I was working with a Methodist fellow who told me he didn’t think there were any Mormons in the area, but it wasn’t too hard to find the local chapel on Sunday. Steeples grow around there like weeds, so I suppose it is easy for one of our chapels to go unnoticed.

On the other hand I visited with a friend who had moved there recently who told me about the camp on the Res where the Young Men had their Father’s and Sons camp each year.

And thanks, Researcher, for initiating the tangent!

Heavenly Father often works that way, sending someone on an assignment with one apparent goal, but other purposes, sometimes even greater than the original assignment, often make themselves manifest. That way, the true purposes are kept hidden until the test of obedience is passed. Unfortunately, I too often flunk the test of obedience, and the possibilities of what could have happened are kept concealed.

The itineraries that the Lord gives us are not necessarily “efficient” by our standards. He has His own economy, which can only be seen through His overall and eternal perspective.

Ardis, I’m VERY interested in the photo you have. Do you know if it was taken in Rock Hill?

Spend a few warm spring days there and you’ll wonder how anyone could have thought that anyplace else could be the promised land!

The link to your material on the Catawba Tribe is interesting and very welcome. We’ve run into them earlier on Keepa in very tangential ways (the elders who served the South Carolina branch of which the Noblin family were a part also worked with the Catawbas, for instance), and Chief Blue was a staple of seminary faith-promotin’-stories when I was in high school, but I had never seen an overall account before. I think in my stock of as-yet-unpublished “Latter-day Saint Images” I also have a photo of a group of Catawba members standing in front of their meeting house.