On The Way Home

We have spent the past week at our youngest daughter Rachel's home in Wisconsin. She and Mike are wonderful parents and it's been great to be here. We've loved playing with her two boys.

Going to the soccer games.

Making cookies.

 Getting ready for the baptism.

Check out our baptism pictures.

There are wonderful people in the church wherever you go. What a blessing to have faithful members across the country and around with world who are willing to share their love and testimonies with those around them.

How grateful we are to be part of this great work. How thankful we are to have family with testimonies of the divinity of the Savior. We feel so blessed as we head home.

Last Week

It was so much fun to come to the mission field. Now we leave with so much sadness. Service is supposed to help others, right? Well, I don't really know if that's true, but I do know that the service you give blesses your life a thousand times more than it could ever bless others. With that in mind, here are the last few days of our mission.

Last birthdays

Last hugs from friends

Last visit with ward members

Last good-byes

Sisters forever

Favorite daughter

Wonderful missionaries

Hearts full of gratitude for a life-changing experience - the greatest mission ever.

Changing Lives

As we finish our mission, it's fun to look back and see how people have grown and changed. We feel so excited when we see our converts try new things and accept new challenges. It's like watching a little one learn to walk. We clap and cheer, feeling as excited about their growth and change as we do our own family members.

 Here's a young convert that taught the Gospel Principles Sunday School Class. The subject was Charity, and she did a marvelous job. We felt so proud of her. She had studied her material, finding extra talks to go with the lesson manual. She followed the lesson in the manual. She asked for participation and she bore her testimony at the end. The Spirit was there, and everyone was edified for having attended. She did great! 

 This recent convert has accepted the Aaronic Priesthood and is passing the Sacrament. Elder Monson gave him a suit and two shirts so he would look FINE! And he does, don't you think? He is reading over the Sacrament prayers and saying them to himself. Soon he'll have enough courage to bless the Sacrament. He is also going home teaching. 

 We took a lot of recent converts to look for jobs. Sometimes we had to go back to square one. This is a member's birth certificate. The company she applied to work at wouldn't accept it. We had to go get a new one. Fortunately, she was born in Memphis! We got the new certificate and she got the job.

The children wrote books about themselves. We met at the church each week for a party and to work on the books. Here are a couple of finished All About Me books.

 They loved to play all kinds of ball and games in the cultural hall.

Our last night at the temple with ward members. It will be fun to be back in the Ogden Temple, but wewill miss the little Memphis, Tennessee Temple. We have great memories. 

 This our Wednesday PM Memphis Temple shift. Usually we just had four of us, but one night a month a couple came from near Little Rock to work with us. (She is the one on the far left.)

 This young lady wanted to learn to cook, so we made birthday cakes and lots of cookies for everyone. You can see she has three plates! We had a great time being together, which I think was better than the cookies. 

All of us are growing in the gospel whether we are new converts or life long members. It's wonderful to love each other and cheer each other along as we work to become our best selves.