samuel Stephens
6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
Isaiah 9:6

Some recent picture for your information.

Jed Harvey and Calley









Our back yard 21 Dec. 2007


Ruth Nov. 2007

Merry Christmas

Sammy's Mission E-mail Dec. 17th

Everyone:

Well, it's getting pretty close to Christmas, so all the requests for Joy to the World DVDs are starting to come in. Hopefully we'll be able to get enough for all the people here--apparently they had some troubles with that last year.

Anyways, I don't have my planner with me, so I'll try to go off of memory as to what we did last week. On Thursday we had two of our tires replaced on our car, so we ended up waiting at Pep Boy's for quite some time. We did, however, teach some people that day, including Karla, I think. Karla is doing pretty well, and she said she wants to get baptized sometime in mid-January. Brandon, her oldest son, will probably get baptized with her, but we'll need to talk more with the father. If it's necessary, we may delay things a bit so they can all get baptized at the same time.

On Friday we did our planning, since we hadn't done it on Thursday, and we went to the wedding reception of Elder Zemp's trainer (don't worry, he asked permission). We did teach someone that day, but I don't remember who.

Saturday was a day of meetings and such. In the morning we had our district meeting, then we had our correlation meetings, and then we delivered a Joy to the World video, and then we helped out with the Adams Ward Christmas Social.

On Sunday we had our normal church meetings, we took Miguel and one of the Feesago's sons with us tracting for a bit, and we visited the Aguilars.

Well, that's it for this week. Remember what this season is all about. It's Chirst-mas!
37 And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth.
38 I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours.
John 4: 37-38

Cally and Harvey home for now

Cally and Harvey came home Monday. Much is still up in the air but there doesn't appear to be an immediate threat that Harvey will be taken.

Here is a link to the latest news story.

http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695237263,00.html

We are still very nervous, but hopeful. LDS Family Services is providing all the legal counsel now and there are a lot of skilled lawyers working on this. I think the goal is still to try to get jurisdiction moved to Utah and to get someone appointed to speak for Harvey's interests in Idaho and Utah.

I mailed Christmas letters today. This fight has been consuming all our time and energy. We haven't done any shopping yet.

Flint

Samuel's Mission e-mail Dec. 12, 2007

Everyone:

Well, I forgot again that we were having our temple day this week. I'll probably finally remember to mention it the last one I have on the mission.

Anyways, starting with Wednesday of last week, we did some tracting and visited Anne. Anne has been investigating for a while now, and the two main things that have held her back from getting baptized are 1: she smokes and 2: while she knows the Church is good, she still hasn't gotten the confirmation that it's true. So, we're working on those things with her.

On Thursday we had our normal planning, and in the afternoon we visited Donald (who then moved away over the weekend) and Karla and her family. Karla & family are probably our best investigators--there's not a whole lot standing between them and baptism. Only one of the three children is old enough for baptism, but he's a pretty cool kid. The one problem is that we have difficulty teaching the father since he works nights and sleeps during the time we're working, so progress with him is slower, but he is progressing.

Friday we tracted a while, we visited Christi and her sister again, and we had a couple of people who missed their appointments.

Saturday we had our correlation meetings, we visited Karla & family again, and we visited the Aguilars, who are less-active.

Sunday we had church, we visited Karla because we hadn't seen her at church (they got confused because next month the Spanish ward will be starting at 11:00 AM and they thought it was now so when they showed up late they were embarresed and went home), and in the evening we helped out with a fireside/concert thing where a bunch of musical groups, not all of which were from our church, sang Christmas songs. It was really good--we must have had over four hundred people there.

Monday we had lunch with a semi-active member of the Barrio Sexto (LA 6th Ward) named Luis, we tracted some, and we checked on some referrals and actually contacted some. Tuesday we helped Karla out some more with one of the kid's rooms, tracted a bit, and visited Anne again. And today we went to the temple.

Elder Samuel Stephens

On the run

Here is a link to the latest story on Jed, Cally and Harvey. Cally and Harvey are currently hiding out in Smithfield until they can get some type of injunction to stay the custody order.

http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695235367,00.html

LDS Family Services has agreed to pay for their Utah attorney and has hired an outside attorney to handle the appeal in Idaho. I suspect that decision was helped along by four days of front-page news coverage.

