Mission Training Center Provo, UT

Hello Everyone!                

The MTC is such a wonderful learning experience.  Some days have been challenging, more from the standpoint that we are not used to sitting in a learning environment everyday all day, but we have learned a lot even though we have been here before.  Guess you CAN teach Old Dogs new tricks. :)  The Spirit here is wonderful and we so admire the young Elders and Sisters.  Their training is so much more intense than ours.  They are incredible!! 

Our District and our teachers, morning and afternoon. Elder Hoggan was asked to be the District Leader.  We had Sister Kacher and Brother Bellingham as teachers.  Fabulous Teachers!!  Last week we learned Preach My Gospel all week.  And yes we discovered many ways we can us this training in our CES assignment. :)

 

 

And most of you know that we have seen Anthony, our grandson, here at the MTC.  He leaves for Armenia soon.  He is doing great and has the language down pretty good.  We see him everyday and get to give him a big hug. :)  Such a cool experience.  We found him one day in the MTC Bookstore.  Here is a picture.

 

 

 

We got to see Marilyn on Friday and watched the BYU game at her house. (so sad :(:( the game I mean.  Sad for Taysom Hill)  It was great to spend time with her.  Today, Sunday we went to visit Scott and Terry and had a nice visit with them. Sorry I didn't take pictures of them.  We've got to be more picture minded!!

 

Tonight we had a freside with Vai Sikahema, former BYU football star, and pro football player. He is from Tonga but lived most of his life here in the US. He retired in football with the Philadelphia Eagles and now works for NBC in Philadelphia in Sports announcing.  He is also a stake president.  He had some great stories, fun and inspiring.  He showed us how we can all easily be missionaries.   It was awesome!!

 



 

We leave on Wednesday after a few days of CES training, and will stay one night with Bruce and Millie, another night with Uncle Dave and Aunt Florence, one night in Liberty, MO.  The next day we plan to spend some time at Adam ondi-Ahman, then drive on to Bloomington, IL where we will watch Madison play a college soccer game.  We will spend the night there then go to church, then drive down to Leah and Chris's and spend Sunday night with them and Monday day.  We are considering driving on a couple of hours in the evening toward Huntington, as we have a meeting with the CES director and the Stake President the next day, Oct. 14th Tuesday, at 6 pm in Huntington.   

 

Truly this is the Lord's work and there is much to do!  We hope we can be diligent and do our part in building the Lord's Kingdom and prepare for the coming of our Dear Savior Jesus Christ.  We love Him so much and we hope we will show that love by our actions.

 

We love you all!  Be busily engaged in good works every day!!  Please show the Grandchildren this blog so they can see the pictures and read it too.  Thanks and love to all our Family!!!



Always things going on:)

Met up with Aaron and Terry Jentzsch this week.  They were here visiting from Germany.  He married a girl from Utah that he met when going to BYU.  They have been married over a year.  She loves it in Germany.  We had a nice visit with them.

We went to see Tia and Deren at the North Star farm so we could see the new baby goats. They have five of them. Oh my gosh they are so cute!!  They were not afraid of us and they love Tia!!!  She takes good care of them.  We also got to see the live camera Deren keeps on the baby Kestrel falcons, whose parents chose Deren and Tia's barn to nest. :)  What fun it was to visit the North Star Farm.!! 

Spent a little time with Grady one day so his mom and dad could go to the temple on their anniversary.  Here are a couple of shots of this CUTE Kid!!  Such a busy sweet boy. 

We meet with the Stake President on Tuesday June 17th and if our papers are all in order and the interview goes well, then he will be sending in our papers to church headquarters and to the general authorities!  Getting closer :):)

Our trip to St. Louis and Nauvoo

As you know we went out to visit Leah and Christ and their family this past week.  We flew out Friday May 30th for St. Louis and the next day we attended Madison's graduation.  It was wonderful!!  Madison was recognized for her two scholarships she was awarded, Soccer at St. Charles Community College and a PTA cash award.  We are very proud of her!!  The picture at the bottom is of her and her high school soccer coaches.  They selected her for some very prestigious awards at the end of the year soccer picnic.  And besides all this she is a remarkable person!  Just like all of our incredible grandchildren and our children and their spouses!! :):)

We attended a Cardinals game with Chris and Leah and Madison and her friend.  We had a blast at the game.  We are officially Cardinals fans, t-shirt and ball cap and all.  HOWEVER, we are still Rockies fans too. :)  We figured it didn't matter so much and so we are fans of both. :)

We got to see the Arch too from a distance while we were downtown!  They were doing construction there so we didn't go and visit. 

We had rented a car at the airport when we flew in and so on Wednesday we made a trip up to Nauvoo about 3 hours away and spent the night.  We toured some of the restored homes and buildings.  At the Land and Records office we found out where my Great Great Grandfather Laban Morrill in the 1840's lived in Nauvoo.  So we went and took pictures of that.  It is now a cornfield. :) We also took a picture of the Mississippi River where the saints left in the winter and crossed the ice covered river for their trek west to Utah.  We got to see a musical put on by the senior missionaries about Nauvoo, and we got lucky and were in town in time to see BYU's Living Legend, a group of dancers performing Polynesian and Native American dances.  It was spectacular!!  Literally!  The costumes were incredible but even more so were the amazing dances.  It was a real treat.  We spent the night in Fort Madison Iowa and then went back to Nauvoo in the morning to attend a session in the Nauvoo temple.  Beautiful!!!  Such a very sweet experience there!  Then we drove back to Leah and Chris's.

