Completely Floored and Dusting Up in Pontiac

 A gathering place in the Seminole Hills Historic District   

 By inspiration Sister Goates and I have been called to serve and fellowship both members and friends of  the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Pontiac Michigan. Members in Pontiac drive several miles to attend church in surrounding communities. We are helping to restore an older home purchased by the Schoolhouse Foundation where we will live and help gather saints locally to socialize, and both celebrate and take inspiration from the remarkable church history here and promote and plan for the growth of the church.

The first order of business is refinishing all the wood floors on both levels - which really is a completely daunting and dirty task (we are vacuuming up bag after bag of sawdust) as purported in the title above. Our initial efforts have been magnified thanks to:

• A number of members who provided hand and belt sanders, sand paper, vacuums, fans, goggles, masks and other required equipment.
• Six dedicated, hard working young missionary elders of the church.
• My former ministering brother who took on sanding the stairway.
• A neighboring member with a passion for gardening, knowledge of the community, and a recommendation of a good hair dresser. 
• An inspired ward mission leader who volunteered and helped me realize that without doubling our hundreds-of-hours labor to completely remove the old stain, the finished product would look shoddy.
• A member of our mission presidency who without fanfare took on and independently resolved a number of plumbing problems, such as completely reseating, resealing, and caulking a bathroom toilet.
• An Elders Quorum president who just happened to bring by dinner to feed us, the missionaries, and others who were helping. It was like manna miraculously being provided.
• Ten members of the Rochester Ward along with their Bishop and a number of youth who worked hard to sand the floors and clean up the yard.
• About 20 trips to the basement to reset the circuit breakers when the 2 large floor sanders and 10 hand and belt sanders working simultaneously would repeatedly overload the electric power. 

I knew this was going to be a big project and I worried, but it turned out to be even bigger than I imagined. Faith doesn't make things easy, but it does make things possible, particularly with the aid of angels. So with faith and the miraculous dedication of numerous earthly angels this project is well under way and will be completed.