Flint

More about Jed, Cally and Harvey

The rest of the temporary custody hearing will take place in Idaho tomorrow. Jed and Cally won't be there, since they have been denied representation. So that means there is essentially no chance they can win.

But....

Even if the judge orders custody to go to the birth father, he then must get a Utah court to order Cally and Jed to relinquish Harvey. In order to do that, he will have to file suit against them in Utah and hire a Utah attorney. In the meantime, Jed and Cally will be working with a Utah attorney to file motions and make the process as drawn out and as expensive as possible. The object will be to delay any change in custody until the appeal on the father's paternal standing can be heard.

The church attorney and Jed and Cally's attorney have been surprised by how this has developed. The decision to not allow them to intervene in the custody hearing is unprecedented.

I spent the weekend sending emails to every legislator in Idaho.

The process is emotionally draining, frustrating, and exhausting, but we are going to keep fighting.

In the meantime, Harvey is growing like crazy and is the happiest baby I have ever seen. He laughs and squeals constantly. He loves the dogs and will watch them for hours. The only challenge is getting them to stay by him for that long.

Lindsay and Tagg came home Saturday. They are both doing well. Jake said Tagg cried all night last night so no one got any sleep. I'm not sure I remember what a good night's sleep feels like, so I am not too sympathetic.

I need to get a picture of Tagg so I can post it. He looks like Grandpa Stephens (the old one, not me).

Samuel's Mission e-mail Dec 4, 2007

Everyone:

Well, I've now been transferred to an area called Windsor Hills. It's still kind of South-Centralish in LA--kind of in between and to the north of my other two areas. You really start to realize how small this mission is when you start looking at where your areas are in relation to each other--and then I start thinking about how distant they are from one another in demographics and economic situation, etc, and it's just an even stranger thought.

Anyways, my companion's name is Elder Zemp. He's from Cardston, Alberta, Canada, which makes him my first companion from outside the US (although only just barely so). Our area leans more towards African-Americans in terms of demographics, though there is still a significant Latino population. In terms of wards, I cover the Adams Ward, which is English-speaking and fairly racially mixed, and the LA 6th Ward, which is Spanish-speaking.

So, Tuesday was my last day in Watts with Elder Bartholomew, and I can't really separate what we did that day from the other days because I don't have my planner with me from last transfer. On Wednesday, I transferred up here to Windsor Hills and we started working. We taught Christi and her sister, who are from Belize, as well as a couple other people.

Thursday we planned of course, and we also tracted some, contacted a ref named Manuel Guerrero who is the cousin of one of the members of the Spanish ward here, and in the evening we visited Carla and her family. Carla is probably our best investigator right now, and her husband has also come to church (he just works a lot so it's hard for us to meet with him as often as Carla).

On Friday we had our Zone meeting, and then we painted a room and a hallway for Carla. In the evening I met Miguel, who is a fairly recent convert in our area who we work with a lot to help fellowship and such in our area.

On Saturday we had our correlation meetings with both the Adams Ward and LA 6th Ward Mission Leaders, and Elder Zemp had an interview with the President. In the afternoon, our appointment to finish the painting for Carla fell through, and I don't remember what we did instead.

On Sunday, we had our meetings of course, and we took Miguel and one of the 6th Ward members, Hermano Carlos, with us and tracted both sides of a street at the same time. In the evening we actually had dinner with President Turley, who is a counselor in the mission presidency, and his wife, and watched the First Presidency Christmas devotional with them. Then we visited the Aguilar family (no relation to the Aguilar family in Westchester), who are some less-actives in the 6th Ward we're working with.

Yesterday, we had our special Christmas Zone Conference, which is why I'm writing on Tuesday instead of yesterday. It took virtually all day, but we did get back into our area in time to visit a referral named Jaime and teach him and his children a good lesson.

Today for our zone activity we went to the Getty Center, which is a large art museam here in LA. We've also washed our car.

Well, I think that's enough for this week. Just remember, everything in the Gospel is about Christ--if our teaching of the Gospel isn't Cristocentric, we're off the mark.

