People and Places

We have decided that life on a mission sometimes feels like every

day is Sunday---but all the days seem to blend in together after a while.  We are seeing so many new sights and meeting so many different and interesting people along the way that it is sometimes hard to keep track of everything. We feel that this blog will really be valuable to us one day when we try to recall people and places.

One of the biggest landmarks in Pittsburgh is called the Cathedral of Learning.  It is affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh and is the second tallest educational building in the world, with the tallest being in Moscow.
The inside of the building truly looks like it just came out of Harry Potter.  In fact we've heard many people call it "Hogwarts"!  The bottom floor is basically a very cool study hall that is very solemn and quiet.  On the upper floors are many of the classrooms that are called "nationality rooms". They are designed by different ethnic communities in the city as a gift to the university.  It just has to be the most interesting college building that we have ever seen.

We are getting a first hand look at all the
hills, steps, and bridges here.  The pictures we try to take though just don't seem to do it justice.  We drove up a hill the other day to visit a family and Jim said that he's not sure he could have made it up in a jeep!

We have combined district meetings with the Northside and Morningside districts and we had an extra nice one this last week where we had our meeting, cleaned the kitchen at the Institute of Religion (church educational center for college age kids), exchanged $5 gifts, and went to lunch at Boston Market. We took pictures of the group that will undoubtedly be split up soon:{  Pat loved her sister missionary nutcracker that Sister Toupin made--complete with name tage and scripture case!

One of our best Christmas memories will be an activity we had at a senior center in an area called Swissvale. We visited, helped serve and clean up lunch, sang Christmas carols, and visited some more.  The people there were just delightful and they seemed to enjoy so many cute young people coming to visit.  It is sad, but the churches in downtown Pittsburgh are just beautiful with gorgeous architecture and stunning stained glass windows, but many of them are mostly empty or closed down.

Some of the people at the senior center mentioned that it is wonderful to see a church with lots of activity going on. We are also excited to have our "Christmas Tree" up!!  We got a 12 days of Christmas package from Jared and his family and we will open our first gift soon.  We are also starting to receive other packages and cards.  Thank you to everyone!!

Christmas Begins

It has been fun to watch the city of Pittsburgh come alive with the Christmas spirit.  It is also quite refreshing to be able to focus more on service and the true meaning of the Christmas season.  We had our first zone conference on December 2nd.  It was a learning experience for both of us, but especially for Pat.  Since she has never served a full time mission before, the  districts and zones etc. are all new to her.  The zone meeting was held in a chapel in Green Tree, PA and we were given instructions from President Johnson and his wife.  Each district in the zone prepared musical numbers so Jim and I were involved in learning a special arrangement of Away in a Manger with our district and one other district.  The worldwide Christmas initiative of "He Is the Gift" was presented and we were given our wallet size cards to give out.  It has been so fun to give these cards out in grocery stores, hospitals, and just to people that we meet and have reason to engage in

a short conversation.  The faces of each of them has lit up when we have presented them with a card.  We have explained that the video on the website will help them feel the Christmas spirit more. We have found that the more we watch it and the other church Bible videos, the more we also feel the Christmas spirit.

On December 3rd, we had quite an experience with our new friends from Hawaii (previously Micronesia).  Arson (age 23) had what we now know was not really an esophageal transplant but more of a 'resection' and total reconstruction.  We got up at 3 in the morning to get them to the hospital by 4 am.  He then underwent 14 hours of surgery.  We visited the hospital a couple times during the day and we could really relate to their family's heartache and worry.   We then came back in the evening and were there with the family when the doctor came out to tell them the outcome and explain how the surgery had gone.  It was then that we learned what a delicate operation it had been, with the surgical team having to work carefully around the trachea, the vocal cords, and the aorta.  It seemed that they were very hopeful that everything went well and

since he was sedated and on a ventilator we all went home for the night.  The next day it was so great to enter his room and see him awake, smiling, and giving thumbs up for picture taking.  We were all very grateful and excited that he was in such good spirits and doing so well.  It has been a week since that day and he is now transferred to a regular hospital room and so far things are going well, but still with ups and downs.

