Arriving in Poplar

Arrival time was 6:00 pm September 21, 2013.  We found our cute little home at 205 D Street West.  We were pleased to have a carport and a small garage.  The home is comfortable and just right for a Senior couple.  It was like being newly weds and coming home from a honeymoon to unpack the boxes of our household items that the church provided and had setting inside. Our vehicle was also filled to the brim from what we had brought from home.

This is the view from across the street.  It is a new business, a Deli called Andy's All.  President of the Branch Pres. Hollom works there part time because it is his brother's business.  The red home on the corner of the intersection is our landlord's Don and Donna Gungell.  He is very nice, and got right on a plumbing problem and a broken washing machine.

Here is the Poplar Branch Meeting house.  The chapel has 13 benches and there is a Relief Society room and 4 maybe 5 classrooms, a library, clerks office and Presidents office and a mid-size Cultural Hall.

Our first week at church, I counted 25 in attendance which included the 4 Elders serving here and ourselves. Only one deacon comes and he passes the sacrament to everyone in about 5 mins.  There is much reactivation work that needs to be done here.

Soon after arriving, Elder Allsop and I went about cleaning up the debris and cutting down the weeds in the barrow pit next to the church.  Then we got enough interest that Pres. Hollom came with a riding mower one afternoon and began cutting the tall grass and weeds in the field next to the meetinghouse.  The Elder's and ourselves and one ward member Sister Baurers helped.  It surely did improve our image to have it done and we felt it set an example to the neighbors most of whom do not mow and keep their yards nice.

Picking up trash that is dropped and blown around, could be a daily job in Poplar.

This abandon trailer home is the view directily across the street from the Branch Meetinghouse.

To become acquainted with where people live listed on the branch membership rolls, we made a Newsletter telling about various activities going on in the branch and delivered them over the course of a couple of weeks to every one that we had a solid address for.  Here is Elder Allsop coming out of one of the homes where he left the newsletter on the doorstep.