Christmas Lights and Hurricane Nights

Christmas lights have been going up on the Square for a month now. Every day we see more trees filled with white, red or green lights. It started in my favorite chestnut tree. I remember how excited I was to be here to see the holiday preparations unfold as we began our mission last year. It is a different feeling this year but still just as exciting.

This past week has been very full. Ed's mother had some health issues last week serious enough that we felt a quick trip to Pennsylvania was needed. Autumn wanted to go with us and take Edison so it was quite the trip. Edison was so good, sleeping most of the way. We had an interesting delay in Denver, but as we got underway we were only an hour behind schedule. An interesting announcement was made by the female captain; "Welcome aboard" she said, I have to tell you I have no idea what time we might arrive in Philadelphia but my goal right now is to get you to Philadelphia today!" She continued to explain that they had just come from Washington, DC and had to divert around the storm.

Yep.....Irene was already messing with our weekend. We flew 1500+ miles to be in a hurricane!
But Ed's mom and family were happy we were there. It was important. Everyone fell in love with Edison, the youngest of the clan. Babies certainly do bring out a wonderful side of people. He was such a good, happy baby that even on the plane or waiting in the airport we would get smiles from all sorts of people.


It was fun to get comments from other young parents traveling with babies. One one leg of our trip there were two couples with twins. The young dads spent most of the trip walking the aisles of the plane with a baby. Edison was asleep. ^_^

Irene wasn't as bad for us as she was in many places. We had about 6 inches of rain between about 9PM on Saturday night and 11:00AM on Sunday. There was very little wind with the rain, but the wind picked up on Sunday mid morning. We think that's when the tree in the backyard must have gone down. Well....it didn't really go down; the big tree hit a smaller tree and then hit the power lines above the garage, lines that go across the backyards of all the houses on the street. Many thousands of people were without power, some for several days, but we had power throughout the storm. We were very blessed.


Ed has stayed in PA to help his mother and I am missing my companion. It is strange to be a missionary without him especially as I watch the lights go up on the Square. This past year has gone by so fast. I don't want to miss another day without being together. Hurry home honey!

Shorter Days and Shorter Nights

I know, it's supposed to be "shorter days and longer nights" but for some reason I am having shorter nights too. I think the general shortness of our time here is creating that. Last night I couldn't sleep because I kept dreaming about moving files in the computer and I couldn't find the right files because the control numbers kept changing and I was putting the wrong data in the wrong folders. I woke up in a sweat!

We have been going to work earlier to see if we can get ahead on some of the projects still left unorganized. Ed continues to work miracles with the Africa records. We are finished with Tonga, Austral and Cook Islands and have Malaysia organized. Western Samoa has some issues but we are moving ahead with those files and should be able to start loading some things by the end of September. New Zealand is also done. Yep! We are moving right along. I am now working to organize what we have from Tahiti, Fiji, Tuamotu, and Tuvalu. It is pretty exciting stuff.

We have had a fun two weeks with all our family together. Needless to say Edison is now the most spoiled child on the planet with doting aunts AND grandparents.

We had a great time together.

Edison enjoyed being with the family at Derrick's graduation,



at Autumn's birthday dinner and celebration,





and just hangin' around the house.





Last week in devotional Elder Brewis (he and his wife are from England) gave the devotional thought and she the scripture and prayer. He began by saying that his thought was one of gratitude for the example set by certain of the young elders in our mission. Elder Brewis (a student Medieval scholar) goes regularly to the public library. To do this he takes the TRAX. Apparently the TRAX route was recently changed slightly so that the train normally taken goes to the County Court House. It is only a matter of 1 block and across the street from the prior stop but it is now out of the zone boundaries for the young elders. He told how he watched several young elders exit the train one stop earlier so they would not go outside the boundaries even though it meant that they had further to walk. They wanted to be obedient to the rules.
Elder Brewis was very impressed with this. (The Brewis's have foster 18 young men) Sister Brewis then read the scripture about the stripling warriors. It was very nicely stated for these sweet elders.

We are the mother's of the stripling warriors of the latter-days. I think of Edison and wonder what his world will be like and pray for him to be valiant. He has certainly started with a family who loves him. I pray he will believe it all; because his mother, too, will teach him and he need not doubt.

Our One Year Mark - Three months to go

August 6th last year was the first day of our mission. We only have three months left and there is so much to do before we leave and so much to miss when we go.

