Ron Smith's travels

We spent 3 wonderful weeks in North and South Carolina.  We met with saints in the Winston-Salem and Carey, NC areas for church services, and visited in a number of homes.  The saints in the Upstate Restoration Branch in Taylors, SC invited us to come on the weekend of June 14-15.  On Saturday, they had a nice dinner for us, and we visited for a long time before and after with a number of the Saints.  On Sunday morning, I taught the Sunday School class and preached.  There was a very good spirit there.  The whole congregation went to dinner at a nearby Hibachi Grill so that we could all sit at one table.

On this trip we felt especially blessed that the Lord had placed us at the right place and time.  One night we got a text asking us to visit a lady in the hospital at Gastonia, NC.  Her name is Antonia, and she had been in a diabetic coma for three days.  Josh Pederson is one of two young men who are currently studying Spanish in Oaxaca, Mexico.  He met Antonia's brother, who expressed the desire for someone in North Carolina to go and administer to her.  Josh called his father in Independence, Missouri to see if there was any elder who could go.  One of Josh's good friends, Tyler Ramirez, had been asked to go to North Carolina with me, but had not been able to go.  Tyler remembered that I was there, so I got texted.  As it turned out, we were within 200 miles of Gastonia, and had nothing scheduled the next day, so we went to see Antonia.  We found her niece, and she took us to the intensive care ward of the hospital to see Antonia.  We found her awake and alert.  As the family spoke mostly Spanish, we sang a few Spanish songs and had a wonderful "Spanglish" conversation.  I administered to her, and we enjoyed a good spirit. At the end of our trip, we stopped by to see Antonia once again.  This time, she was not in the hospital, but had been moved to a rehabilitation center, so we know that she had improved a lot.