When we got home that evening, we attended Olivia's dance recital.  Man that girl can kick it up!!!  She is so good.  She did a tap dance solo, a tap dance with four much older girls, a hip hop with a bunch of girls and a guy, and then some modern and some ballet dances.  It was incredible.  She is very talented.  We thoroughly enjoyed it.  They said we couldn't take pictures so we didn't get any of her dancing, but here's a couple of cute ones of her.  She is really growing up. :)

So we rented a Kia this time.  We didn't particularly care for the look of the style, but we did like the car and how it handled and the comfort (for a smaller vehicle).  Anyone know anything about them? 

 

 We also went to Leah's workplace and saw her office and met her boss.  It's a very nice office and I discovered something about Leah.  She is a mixed artist!!  She made this artwork to go above her desk!!  Ask her about it.  I told her she should put it in a show or something.  :):)  Seriously, it is really cool artwork!  Leah's going to kill me for including a photo of her.  She didn't have makeup on that morning because she had an early morning doctor appointment and she had been up really late with Olivia's recital the night before.  So Leah, don't be too mad please?? :)  We had lunch together at Jimmy John's (my new favorite sandwich shop) and after that we flew home. 

 

 

Now we are waiting to visit with our Bishop on Tuesday night to wrap everything up with our mission papers and then get an appointment with our stake President.  It's getting closer!!

 

 

 

 

 

Dillon's graduation

We attended Dillon's graduation at Utah State.  He did it!!!  We are so proud of him and we look forward to the next few years of his life.  He told us he will finish out the automotive classes he's been taking at the tech school.  He was specially selected to be in this program and he also received a scholarship for it.  He has fixed up and sold many cars the past few years and made some money doing it.  He plans to have his own business after he serves a mission for the church.  Anyway, you'll have to ask him more. :)  Very talented young man. 

 

Now we're off to St. Louis, MO to see Madison's graduation and attend Olivia's dance recital!!

Mission

Today we spoke with the doctor on Thursday and he is nearly finished with our paperwork and will soon send it to our Bishop.  Once the Bishop gets that we will make an appointment with him to go over everything.  The paperwork should be all done by then.  Next after that will be an appointment with the Stake President.  So..... getting closer.  :):) 

Family. It's what's forever!

On Sunday we stopped over to the graveyard in Fielding to visit Morgan and Logan's grave (Tia and Deren's two little ones).  We cleaned the grave and left some flowers.  Love those two little ones.  I regret that I forgot to get a picture while we were there. :(  The headstone is so sweet. 

Memorial day was spent with Catherine, Jeremy, Matthew, and Brett at Tia and Deren's house and family.  We enjoyed the farm, especially the boys.  They got to gather the eggs from the hens.  So cool!!  And then Tia let us take the eggs home.  As many of you know they just hatched some chicks and so the boys got to see and pet them.  It was funny to watch the boys warm up to those feathery little things.  Their dog Cass was carefully watching over the chicks to make sure the boys took good care of them.  See in the picture.  I personally enjoyed the lilacs and irises.  Tia had a bouquet of the lilacs on her table.  Nice!  Then we had a picnic at their house and watched the boys play in the mud.  Their favorite was the swing in the huge willow tree in the front yard.  Thanks Tia and Deren and family for a fun cool awesome day!!!

 

We cannot attend Anthony's graduation on Friday because they only got so many tickets and there weren't enough, so we went to his seminary graduation.  Funny thing about that, he was scheduled to lead the opening and closing songs for this, but he was late because of a soccer meeting and no one knew that.  And Julia didn't know he was supposed to lead the opening song and so when they said his name her eyes got big and she jumped up, knowing he wasn't there yet and went up and asked the announcer if she should do it for him and of course they said yes.  Then he announced that a prettier version of Anthony would lead the song. :):)  Then Anthony came in while she was leading.  Way to go Julia for covering!!!  He gave her a big hug later.  :)  We are really proud of Anthony and all his accomplishments in seminary, school, soccer and many other things.  He received a scholarship from Utah State University!!  And you all know he is leaving in August to serve a mission for the church in Armenia. :)  Proud of you Anthony!!

May Birthdays & Anniversaries

We want to wish a happy May birthday to our fabulous kids and grandkids:
Damia 17 on May 3rd
Aubrey 16 on May 5th
Austin 20 on May 15th
Lincoln 7 on May 17th
Grady 2 on May 18th
Payton 14 on May 19th
Tegan 8 on May 21st
Cody 36 on May 29th
Roan 1 on May 29th

May Anniversaries  Congrautlations!!
James and Julia  22 years
Amy and Nate   6 years
Scott and Leora   20 years
Bruce and Millie   14 years