We have made some member visits, ward councils,  and attended a couple of ward parties this week.  We are still really having trouble putting names and faces together.  One ward is usually hard enough, but to get everyone straight in two wards for two "old minds" is really a challenge for us.  Jim keeps telling everyone that we are "just off the boat"!  Wonder how long we can use that excuse!

We also had a really neat family history experience this week.  Pat knew that

her third great grandfather, Robert Gibbs, spent some time during his life in Pittsburgh so she brought along a three ring binder of his history-----but she hadn't looked at it much in the last few years.  As we drove through the countryside to the temple last week and saw some of the signs that said Washington County something in the old brain clicked. Pat realized that we had a tiny tidbit of information that said Robert was born in Washington County which is just next to Alleghenny County where we live. We don't know anything about this family line previous to Robert--no parent's names or anything.  So this line has basically been a "dead end" for doing much more research.

Anyway, we decided that since we are so close to Washington County that we would look into things here a bit.  Pat called Lorrie at the church family history center here.  She made the comment that we didn't need to come to the center because ten minutes from our apartment is the best collection of history on western Pennsylvania available anywhere--- at the Carnegie Library.  And so guess

what we did for our P-day this week?  Lorrie gave us a good lead of a friend whose name is Marilyn and works at Carnegie. With her help are finally making a little progress.  We didn't find anything earth shattering, but we did find a good lead for a court case with the name Robert Gibbs in the right time period.  This probably means that next P-day might be spent rummaging through old books at a courthouse somewhere!



We also wanted to mention that we have also attended our first baptism in the mission field.  The young man baptized was Gregory.  He and his family have recently moved her from South Africa.

They were originally from the Congo. They were all baptized previously, but Gregory was busy playing on a competitive soccer team and wasn't too interested in the church.  Turns out that he started reading little bits of church literature and the Book of Mormon secretly on his own and before long he gained a testimony of the truthfulness of what he was reading.  He just received the priesthood last Sunday and is so excited to now be able to visit with the Elders as they teach the lessons.

We have also been able to visit in the home of LaShawn and her children, Grace and Jeffrey.  LaShawn was just baptized last April, but it seems like she could have been a church member for many years.  She has a great knowledge of the scriptures from her previous church, and she is already teaching a Sunday School class.  She is working towards going to the temple next April.  We have attended some Family Home Evening lessons that the Elders have taught to Grace who was baptized a few months after her mother.

Thanksgiving Week in the Mission Field

Our bullet point "to do list" from last week sounded really good at the time, but of course we had to make a few 'course corrections'.  Right after we made the list, we got an assignment from the bishop to help a family from Hawaii (and previously Micronesia) who are here for surgery for a 23 year old son.  It seems our ward has 8 hospitals within the ward boundaries and some of them are very prestigious.  This particular young man was sent here because no one else could perform an 'esophageal transplant'. Seems it is done routinely by a doctor at UPMC (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center).  They are staying at a hotel paid for by insurance, but they have very few other resources so it led us into a few interesting experiences trying to help them.  One of those was trying to find a restaurant that serves rice, since that is their main staple food.  Turns out that downtown Pittsburgh doesn't have a Panda Express!  Being new to the area, we ended up at a Chinese restaurant in a less desirable part of town and as we were leaving the restaurant we witnessed a somewhat noisy and scary demonstration connected with the Ferguson shooting.  Chalking up another cultural experience! Pat also ended up cooking lots and lots of rice for this family later on.

Anyway, this family has been on a roller coaster of emotions for a year as they were shuttled from one hospital to another and had insurance battles in the middle of everything.  As Pat talked to the mom we realized that it may be another "not so coincidental moment" since we can really relate to the 'roller coaster emotional thing' after all that Emily went through before we came on our mission.

P.S.  The building in the picture is not the hospital.  It is the U. S. Steel skyscraper and a major downtown landmark. UPMC has it's administrative headquarters there.

We also spent some of the week trying to schedule times to Skype with all of our kids and their families---it was challenging to juggle times, but we finally accomplished it and it was so fun. We have their pictures hanging all around our apartment, but being able to visit with them "live" is wonderful! Mission rules for couples are much different than they are for the young Elders and Sisters who only get to call home twice a year----on Christmas and Mother's Day.

