February 2013

We seem to be settling into our routine. But we are still not getting used to the cold.

We keep trying to find things to do, so early in the month we volunteered to serve at the local soup kitchen.

We celebrated our 48th wedding anniversary.

Attended several of Taylor’s swim meets. His team did very well. They took first in the final competition between schools.

Attended the temple on a day other than our scheduled shift.

Sandra attended New Beginnings with Tawnya. 

We gave a special fireside to one of the Wards in our Stake for Relief Society Home Making meeting.

We helped clean the church on one Saturday.

We celebrated Valentine’s Day with our traditional night out with Brenda & Lavar Summers and Susan Welker.

Sorry we didn’t get any photos of many of our activities. I guess we are just getting out of the habit.

The highlight of the month was our cruise with Sandra’s brothers and sister. We went to the Mexican Riviera on the Sapphire Princess. We really had a great time.

We stayed the night before leaving with Lee & Nancy. Then flew out of Salt Lake City Sat. morning.

We had a GREAT time-
playing cards

eating a lot

took an excursion on a zipline

whale watching

but best of all was visiting with our family.

Wrapped up the month with the Blue & Gold Banquet with a theme of the Knights of the Roundtable.

Wow, how will we top all that next month?

January 2013

What a great month. In the past we have gone south while the Temple is closed. This year we decided to take off early. So right after our scheduled shift we headed out. We stayed that night with Lee & Nancy. While we were there Kyle showed up bringing his 3 college kids out to schools. We had a good visit with them.

The next morning Lee took us over to where he has his horse stored and worked with Kelsey on how to train a horse.

Then that evening several of the family came over for a fireside about our mission. It was great to see everyone.

The next day we headed down to St. George to stay with Lola & Jeff. We had a good time with them telling all about our mission and catching up on their lives.

Next morning we went on down to Mesa to visit Brent & Lorraine. We spent several days with them. We always look forward to our visit with them so we can get out of the cold in Idaho. That didn’t work so well this year. They had 4 days of below freezing. That has not happened in thirty some odd years. But it was way below zero in Idaho so we still felt lucky.

Brent and Lorraine took us up to Canyon Lake near the Theodore Roosevelt Dam and the Mormon Flat Dam. 

We stopped at Tortilla Flat on the way.

That’s an old stopover town for travelers back in the wagon days. 

The drive was beautiful. We didn't realize there was such beautiful country that close to Mesa.

We attended the Temple with them. That’s always a highlight of our trips to Mesa.

We celebrated Lorraine’s birthday while we were there.

We had a great time visiting with them and going out to eat and catching up on all their family.

Then on Saturday the 12th we went over to Myra & Deon’s to visit for several days. They took us to see the Gilbert Temple.

It will be a beautiful place once finished. We look forward to going there in the future.

While there we decided to go down into Mexico. We crossed the border at a place we had never crossed before. Deon had wanted to go down and check out a place called Rocky Point on the Gulf of California.

The scenery on the way down was beautiful and interesting.

We drove around the city for a while, stopped and bought some medicines and ate while we were there.

While there with Myra & Deon, we had all their family that are living in the area come over for a fireside on our mission. We are getting pretty good at giving firesides.

On Thursday the 17th we headed for Jacki’s in Reno. Stopped to enjoy the view over Hoover Dam ares.

We stopped over in Las Vegas for the night.

Went to the Excalibur Tournament of Kings show.

That was quite exciting.

The next day we went the rest of the way to Jacki’s in Reno.

Jacki took us out to a fancy restaurant where they put on a show at your table while they cook your meal.

Then on Tuesday the 22nd we decided to go over the hill to Sacramento to see Rich’s aunt Donna.

We had a good visit with her.

While in the area we went to see the Nolls that were in the mission in Africa with us.

We stayed the night in Auburn, CA then over the pass on Wed. Stayed that night in Elko.

The next day we stopped at Rich’s aunt Verba’s place in Pocatello to visit.

That afternoon we did our fireside for their family.

Then back home to try and settle in again.

First Month Home

Well, the settling in was tough but we finally made it. It was really hard to get used to all the “Stuff” there is here. 

We had a great Thanksgiving with family.

Then we survived our homecoming talks at church and had a great get together after.

Then we had Tyson’s Birthday Party. He has really grown while we were gone.

But Taylor is the one that has grown the most.

We tried to get ready for Christmas. We had a hard time getting into the spirit. Our daughter invited us to a show at the Civic Auditorium put on by the Playmill Theatre. They presented Irving Berlin’s White Christmas. 

http://www.playmill.com/#!info/c161y

That put us in the Christmas spirit. So we did some decorating and it seemed more like Christmas.

And we are back working in the Temple. That really felt like coming home.

Then Christmas was upon us and we were running around like everyone else trying to get all the gifts for everyone and delivering goodies to all our friends and neighbors. Sometimes we wished we were back in Arusha with the simple life. But the family Christmas party was really fun. 

We realized how much we missed that while we were gone.

Then our traditional New Year’s Eve Party with the dinner club. 

Another thing we have really missed. But as usual the last few years, none of us made it to midnight.

