Saturday, April 19, 2008

Rember to read the post below this one first because this is a continuing story. Down here on the east coast there is a lot of impoverished folks. These pictures are from a source other than our camera, but the amount of worldly wealth down here is unreal.
Don't you just hate beautiful beaches and 70 degree sunshine. Again this picture received from someone else, but there is no small shortage of water around here.
The Elders call these ducks Cancer ducks because of the red growth around their heads, the male is the worst. This momma and her ducklings came around begging for food. This is just outside our apartment door.
This sister has about twelve little ones to manage at once, so please don't get too stressed with 3 or 4 to handle. The lord can bless you when you stay calm.

Dad

Well here are a few pictures of our house and the landscape we left back home in Idaho. Pretty much the way it was when we left.
The freeways got pretty boring and sometimes down right crowded. So we decided on an alternate mode of travel. This provided by our Omish friends down in Jamestown Missouri.
Tom and Carol Clifton put us up for the night in Independance. They took us on a tour of Liberty jail. This is a replica of it, where Joseph and others spent several very wintery months falsely accoused, and eating filthy food. The brother in the forefront was over 6' and couldn't stand up straight in the jail. The person represented just behind is Hyrum Smith. It is stated, that Joseph became well acquainted with the lord in his extremities during this time.
We decided to take rest and stopped to visit some of my long lost relatives here in Florida. Well once again this is actually a picture from our visit to the Busche Gardens just before coming here to Florida for a more prolonged stay.

Ran out of picture space for this post so I will do another one showing where we are now. It is really hard to take here in Ft. Lauderdale and such a "Sacrifice"!

Dad

Friday, April 11, 2008





Pictures:






Having trouble downloading the pictures.








Hi Everyone:


We'll we left the MTC (note pictures of our last day of MTC with the Harriet Nye (for Claudia) Building, the Gibbons, and my favorite picture of "Hurray for Israel" on Sunday after conference for the wide and very long US for Florida. Monday, we went through a terrible snow storm in Vale, Colorado. It lasted a good two or three hours, but we made it. We headed for Independence, Mo where Tom and Carol Clifton are serving a mission. We spent the night with them and they took us around to Adam-ondi-Ahman, Far West Temple Site, Liberty Jail and the RLDS Temple. All so very interesting. You should all read up on Church history. I was amazed at what I don't know. Elder and Sister Clifton take tours through the Liberty jail and do many other things too. They were so nice to us. We had a lot of fun catching up on things. We went across several states after we left Utah – Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia and finally Florida. We passed over the Missouri River, the Ohio River, The Bridge that Billy Jo Macalister jumped off of, (Tallahatchie Bridge) and the Swany River. We went through beautiful Kentucky hills with blossoms of purple, yellow, white and pink. Most of the trees had leaves and everything was green. Kansas was long a bare. We did not have bad weather in any state except Colorado. It was beautiful. The longest part was getting to Naples, Florida which is where we are staying tonight before we go to Ft. Lauderdale tomorrow, Saturday.

The Lord is truly blessing us as we travel and negotiate the traffic in the big cities. It was not so bad. We came across some signs at a place we stopped to eat that just fit our children.

Daniele – “So I’m not Betty Crocker- Deal with It”

Noelle – “I can only handle one person’s problem at once and today is not your day. Tomorrow doesn’t look good either.

Tiffiny – “I’m a beautician – not a magician!”

Jory – “Don’t start cleaning up my mess. It alters my lifestyle!”

Rhet – “When I die, ask my wife to bury me by Wal-Mart, so she will visit me once in a while!”

Eric – “For argument’s sake, let’s just assume I’m right!”

Shay – “If you listen carefully, you’ll notice I’m funny”

Hi to my sister Pam (who lets me call her anytime) and all of my friends Kathy and Pat and Lynn and Angela that I haven’t had time to write to. Thank you for your love and support and thanks to LaRae, Claudia, Peggy, Kaye and Jeanne! I love you all!
My address is Florida Fort Lauderdale mission
7951 SW 6th Street #110
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33324-3211
My number is 208-390-7329. I have free weekend minutes



Sunday, April 6, 2008






Dear Everyone,

Well, here we are at the MTC and truly enjoying the spirit of the Lord. It has been a marvelous week, but coming to a close as we are leaving on Monday morning for Ft. Lauderdale.

Our first day here we barely had time to check in and we were off to meetings. I am constantly amazed at the young men and women who are here to serve. They are so enthusiastic and many things remind me of when my sons served missions. We are being taught by 23 to 25 years olds – some back from their missions only a year or so, but their knowledge is so vast.. We are part of a group of Senior Missionaries of about 30 couples. They say that they had about 200 young men come in on Wednesday and that is low, because of the time of year it is -- just before school is out. The couple missionaries range from 30 to 50 each week, however, they say the number is going down slightly. I was surprised to see that we were not considered young. Many of the Senior Missionaries are younger than us – some in their early 50’s and some in their 70’s. So I guess we are about in the middle. One couple is serving their 5th mission.

Also, the first day here we went to the mail room, mostly to see where it was. We decided to ask if we had any mail. Brad told the girl at the counter that it was our first day and so we probably didn’t have any mail. We had two letters. One from the MTC Mission President and, of course, one from Claudia. All the missionaries standing around said, “Wow! It was fun!

One day, Brad went back to the apartment to get something we forgot. It was evening and I sat down in a vacant room to play the piano a little. I set my purse down and then forgot it when I left. About 4 hours latter that night, Brad asked me where my purse was because it had a significant amount of money in it. We couldn’t find it. Brad left to go back to the piano and I prayed. He came back with the purse and the money was in it.. Where else but at the MTC!

We had lunch with our Mission President (as of July). He and his wife came to the MTC to eat with us. She was a cheerleader at Ricks when I worked in the Athletic Department and Dad was working with the football team. They were very nice and so excited to be going to Ft. Lauderdale with their 5 children. They were about 45 I would guess.

The food is very good. Lots of fruit, salads, and then of course the greasy stuff too. We eat 3 big meals a day -- something that we are not used to. It is funny to see the young Elders with 4 or 5 glasses of blue, red, and purple punch, and then 2 glasses of milk on their trays.

One day I didn’t feel very well. I have really had a hard time with my neck and joints -- I guess arthritis. I’m not sure why it is acting up so much now. Anyway, I left the meeting at break time, and went to our apartment. I knelt down and prayed and asked Heavenly Father to help me because I hurt so much all over and I knew I couldn’t go back to the meeting without help. I got up and went back to the meeting and had one of the best days I have ever had. It always amazes me what the Lord can do when we exercise a little faith..

We have a lot of roll playing. People come to our apartment and pretend to be investigators or new converts and we teach them from “Preach My Gospel.” Of course we have been taught what we should teach, but mostly we are told to teach a topic by the spirit. It was scary at first, but then it was exciting to see how much we really knew and could talk about..

Yesterday, we said goodbye to some of the other couples. It was amazing how close we all got in just a short period of time. We took pictures and laughed and cried a little. It will be sad to go, but we are excited to get going.