Elder Samuel Stephens
37 And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth.
38 I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours.
John 4: 37-38

Back from Stockholm

Everyone:

This week I had my trip to Sweden. As is usual for trips like this, it was mostly business without much time for sightseeing. I did get out of the hotel once or twice and take a few pictures. The first one that I have included here is the view from just outside my hotel. Downtown Stockholm is built on an archipelago, so our hotel was on a small peninsula jutting out from the mainland. What you see in the picture is the old town, situated on a small island across from the peninsula. The palace is just to the right of the buildings in the picture.

When he made our hotel reservations, our salesman had a hard time finding any hotels with rooms available, so he ended up getting us a more expensive hotel than we would normally stay in. We ended up in the Grand Hotel, an older hotel patronized by the Swedish royalty etc. When we asked why everything was so full, the answer was obvious: December 10 is the day the Nobel Prizes are awarded. It turns out that our hotel was the one the prize winners and their entourages were staying in. We saw lots of college professor type people wandering around, but had no idea which ones were the actual prize winners.

On Wednesday evening we walked to a nearby restaurant that served traditional Swedish food. For an appetizer I sampled something similar to an egg roll that had a paste made with raw salmon wrapped around shredded cabbage and dipped in horseradish sauce. My main dish was also Salmon, roasted at a very low heat for 4 or 5 hours. The food was all quite good.

The second picture is a statue of a horse that was in the middle of a street just behind my hotel. There were several streets in the downtown area that were set aside for pedestrians, with many small touristy shops along the sides.

Our meetings were held at the Scania headquarters about a 20 minute train ride from the hotel. They went very well and we seem to be establishing a good relationship with this company. We were all impressed with the way the company was run and with their manufacturing setup. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take any pictures of the production line. Of course, we came away from the meetings with a lot of urgent work to do, so I am going to be under a lot of pressure to get everything done before leaving for our Texas trip in two weeks.

We were disappointed along with the rest to hear how the hearings for Harvey went. We are continuing to pray for thier family.

-- Newel

I'm a grandpa again

Jacob and Lindsay had a baby boy yesterday afternoon. He weighed 9 pounds 4 ounces and was 19 1/2 inches. They have named him Tagg Jacob. Mom and baby are doing fine. Katelyn has already staked out her position as primary baby holder.

I'm including links to a couple of news stories about Jed and Cally. We're still fighting but I am too mad and frustrated to give details right now.

http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695233957,00.html

http://www.abc4.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=bb61df03-3340-43eb-94a4-6f5f60bc07d3

Latest court update

Cally and Jed got back from their latest trip to Idaho yesterday evening. The custody proceeding did not get finished, so there will be another court date around Christmas. The judge would not allow Jed and Cally to intervene in this case, meaning they have no legal standing and are basically on the outside looking in. This is a very bad development and leaves little chance that they can win this battle.

However, they have still not lost the war. Their attorney and the LDS Family Services attorney believe they have a very good chance to win the appeal on the case that allowed the birth father to retain his parental rights. Unfortunately, that appeal could take up to a year.

But we are going to have to start thinking outside the box if we want to make certain they don't lose him between now and then. We might be going after some media attention soon, because they are running out of money and time.

We are so thankful to all of you for your thoughts and prayers. This whole situation is very surreal. I never imagined we would be in this situation.

Flint

What about Sammy?

OK, what does Samuel need for Christmas? Just realized I really need to get moving on the few Christmas packages I do have to send out this year.

Lynette and Rachel were both sick for more than a week (separate weeks), and as soon as they were well, I was sick for a week. So, now I am finally feeling better and am starting to think about Christmas again. And Craig is off to Europe for a week, but gone for two weekends, so I don't know when I am going to get any shopping done!

Flint, you are one up on me. I haven't even dragged the decorations out yet. I keep telling my kids that growing up, we didn't decorate until the 15th, and maybe we should start that tradition. They aren't going for it!

I am also in charge of my Quilt Guild's "Stocking Project" this year, and I'm in the midst of several hundred stockings that I need to fill and deliver to the local city hospital (which wants three hundred to pass out on Christmas day alone. And that is just to the siblings of babies born that day!)

We are looking forward to seeing Newel and his family!

