Missionary Memories: October 16, 2014

I just wanted to write a little to keep up with what has been going on.

We left last Thursday afternoon (October 9th) to fly to Indiana. We had a layover in Salt Lake…..oh, I missed those mountains! They sure looked good! I mentioned to Gary that I was half tempted to just go get a car and head home, we were so close! But, we wanted to see our Indiana kids and grandkids. We got in to Indiana after 10 pm, and by the time we got our rental and then drove to Shelley’s, it was nearly midnight……which wasn’t so bad since it would have been 9 pm back here. But, morning came way to fast! It sure was great seeing Shelley, Grant, Hunter, Ayla and Emilie! We had a fun time getting to know Emi, since she was only 3 weeks old last time we were there. We do chat on FaceTime, though, so she knew who we were, and it didn’t take too long for her to warm up to us. It was faster with Papa, though. She was hesitant with me, but went straight to him!

We were excited to see Ayla and Hunter, and hear how they were doing in school. We had them all to ourselves for most of the day, then Grant’s parents arrived that evening, and also Grant’s brothers’ wife and their 2 girls. So, we had a houseful, but it all worked out well. Saturday was the baptism, and then visiting that afternoon and evening. Sunday, church started at 8 a.m., so it was up early to get ready for that. We got up at 5:30 to get a head start in the bathroom before the rush (I had showered the night before to help alleviate the demand on the bathroom), and we made it to church on time. After church, we had dinner, then Grant’s parents needed to head to the airport to catch their flight. The rest of us visited. That night, I again showered to save time in the morning. We again got up at 5:30 to begin getting ready to head to the airport. It was pouring rain, so we were glad we left fairly early. Plus we had no idea what traffic might be like heading into Indianapolis to the airport. Things worked out okay, got to the airport and checked in just fine. This time, our layover was in Los Angeles, and was a little longer. I said to Gary, hey, too bad we didn’t have a longer layover, and we could have gone to Disneyland!! We got in to San Jose at shortly after 2, and headed straight to the office and got right in to work. When the day was over, we called it a night early, as we were tired! It had been two early mornings, which was like 2:30 a.m. to our bodies. We really had a hard time adjusting to the time zone difference this time. In fact, one day we had a late lunch, and so I wasn’t hungry at dinner, so didn’t eat, but in the middle of the night I got really hungry, and got some snacks out of our bag…things I had for on the plane. Gary said it sounded like a squirrel was in the room!

The weekend went well, but way too fast. We look forward to seeing them again in the spring when we can stay longer!

Today, I had a planned visit from Mark Andromidas from Salt Lake City. He works in the finance department for the church. He was there to go over some finance things with me, and also with Gary and Sister Nedreberg…..maybe a half hour total with the two of them, so the majority of the day was with me. I learned some things that can help make my job easier, as did Sister Nedreberg. It was a very beneficial visit. There will be some changes coming in how the office does some things…..after he visits with President Mella tomorrow. Apparently there are several things we do that we shouldn’t. So we need to make some changes to get on track with the approved program.

Well, that’s about it for now. I will put some pictures on here of Hunter’s baptism day.