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It was announced in church this morning that Bishop Laurie Haller is appointing me to be the Lead Pastor of First United Methodist Church in Indianola, Iowa effective July 1, 2017. Indianola is the county seat of Warren County and is 15 miles south of Des Moines. It is also the location of UMC related Simpson college. Time to pack!

How long where you are now?

I hope this appointment will be a blessing to you and your family and that you will be a blessing to the congregation.

My wife has learned the ropes of being a Methodist preachers wife. I already see boxes being filled in the dinning room. Methodist clergy are known for hoarding boxes.

Congratulations! I don't envy you the moving part, but wish you well in your new church position. From what I hear about the terrain in Iowa, you can probably see your new church from where you are.

A move every 6 years or so, makes life interesting.

I used to sell a lot of books. Hardly any lately. Not much of a market or too cheap to bother.

Best wishes on your move, and on your new ministry. Aside from the benefit of having the parsonage across the street, and having a denominationally related college in town, are you getting a larger congregation?

Ed: We live south of the Seattle city limits by about a mile in an unincorporated pocket of the county so the Seattle Police Dept. has no jurisdiction. King County Sheriff's Dept. does however and I doubt they would care if you parked in our driveway unless a nosy neighbor complained. If you and Trudy are planning to play your car stereo at a level loud enough to shake the dishes on my shelves and throw beer bottles out into the streets till 2 am, I will be banging on your door with a baseball bat before we have a chance to explain anything to the local sheriff. Seriously, we have a lot of bags of juniper brush we cleared off an embankment in front of our house blocking the back of our driveway that we are slowly chopping into smaller pieces to get carried away in the "Food and Yard Waste" bin each week and were wondering if we could get it cleared out by the time you get here. It has been a record breaking rainy winter so I have not been out chopping brush near as often as we were expecting. The most popular "RV park" that I am familiar with is commonly known as the "Wal-mart Parking Lot" or the back of "Fred Meyer" parking lot. We are members of AAA so I will consult with them. Since you are a veteran, the VFW up the street might not object to you parking up there, but there is a rather noisy motorcycle club that meets at the same corner so I can't vouch for it being quiet, especially as there are normally a couple of fireworks stands at the same intersection around the 4th. Fireworks unfortunately are legal here around the 4th and it gets noisy enough that most vets with PTSD leave the area or go to bed under heavy sedation.
Weather varies, generally sunny and warm, 80's is considered HOT around here. We hope for clear skies but don't count on it.

Ed: Given the drought that Florida has experienced the past year rain sounds great, however wouldn't you know it, yesterday as we where getting ready to leave, we had a series of short downpours. First rain in 31 days. Here in Florida there have been a lot of fires due to the dryness.

Congratulations, Timothy. I wish you well in your new appointment.