And we are keeping Cally and Jed in our prayers. I just can't imagine any judge in his right mind taking Harvey away from them to give him to an accused rapist.

LaDawn

Calendar response

We think the calendars are great, but I know they take a lot of work and effort. So I will leave it up to you if you have the time and energy.

With all the stuff going on with Jed and Cally we are having a hard time focusing on much else. We dragged our Christmas decorations out of storage yesterday but haven't got them up yet. Anette is babysitting Harvey until Tuesday evening, and that is pretty much a full-time activity.

Christmas Calendars

With Mom, Dad, and Flint's family going for a non-materialistic Christmas this year, and with our visit to Texas, we thought it would be good to send our usual family calendars out after our trip. That way we can include some recent pictures of the Dalleys, Moores, and Stephens together at Christmas time. Am I right in assuming the calendars are still wanted, even though we have decided to cut back on gifts?

-- Newel

Samuel's Mission e-mail Nov 26, 2007

Everyone:

Well, transfers are this Wednesday, and there's a fairly high probablility that I'll be transferred, so we'll see where in LA I am next week.

As for this week, it was really, really foggy Monday evening and Tuesday morning. You know, take-out-a-knife-and-cut-it type thickness. Anyways, on Tuesday I was on splits with our Zone Leaders, and I was the one who stayed here in Watts, so, we ended up tracting for a bit and met some good people, and then in the evening we visited a couple people and had the Libro de Mormon clase. You know, it's kind of odd--I've become so accustomed to being bilingual that it'll be kind of strange for me when I come home to be speaking only English. I guess I'll have to ask Brother Reyes to help me keep in practice.

On Wednesday, we had interviews with President Blackburn, and then we visited several people. We visited Maria Hernandez and helped clean up her house a bit as we often do, we visited Veronica and her family, and we also tried to visit Marcelino. Marcelino has been sick this whole week, so we haven't been able to speak with him. We're praying that this will pass quickly, because it's the last thing he needs on top of all his other problems.

Thursday was Thanksgiving, so we had a two-zone Turkey Bowl football game, and then we visited Norman and planned. In the evening we visited Hermana de la Torre. She's doing pretty well. We've actually been seeing a good bit of sucess with less-active work recently, which has been heartening, given how none of our investigators showed up at church this Sunday. Pues, asi es la obra misional. After that, we cooked our Thanksgiving feast of baked chicken and stuffing and other such stuff(Elder Bartholomew's parents included some stuffing and dehydrated potatoes and such for Thanksgiving in his birthday package).

On Friday, we had our zone meeting, and then we visited Cindy. Cindy is having trouble feeling like she's getting an answer to her prayers about the Book of Mormon, and she has a friend who's inviting her to Catholic mass, so she's kind of divided right now. We also finally contacted Lisa, a referral we've had for a while. She seems to be earnest, so she should be a good investigator. That doesn't mean she'll be baptized soon, of course--one thing I've learned about missionary work is that a lot of times your work is more ploughing and preparing the soil so that some time later the seed can take root in them.

On Saturday we visited Tammie, who was one of the people I contacted while on splits, and she also seems good. We also taught Lola, and she seems to be doing pretty well. She's just one of those people that it's difficult to teach since she tends to leap from subject to subject with her questions. We also taught Rosario, who was a referral that we'd just gotten from Elder Thurston and Elder Kite. It turns out she's the sister of some members that live in our area, and she just recently moved from Mexico. The main issue with her is that she is one of the many people who just believes that all churches are good and everyone gets at the same point, anyways. That's a problem we run into a lot--a whole lot of people seem to believe that you can go to whatever church and believe whatever as long as it's about God. Doesn't matter how contradictory the doctrines are or what they say the requirements for salvation are, if they teach about Christ, they're good. Which is half-true--any church that teaches true doctrine about Christ does have goodness in it, it's just that only one can have it all, and a lot of people don't see that. Anyways, off of my tangent...

Sunday we had church, we visited Hermana Smith since she's going into the hospital tomorrow, we visited Irene, and we visited Hermana de la Torre again.

Well, everyone, I think I've already interspersed enough random musings in the body of this e-mail, so I'll end now.

Elder Samuel Stephens
37 And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth.
38 I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours.
John 4: 37-38