Thankfulness and mail shout-outs

Sitting in my office listening to my sweet companion softly playing "Pooh Corner" on his guitar. Earlier this evening we had dinner with one of the widows in our ward. Ron and I gave her a message on the Worth of Souls, along with a thought from Henry B. Eyring. In preparing to give the message, Ron got up from the table to get his scriptures and whispered something like "I'm so glad I married you." This sweet sister who has only been widowed for about four months, quietly said "I never heard that in my marriage." How can I begin to thank my Heavenly Father for this kind, gentle man I married? I am blessed.

 

***

Great big mail shout-outs to Christopher for the fun birthday package for his dad, and my sista Deb...the great thing about having belated birthday wishes is it just extends the festivities! Also to the Betteridges and D.B. It was a super funderful mail day!

.... to know the richness of His blessings!

What an awesome Sabbath it was yesterday! We had a great day at church, teaching a darling Primary class of 7 and 8 year olds. Ron even got a birthday treat from the Primary Presidency! After church we had the companionship of three missionaries over for dinner (the 5 of us didn’t have a D.A.) Then we had all the missionaries, Zone Leaders & Assistant to the new Mission Pres. over for cake and ice cream for Elder Williams birthday. Afterward, we all headed over to the church for “The Work of Salvation” Missionary Broadcast. It was awesome! We were edified, uplifted and taught how to be better missionaries. We love this work that we get to do every day and it just confirmed to us that we are in the exact place that we should be at this time in our lives. How blessed we are to have a living Prophet on the earth today! When they say the work of the Lord is hastening, we see more clearly why. Our desire is to share the Gospel with everyone. To let them know that Christ’s atonement is for everyone. Having Jesus Christ’s name over my heart makes me braver (is that a word??) than I ever thought I could be. Now I know that I can be brave even after my mission, because I will have Jesus Christ’s name forever embedded in my heart. If you have had the desire to share the Gospel with someone, be brave. Do it. Heavenly Father will help you because He wants you to succeed. He wants His children to return to live with him again. All of them.

 It was so awesome at the end of the broadcast last night the closing song was

"Called To Serve", all twelve of us stood and sang it.

 

It's Birthday Week and mail Shout-Outs!

We have a bigger district than we have ever had before! 

back row: Elder Inzunza, Sisters Bitter, McQuay & Williams, Elder Williams

front row: Elders Hawkins, Turner, Garza & Page. An awesome District.

 

Ron received a big box of goodies from our friends,

 Carol and Jeff Gollihur...

 

...this was dedicated to the Tornados of Kansas and any

possibility of seeing a flying cow! 

 There's just something funny about having a flying cow in your living room!

 

Fathers Day & Birthday thank you's to Jeff & Carol, Amy, Andrew, Elly & Owen.

Jon & Angela & the 3L's,  Holly Wiersma and Erin, Ben & the boys

 for the gift that was torture to not open for nearly three months.

Janae & Peter & Annabelle & Daniel...you're right, going to the mailbox
each day was a treat!

Happenings of the week

 

We had dinner with our new sister missionaries at a cheap,

but really good Mexican restaurant in Garden City, after a meeting.

 

 We went to a birthday party for 90 year old Dollie. She lives as far

east as our ward boundaries go. We visit her every month in the rest home she lives in.
She has been telling us about her birthday since last December,

so of course we couldn't miss it! Lot's of her family came. Ron and I sang to her.

 

 

We had a ward picnic. Fun getting to visit with everyone. Our building

doesn't have a cultural hall like most ward buildings, but we have this

huge lawn out back that is perfect for gatherings like this.

 

 

Ron celebrated Fathers Day opening gifts and cards from the kids.

 

We had our last Zone Conference with the CCSM : (

Here with: Sisters Hendrix STL,McDermit,Macovichuk,Olsen,Bitter,

Pres. wife Sister Anderson, Mcquay, ME, Prince, STL Tisdale & Smith.

After this conference President and Sister Anderson took me and Ron

out to dinner. They gave us a book called "The Power of Everyday Missionaries",

a book that has been on my Deseret Book wish list! We love the Andersons, and

we'll miss them and all our friends in the CCSM office.

We also had an amazing week teaching an investigator couple. It is such a privilege to be in the Lords service and witness first hand the change His Gospel makes in the lives of those who he has prepared for it!

 

Happy Father's Day!

                 Happy Fathers Day to my companion,

who is a loving husband, caring father, and super amazing grandpa!

    I love you Elder Williams!             

 

go here to see how much we love our dads.

...and I hope you  love watching this as much as I did.

This is the first picture I saw of Ron.
That's when I knew he was someone pretty special.

TOASTY!

This is by the bank near our apartment. With the wind blowing it feels like we stepped inside a furnace.

A place for our Family Reunion and Mail Shout-Outs!

There is an awesome water sports park/campground about a mile from our apartment. We have driven past this sign for the last seven months. Even though we can't go swimming while we're serving on our mission, our curiosity did get the better of us and we decided to go check it out.

 

 We knew we would LOVE it here, because ...well, they said we would!

 

 

It has a convenience store...

 

...a watersports recreation building...

 

 

...a bait shop for your fishing needs...

 

 

...even super fun paddle boats you can rent...

