North Country News 5/31/09

Hi Gang, This week has been very typical as far as being busy. We have much to do and find ourselves prioritising things more to get the most important things (people) first. We did alot of traveling also which takes time. We took the Elders from Carthage to Utica for Return and Report on Friday, that's an all day trip, 0530 to 1900 hrs. Saturday we drove to Palmyra for the Horton's Endowment and Sealing. They were both soldiers, he was an inactive member from Utah and she joined the church last year. When they had the baby she got out of the army, he is due to deploy to Iraq on the 8th of June, his 3rd time there. He is a combat engineer by trade an E6 who will make E7 while on deployment. We have been teaching them the temple preparation lessons and they are a great couple. Thrilled about the baby of course. The sealing was very special with their 3 week old son on the alter. We will be going to Palmyra temple next week also to take a YSA we have been teaching the temple preparations lessons too, is getting her endowments. The grove is so beautiful this time of year, we can't help but stop by and see it each time we go down there, it is only about a 1/2 block away from the temple. Is has definitely become one our most precious places here, we will surely miss it. Mom got her stitches out on thursday and everything looks great. The work is going well of course and the Lord seems to put us in the right places at the right time it still amazes us how we meet inactive members all the time. Summer brings some interesting challenges for the army, lots of families move out and new ones move in. A little more upheavel than we would like or can keep up with. We love the work and the people are just great. Keep up the great work you are doing with our grandchildren. Love Mom and Dad

Mission News 5/24/09

Hi Gang, We had a rather unusual week this week. We began the week with visits and making packets and volleyball at FHE. Tuesday was my surgery day. We drove to Liverpool. I took a sleeping pill on the way and with the gas he gave me I don't remember anything. He cut off the root, cleaned out the infection and filled in the root of the tooth. I still have some pretty big stitches. I slept most of the day while dad went to district meeting. On Wednesday we went to watch two of our members perform at a cultural event on post. They had a whole group of Samoans do the Haka dance and other groups performed. They fed everyone lunch (of which I couldn't eat much) and it was a great party! On Thursday the Mission Pres. and his wife came up to interview for a baptism and they took us out to lunch. They leave the mission at the end of June. On Friday we took food for a baptism over to the Sisters because we would not be there. We met our Young Adults at the church at 4:00 and went to Palmyra for a weekend activity called "Gathering at the Grove". They had registration and a dance on Friday night at the Stake Center (right across from the temple). Most of the kids camped at Zions Camp at the foot of Hill Cumorah. On Saturday they had breakfast, service projects or tours of the church sites, lunch, Elder Cook of the 70's spoke, workshops, dinner, a no talent talent show and a dance in the evening. Over 300 young adults attended from Canada and parts of New York State. Dad and I were able to get a temple session in on Saturday. Our favorite part of the day was Sat. morning dad took his run through the Grove and I went and spent an hour by myself in the Grove. It is so beautiful in the spring with a carpet of green everywhere (note the picture). On Sunday they had breakfast and then a Sacrament meeting at 11:00. They had a chorus of Young Adults with violin sing "How Lovely Was the Morning". It was so beautiful and they only had a short time to practice as anyone could sign up. We watched the new Joseph Smith movie at the Hill Cumorah visitor's center and then drove home. We feel so blessed to do these things. We have had such great experiences here and we love the young adults! We hope to settle into a more normal week with lots of visits, meetings, etc. We send our love to all!

Mpm & Dad

Mission News 5/17/09

Sorry for no blog last week. We get too busy sometimes. First of all, thanks to you all for the Mother's Day gifts, goodies and gift cards! It was great to hear from all of you. I'm lucky to be your mom! We have done a great deal these past two weeks. We started out with our Young Adult monthly dinner. Sunday we also brought food and had a YA fireside broadcast. Last week we delivered about 35 Mother's Day gifts to the women whose husbands are gone. These are great visits! They are short and the women loved being remembered and visited. It is especially great for the inactives because there is no agenda, just a friendly visit and asking them how we can help. They warm right up. We are learning to love so many of the families and getting to know them well now. We are doing a lot of driving lately. None of the soldiers in the YA group have a car so we leave an hour early to pick up and an extra hour at the end to take home for Family Home Evening, Institute and church. Also, we had Zone Conference last week in Utica, went to Palmyra on Saturday to take a girl who was just baptized and another to the temple. We will be going to Palmyra the next three weekends. We had a baptism last Saturday after which the Elders were playing basketball and one of them sprained his ankle badly and we were up half the night checking on him at the hospital with the other five Elders. About three a.m. they determined it was not broken, so everyone went home. We also drove a young sister to Syracuse for a counseling session, visited in the Psyche Ward a young woman who lost control and resisted police, helped paint, taught Institute class, cleaned out a storage room and took home piles of blankets to wash, took in several meals, etc. Our time here is certainly not boring. The pictures with this blog are two of the favorites of this week. The first is at Zone Conference with all the missionaries studying their scriptures just before the Mission Pres. enters. The second was in Clayton while we were visiting some members. The little town is on the St. Lawrence River and we saw a huge container ship pass by. It is about the length of two football fields. The spring is so beautiful here. Everything turned green in a matter of two weeks and it it so pretty. The Sacred Grove is all a light green with the new leaves and beautiful spring flowers along the paths. Today was Stake Conference after which we brought home 8 young adults for dinner. We had a great time. We send our love to all and wish you the best. You are in our prayers every day! Love, Mom & Dad

Mission News 5/5/09

Hi Gang, sorry this blog is so late we have had some very busy days lately. The picture is of our YSA group at FHE last week. They wanted to play volleyball and really had a great time. The soldier in the back court with the black tee shirt is Tongaian and was really into it. He is back from Iraq and is from West Valley. There were three soldiers playing and they had a lot of fun with each other. This is what the inside of the Carthage ward looks like with all the chairs down. The big problem this past week was Mom losing her phone. What a Glich that turned out to be. Tuesday night we took the Elders to dinner at their favorite place, Texas Road House. We then drove down to Utica and stayed at the mission home, because one of the Elders from Carthage was being transfered. It wasn't until Wednesday morning that we realized the phone was missing. We thought it was at home and didn't worry about it much. All day Wednesday was spent at the mission office for training because a new Elder was coming back with us. When we got home, Matt had left a message that our phone was at the Road House. When we went over to get it, they told us someone had already picked it up. We got on-line and suspended our phone after learning it was being used and two overseas calls had been made, so we ordered a new one. When the new phone came 4 days later it was missing a SIM card, we are still waiting for that. I can't wait to reprogram all the numbers into the new phone. The lesson is don't loose a cell phone EVER. Mom has been having some trouble with one of her root canals and is going to have endodontic surgery on the 19. They are going to go in through the gum and cut off the affected root and plug it off, if this doesn't work they will have to pull the tooth. She is not excited about the whole process but we'll survive I'm sure. This past Sunday was a really busy day as usual we had CES Fireside for the YSA with a light dinner, pizza and salad prior to. The broadcast was from BYU, Ricks and Apostle Bednar spoke for 50 minutes, it was great. There was a investigator there who is going to be baptized this coming Saturday. She was so thrilled to see so many YSA in the audience. It is hard for people out here to see how really large this church is because they are not around large groups of LDS. She has only been going to the Carthage ward, stake conference will be a real eye opener for her. The work is great, always lots to do and people to feed. Take care of yourselves and especially the little ones. We love and miss you all. Mom and Dad