Spring has arrived in Tennessee

Finally!  It has been a long cold winter with two terrible ice storms that kept us in our SMALL apartment for days.  Elder Dunn got a little unsettled during those days and I was searching our medical supplies for a tranquilizer....alas...it is all in Tucson.  But now the trees are blooming white and purple and pink before their leaves turn green.  The tulips are out all over town and all the acres and acres of grass is green.  The young horses are in the pastures and all is good with the world.  It does rain a lot.  Each week we have at least one day of rain, and this week I think it will rain every day.  But it is a warm rain (most of the time).  But just I put my long johns on the shelf in the closet, it turned cold again.  Drat!

   Because the weather has warmed up a little, we have once again been able to travel around some.  This is a small town we traveled through which actually showed us which way to turn to go to "the promised land".  I was happy to know where it is, but unfortunately we didn't have time to go there.  We were on our way to Sumner County to a museum because Hiram Bell Bennett, an ancestor of Elder Dunn, was born there.

 We arrived there after a 50 minute drive to find a sign that said:
   CLOSED....WE WILL OPEN APRIL 1ST.  We we about 3 days too early.  This a picture of the statue to honor Confederate Soldiers which stands in front of the museum.
  We enjoyed the drive and it was really nice to get out and about.

We have been pretty busy in the mission office.  All the missions are down-sizing to about 200 missionaries.  The leadership has decided that 250 18 and 19 year olds is too many for mission

presidents to handle effectively.  They have opened new missions in order to even out the numbers.  That means as we down size we close apartments.....which means more work for Sister Dunn. This is a picture of the 'apartment files' drawer.  You know how much I love filing...... Elder Dunn is busy getting cars ready to sell, as we have been cut down to 72 cars, instead of 88.
It would be nice if I only had to work with closing 1 apartment at a time, but it usually ends up as I start on one, at least 2 or 3 companionships decides they need to move. My desk is constantly covered with open files as I manage closing and opening utilities in all these little towns whose whole desire is to make it as hard for me to accomplish my work as possible.  Copies of my driver's license is now all over Kentucky and Tennessee.  When I go to close some utilities

they don't want to let me because I was not the one who opened the account.  It is hard for them to understand that that person left probably 2 or 3 workers ago.
  A couple of weeks ago we traveled to Jamestown Tn., about 2 1/2 hours east of Nashville.  We went to deliver something to the senior couple serving there.  It is a small depressed town which they consider to be in the Appalachians.  It is not what I ever conceived the Appalachians to look like. But while there we visited this small historic village called Rugby.
"Founded in 1880 by English author Thomas Hughes, Rugby was built as an experimental utopian colony. While Hughes's experiment

largely failed, a small community lingered at Rugby throughout the 20th century" (Wikipedia).
Here are some pics from that trip:
This is the church in Rugby. They still hold services there each Sunday followed by a potluck dinner.  There are about 30 people who attend this service each Sunday.

 Built in 1882, the Thomas Hughes Library is the most unchanged of all the buildings in Rugby. The

library's 7,000 volumes were collected primarily by Boston bookseller Estes & Lauriat, and donated to Rugby's Library and Reading Room Society with the stipulation they name the new library for Hughes. The library still contains most of its original collection, the oldest volume of which dates to 1687. (Wikipedia)
The library is really impressive. In order to read one of the books you have to wear gloves.....but you can come and read them all while in the library.

There were many old photos of the area.This is Elder Dunn's favorite.

This is a very charming little town.  You can come and rent a cabin (actually one of the old homes) and hike the trails and swim in the "men's swimming hole".  Obviously they were not the informed 'modern men' we have now.
We left the Champneys smiling and we were grateful in our hearts that we are not serving in Jamestown.  Sister Champney got a snake bite.....not a poisonous snake, but it was a snake.
   

 On our way back we passed this used car lot.  Do you see anything you would like to take home?

It was a long way home and we missed a violin concert by a young girl in the YSA Branch.  That made us sad.  But we really enjoyed Champneys and Rugby.

I have much more to tell you, but I think I will put it in a separate post.
Love you all and miss you.  This is the best thing we have ever done in our lives and time is going way too fast.  We have now completed half of our mission.

Love, Carolyn