 

 

They have everything you could possibly want at a fun, family, water sports park...

 

EXCEPT WATER.

We think we'll go ahead and re-name this LAKE WANNABE!

 

***



Mail shout outs and virtual double high fives go to Kadyn Del Toro and Becki Blackner, for keeping our mail box from being completely abandoned by the mail carrier! Thank you for making our week!!

Holy Cow!

We just had the tornado sirens go off. Holy Cow that got our hearts a pumpin.! We did exactly what you're NOT supposed to do...we went outside with the camera!

...It's probably as safe outside as it is in our apartment, on the second floor, with no inside walls. Yikes!

We set up our tripod for this shot.....

We decided to run back to our apartment...we couldn't see anything interesting.

Planting Seeds in Dodge......Literally!

  When springtime was approaching we were asked to go help another member family roto-till their garden plot down at a community garden.   The husband had injured his shoulder and asked us to help.  Working in their garden got us missing our garden back home.  We wondered how we might grow one here at or near our apartment complex.   The Garcia family from our ward lives right behind our apartment complex.   We have been over to their house a few times and we love them!   We approached Brother Garcia about working together with their family to plant a garden in their backyard.   He said they had never planted a garden before, and seemed a bit hesitant at first.   Later, he approached me and said their family was now enthused about trying to plant a garden.   In the meantime, Brother Brinkerhoff from the ward offered to lend the Garcias his roto-tiller to prepare their land.   So, on Memorial Day, good Brother Brinkerhoff took some time away from being with his family to drive into town (he lives 40 minutes away) and bring his roto-tiller.   He and Brother Garcia and I (Ron) took turns tilling the soil.  It was pretty hard and needed several passes.   The excitement level was building with the whole Garcia family as they saw this plot of land being transformed into a family garden.    Next step was to go to the nursery and pick out some plants.

The whole family invited us to come with them to the nursery to pick out plants.  The two older daughters Dayanara and Yarelli (they have 4 children) were excited to pick out their seedlings.  The family had met and each child was allowed to pick out the plants they wanted to grow in the garden.   Next, it was seed bed prep time.

Brother Garcia and I made some rows for planting and the two girls inspected to be sure they were straight.   They were not very straight, but passed inspection anyway.   Next was planting time.

Each of the three oldest kids (including oldest brother Damian) dug the holes for the tomato plants, then planted and watered them just the right amount.    They continued planting and as they did Sister Williams drew a pretty diagram to help them remember what was planted in each area of the garden.  They planted a combination of seeds and seedling plants.

When we were all done, the proud gardeners posed for a picture!

We go back on a regular basis to check on the garden and it looks fantastic!   The corn seeds have sprouted and are growing great, along with all the other plants.   A bunny might have eaten some of the leaves off of one watermelon plant, but otherwise the garden is thriving!   As Kathy posted previously, we later went over for a joint family home evening and we talked about gardening, planting seeds and watering and helping the garden grow.  We then turned to Alma Chapter 32 and talked about how we can likewise plant seeds of faith in our hearts and nurture them to grow as well.   It was one of the best Family Home Evenings I have ever attended.   Who could have guessed that all those years of working in our little backyard garden was actually mission prep, and that this sweet family would be so excited to learn how to plant a garden in their backyard.   We really feel blessed to be a part of their family in this way.

Loving the work ~and the people~ in Dodge

Wow, it's about time for a new post.
 The past couple of weeks have been crazy busy,
but we've had tons of fun!

We had  "The last supper" with our 'mini District'  at the Brinkerhoff's,
farm, clear out in Montezuma. They're an awesome family in our ward. We got to
play with their baby cows. This is Elder Romero, getting his fingers sucked on by a calf.
Elder Romero was transferred to the Garden District, one town over. We'll miss him.
For some reason the members couldn't get his name right, and they all called him
 Elder Romano.
We called him Elder MacGyver, because he always carried little tools with him and fixed stuff.
***

 While we were dropping off donations to New Hope (like the Salvation Army)
a couple of children were feeding a baby goat (yeah, a goat-in town) So I asked them
if they wanted to get their picture taken...suddenly kids came from everywhere to
get their picture taken! Hahaha we have no idea who any of them are!
 Little Spanish kids are so adorable.
***

 Then we had FHE with the Garcia family (love these guys). They live right
behind our apartment bldg. They are the family Ron helped to create a garden.
(I'll do a separate post on that fun adventure.)
***

This family lives in Dodge, also. Here are seven of the eleven

 kids in this family. The 4 older boys pictured here have recently

been baptized, as well as an older brother. We are now teaching
 their older sister and her husband. Hopefully their mother will

            also someday be baptized. She has had a really difficult life. They live           

 in the most humble of circumstances, but the kids are all really smart.
***

 During our District meeting we got a little distracted
during accountability, building a temple out of Starburst wrappers.
See the Angel Moroni on top? He's made from a Rolo foil wrapper.
***
Our new BIG Dodge District!

Front row: Elders Williams, Page, Inzunza, Hawkins & Turner

Back row: Sisters Williams, Bitter and McQuay

We went from a mini district of 4 missionaries, to 8 of us!

These are really great missionaries. We are so excited to

have such a strong district in Dodge City!