Last Month on Our Mission

What a whirlwind of a month. We had so many things planned for the last 2 weeks of our mission that we were running all the time.

The 31st of Oct. we rode a bus to Dar with the missionaries to attend Zone Conference.

We didn’t really have time to attend the Zone Conf. but being as Elder Hartman (the color code guy) was going to be there we decided to take the time to attend. The bus ride was rather uneventful. Other than the dozens of stops it makes along the way.

We still find it better than driving. We can take in the beautiful scenery and relax and even sleep a little. We had front row seats again, so we really had a great view. Arrived about 5:30 PM and spent the evening visiting with the Nolls.

Next day we spent at the Zone Conference with Elder & Sister Hartman learning about where everyone fits into the color thing. 

We pretty much had all the missionaries from Arusha tagged. So not many surprises there. But it was a great conference and as always we got a good spiritual boost. That evening all the couples went out to a Chinese restaurant with Pres. & Sister B. 

A really fun evening. Pres. B. and Elder Hartman are both yellow (that means they like to have fun and party) so they really entertained us the whole evening.

Next day we headed back to Arusha on the bus. Not so uneventful this time. The bus was late leaving and after turning onto the highway and before the first stoplight the bus broke down. 

We sat there for about an hour as they tried to fix it and finally they had to bring another bus to take us to Arusha. We were thankful the breakdown didn’t happen way out of town. But that put us into Arusha way late. And when we walked into our flat there was water all over on the floor, AGAIN! So we cleaned that up and went to bed.

The next day (Saturday) we had a very full agenda because that was the only day we could pack and move out of our bedroom before leaving for the Johannesburg Temple  on Sunday. And as usual everything interfered with our preparations. First we had to take one of the Sister Missionaries to the dentist with a tooth problem. Then because of the rain one of the members needed us to come get their luggage because they were flooded at their home. And in the process of that we got stuck. It took about 2 hours to get unstuck. Then we tried to get some of the genealogy info into the FamilySearch website for that family and the internet would not work. By the time we got all the fires put out it was 4:30 PM and the day was shot. So we ran like crazy to get some last minute things done and hurried to packed for the trip to the Temple and went to bed.

It had been raining all week (that’s what caused the flood in our flat) and Sunday morning was no different. It was raining so hard that the road up to the church was like a river. We wanted to take a picture of one spot where it looked like a water fall but just had too many things to get done so we didn’t get that picture. We worried that the members that were going to the Temple would not be able to make it to the church. But most were there when we arrived and the rest came before meetings started. And they really looked sharp.

We held Sac. Meeting then decided because of all the rain we needed to transport the members to the bus station. So we made several trips to do that. Then the bus left and we followed along in our truck. The members were going to stay at a hotel that night and meet us at the airport the next morning.

The flight to Johannesburg was quite an experience. We only had one member that had ever been on an airplane before. So they were quite excited about the trip.

We arrived in Johannesburg about 10:00 AM, checked in to patron housing and went over to the Temple grounds.

What a beautiful sight and what a spirit. The members could really feel the spirit of the Temple.

The next 2 days we spent in the Temple with our members. That was truly the highlight of our mission. Those members that were able to go will be so much stronger in the Gospel and such a great support to the other members in Arusha. We commented several times that they seemed to have a glow about them after the temple experience.

The Mission Pres. and his wife just happened to be in Johannesburg to meetings while we were there. And they happened to be in the Temple the day we did the sealing ceremonies and were able to attend those with us. 

Sister Obuya even took her original wedding dress all the way to the Temple so she could have picture in her dress there at the Temple.

Then the plane ride back to Nairobi.

The new couple replacing us had arrived in the mission while we were at the Temple. We had a get together at the Mission Home to welcome them and the other 2 couples that had arrived in the mission. The new couple are named Gotcher. They are form Arizona.

The next day we went back to Arusha. Elder Gotcher drove most of the way. He handled the driving on the wrong side of the road very well. On the way we got another really good look at Mt. Kilimanjaro.

The next few days we spent showing the Gotchers around town and to some of the member’s homes. And trying to wrap up all the loose ends that seemed to just keep coming at us.

On Nov. 14th Gotchers took us to the Kilimanjaro airport and we flew to Nairobi. 

Our last view of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

We spent 2 days there wrapping up more of the loose ends.

Then on the evening of the 15th we met at the Mission Home with all the couples that live in Nairobi and had dinner and a farewell party. We and the Nolls told about some of the experiences we had on our missions. 

Then the Mission Pres. took us to the airport and we flew out at 11:40 PM. We flew about 9 hours to London, laid over there for about 4 hours, flew about 10 hours to Dallas, laid over there for 5 hours, flew about 3 hours to Salt Lake City, laid over there for 1 hour, then flew for an hour to Idaho Falls. 

Most of our family were there to greet us. And that was a great experience. Several of the grandkids have grown over a foot in height. We hardly recognized them.

So now the challenge has been to try to fit back into life here at home. We are finding that a greater challenge than we thought it would be. We’ll let you know when (and if) we accomplish that.