This past week has been a week filled with reminiscing for me. Ed endures the best he can when I get with friends from the past. He is very good to me. We saw some of our friends from Houston; attended a party with some of the missionaries I served with in Thailand in the mid 70's; had a party with some of the Thai members from Thailand as we said goodbye to one of them who was returning to Thailand. But the week was not all about friends alone. Our family is together again for a couple of weeks. We are grateful that our girls drove safely from Texas to be with us here. They arrived to see their nephew for the very first time and they are in love with him (as we all knew they would be). He is so cute and is changing quickly, as babies do, into a little boy with a fun personality; lots of smiles and a bobbling head as he tries so hard to understand how to use his new little body. He is getting spoiled already by his two aunts.

It has been fun to have our girls here close by. We spent a fun day in the canyon yesterday. After lunch the kids did a little raft trip on the river while Ed and I watched the baby.

Yes, this is Ed watching the baby..... ^_^

It was so lovely to spend the day in the mountains. We were under a tree with a cool breeze and I enjoyed watching the wind sweep across the grasses on the mountains. It looked like little like a fog blowing across the mountain with the light green, gold and brown colors changing with each movement from the wind. It was so peaceful (even with the sound of the highway and the Heber Creeper nearby). There were many people up at the little park, but everyone was happy and enjoying their associations with each other.

As the time drew close for the kids to be coming off the river I walked down to watch for them and try to catch a picture. I waited for about 45 minutes before they came but the others who were floating by would wave and greet me, inviting me to "come on in". They were all happy even though the water was very cold. I enjoyed sitting in the hot sun and listening to the river. Why is it such a peaceful thing to do? I dearly love the outdoors, the mountains, the trees, the sounds of the water and the wind. Did we come to the earth with this love or do we develop it?
I think I would rather be in the mountains than anywhere except the temple which we sometimes call the "mountain of the Lord". Hmmmmm?

With the realization of the shortness of our time here there is much I am concerned about getting finished. Not only the work which we have begun on the oral genealogies, but our own work, my own family work that I feel I have also been called here to do. The days are quickly going by and there is so much to do. I received more from my mother this week; such treasure from our family. I hope that I am up to the task. These things need to be recorded so they are not lost.

I have also been helping another sweet missionary sister put her own family book together and she is leaving the mission this month so the pressure is on. it will be done tomorrow, I hope, and go to the printer for a proof and then final printing. Because of these books I have been helping with and other books I have seen done by missionaries I am inspired to do my own family books too. I hope I will be able to finish one before we leave the mission.

I am enjoying the local farmer's market. I have been treated very well by one woman from whom I buy a case of raspberries every week plus fresh apricots and cherries. They taste so good. I enjoy sharing raspberries because everyone seems to like them. One of my sister's has a big garden and she has been sharing some of her zucchini. They are huge and very tasty! I have also enjoyed watching the growth of the garden by the old cabin between the Family History Library and the Church Museum. I still don't know who gets the produce from this little space....tomatoes, herbs, onions, pumpkin, corn, etc.

Corn and pumpkin growing strong!

One kind of funny thing happened this week while we were having our companion prayer together on Thursday night. We had gone to workout at the gym like we do many days and Ed usually walks home from the gym and I will often go and visit my mother for a little while knowing I will get home before Ed because he usually takes a long route home so he walks for 2+ hours. This night he walked too far so he was wiped out. During our companion prayer, kneeling together in the living room, I was saying the prayer and all of a sudden Ed screams and I look up and see him shoot up to his feet, teetering back with a wild look on his face! I thought he was going to crash through the sliding glass doors! He continued to scream and then did a hobble step to the chair and I realized he was having a severe cramp in his leg. He kept moaning and moving around the room stopping at the dining table where the pain began to lessen and final stop. It didn't take much more than 20-30 seconds and afterwards we chuckled, but it was a frightening experience. Initially I was afraid he was having a heart attack and was going to fall through the glass. Needless to say, when all was calm and we decided to finish our prayer, Ed decided he wouldn't be doing it from a kneeling position.

Today at church a young woman spoke about the symbols that God has given us to remind us of how much He loves us. The symbol she chose to share briefly was night and day. Each day we can wake up feeling good, vowing that today we will do all that needs to be done with a great attitude and loving everyone and then as the day progresses we make an unkind comment, we neglect things that should have been done or we forget commitments we have made and at the end of the day we aren't feeling very charitable to anyone, including ourselves. But then we are able to go to sleep and get rested and wake up another day to try to be a little better. It is like the resurrection. Because of Jesus Christ we are able to have another go at it when the sun comes up. To have the chance to try again to become better people, a little kinder, a little more giving, a little more caring about others. Heavenly Father knew we would need to have many days to practice before we could return home.

I am grateful for each new day.