Barbara Henry 1959

Good evening my dear family and friends.  I didn't get to my blogging yesterday but here I am on Monday evening.  It has once again been a wonderful week.  It amazes me how fast the time is passing by.  It seems it is Monday and we are having our special Monday devotional and then almost immediately it is Friday and we are finishing up the week and looking forward to the weekend.  Of course the weekend passes like lightening and it is Monday again.  On June 1st I will have been out on this mission for 4 months.  What have you done with the last four months?

I feel so sad and empathetic for President Thomas Monson who lost his beloved wife this week.  They had been married for a very long time.  He will be so lonely without her.  I know!  Even with lots of people around all the time it won't fill the loneliness of loosing your eternal companion.  The funeral will be at noon on Thursday in the Tabernacle.  My thoughts and prayers have been and will continue to be with President Monson and his family.

Today's Monday devotional has been one I have long dreaded.  All missionaries are required to give a three minute biography of their life.  Today was my day! I was the fourth speaker.  I am going to publish my talk here on my blog.  It is a very succinct few paragraphs of 72 years of life.  I hope it won't bore my readers but this blog is a part of my mission journal and I think it should be included here.

 

Winkie Family following temple sealing 1981

Barbara Winkie – 3 minute profile for May 20, 2013

Good morning, I am Barbara Winkie.  I was born in Rochester New York and was raised by a great, single parent, mom.  I have 3 siblings that I am close to but who are not members.  After graduating high school I worked as a long distance telephone operator.  The day before my 20^th birthday I was on the 2^nd day of a 48 hour Grayhound bus trip from Florida.  There was a layover and bus change in Scranton, PA.  My seat mate on this bus was a nice looking young soldier.  We married 3 months later.  He loved to tell people how we met and delighted in adding “and Barbara was a pick-up.”

Don served for 26 years in the United States Army and we moved a lot.  Two sons were born a year apart during my first tour in Germany.  Another son was born in Virginia and a 4^th son was born in New York just before Don went on his 2^nd tour to Vietnam.  While on a two year assignment to Korea our family was enlarged when we adopted 3 little girls.  How blessed we were.   Don always liked to get a rise out of people when he would say that our children were 2 Krauts, a Yank, a Reb and 3 Gooks.  We were a military family and were proud of it. 

Don and I were married in a Lutheran Church and on our 10^th anniversary we renewed our vows in a Methodist Church.   Four years before we adopted our daughters we were stationed in Germany for our last tour.  We had been married for 15 years and life was good but it was about to get better.  I borrowed a book from our library called “The Restored Church” donated by the LDS Chaplain that served the needs of the 96 families in our little housing area.  That book converted our family.  Soon we were baptized and exactly a year later all 6 of us were sealed for time and eternity in the House of the Lord in Bern, Switzerland.  Now we were REALLY married.  The girls were sealed to us in the Washington, DC temple.  When Don retired from the Army we moved to Las Cruces, New Mexico. We were there for 9 years and it is where I went to college.   We moved to Missouri in 1993,

Our family fulfilled a long held dream when we purchased our 80 acre farm in Caldwell County Missouri.  When people asked Don what he was going to raise on our farm he would say “grandchildren.”  We made many memories with our 32 grandchildren and 14 greats.  We also raised meat goats and at one time we had about 500 breeding does.  Our eldest son has named his new restaurant in Pennsylvania “Eighty Acres” in honor of his dad. 

Through the years  my husband sustained and supported me in the many leadership and teaching callings I have had.  Most of that time he was a ward or branch clerk and did it all.  When he died two years ago, just 7 weeks before our 50^th anniversary, our children and friends all said that the Lord must have needed a dependable clerk.  Don embraced computer technology way back to the Commodore 64 from Radio Shack.  We always had a PC in our home.  When I graduated in 1988 Don gave me my first laptop.  It really came in handy when I returned to the university 2 years later for my Masters in Social Work.  Countless times I called Don at work and he would walk me through my newest computer glitch.  A good friend, who is now the mission president in Greece, told me that Don would serve this mission with me.  Every day when I turn on my computer Don is with me.    I think he continues to give me prompts in my work in Data Quality. 

I love this church and I know that the work we do is so vital to Heavenly Father’s and Jesus’ plan.  I love my mission and am so grateful to be able to serve in the “Happiest Zone” in the mission.  In Jesus’name, Amen.

That's it for this week.  I have been very busy with my work in the Data Quality Zone.  I do wish I could explain in detail what a special week it was.  It truly was!  Just know that I am doing the Lord's work like all missionaries but I just can't talk about it.  Too sacred.  Not secret but confidential.  

Oh, I must mention that I had two grandchildren, Miranda and Jonny, who graduated high school this week. Jonny is planning on serving a mission and Miranda has already enrolled in Avilla College.  I am so proud of them.  Both of them are brilliant students and the sky is the limit for what they can do.  My granddaughter, Reanna's husband, Zach, graduated from college since last I wrote.  He managed to support a wife and 4 daughters while he worked hard for his degree.  I am very proud of him.  He has already been accepted into graduate school.  My granddaughter, Jessica, will soon have her first baby.  His name is Kai and is due in June.  She will be a super mom.  Grandson, Michael Ivan, a Marine in California was married on May 11th.  I welcome Vicky in the family and pray they will always be as happy as they are now.  I love all my grandchildren so much.  Hugs and kisses to you all.  Have a wonderful week everyone.  "Upward and Onward now!  Sister Winkie