The Wednesday night before Thanksgiving we went on a visit with Elder Hartman and Elder Sorenson to Denise, a black single sister.  She is less active in the church---but not in her testimony of the gospel.  She herself is elderly and now takes care of an elderly mother in her home and tends two small granddaughters as well, so she can't often get to church. We asked her to tell us about her conversion to the church and what an amazing story we heard.  She said she had grown up going to the Baptist church and as a young woman had severe intestinal problems. This caused her to have some surgeries and be hospitalized for several months.  During the whole time that she was in the hospital, her pastor did not visit her and told her he didn't make hospital calls.  When she regained her health she began thinking about searching for a new church.  She had somehow been given a Book of Mormon at one time and began studying the Bible using the

footnotes at the bottom of each page in the Book of Mormon.  Then one day, two missionaries were accidentally in the wrong area, but knocked on her door anyway.  She answered and when they told her who they were she promptly said she was already reading the Book of Mormon.  Of course, it didn't take long for events to unfold from there that led to her baptism.........Just one of many neat conversion stories we have recently heard from members here....


Thanksgiving morning we went to watch the 1st and 7th Wards "turkey bowl".  The highlight was watching the two sister missionaries play with the members and Elders.  One of the sisters made a "miracle catch" that Jim is still talking about.  He said he wished BYU receivers could play as well.  The real miracle was that Pat actually got a picture of it!!

In the afternoon we were invited to eat dinner at the home of one of the senior couples in the mission.  We took a new investigator, Sibel, with us.  She seemed to really enjoy sharing the holiday with others.  There were several other missionaries there and also some other members.  We were surprised to see several deer right outside the apartment eating their Thanksgiving dinner on the patio!  We were each asked to share one of our most memorable Thanksgiving experiences and we had to agree that this year will be one of the one's we will always remember--- even though it is hard being away from loved ones and family traditions.

On Saturday we drove to the Columbus Temple with another couple from the ward.  Many of the youth and leaders were there to do baptisms for the dead.  It is a very small temple, but very beautiful and we had a really memorable time there. It is three and a half hours away so it was a long day trip, but we were glad to be able to go.



The next closest temple to us is Washington D.C. and we hope to get there before our mission ends.  The Philadelphia temple will be completed in 2016, but we are not sure just when.

Exploring Pittsburgh

One of our first stops has been to the building that we think will probably become our "home away from home"!  Three wards meet here and we are assigned to meet with two of them.  Since they each have a block of three meetings each Sunday, it will probably mean that we will have very long days on Sunday.  We have really enjoyed the meetings though and also getting to know many established members, brand new members and investigators of the church from various backgrounds.

Another nice surprise has been the opportunities we have for exercise here.  The church really encourages missionaries to exercise at least 30 minutes each day and longer if they want to get up early.   Sometimes it can be hard if you live in an apartment, have a busy

schedule, and bad weather.  We were so excited though to find a wonderful park just a couple miles away from us.  It has a track around a reservoir and a lot of trails and paths everywhere.  We have already been walking there twice and really liked it.  The weather really hasn't seemed as cold as we thought it would be either, YET anyway!!!  We had one day that had just a 'dusting' of snow, but it seemed like they put down more salt on the roads than there was snow!

We have found out that Pittsburgh is a city of hills, rivers (3 major ones), bridges (446) and lots and lots of steps.  We are trying to take the steps everywhere we go to also add to our exercise.  We have also heard that there are some other wonderful parks a little farther away so we want to explore those soon.

Today felt like our first real "P" day (Preparation Day).  Most missionaries seem to really try to take full advantage of these days that come around once a week on Mondays.

The first thing we did today was to visit the Vintage Senior Center that is just down the street from us.  We were so impressed with it! Okay----we know that means we have officially entered old age!

We have been assigned by the bishops to help older single women in the wards and so we wanted to find out the services that were offered there.  Anyway, it will also be a great place for us to go in and use their treadmills and other exercise equipment.  Don't laugh too hard!!!

We then went to the Heinz History Museum--
yes---ketchup, along with Big Mac's and Mister Rogers all originated in Pittsburgh. It is a museum associated with the Smithsonian museums and it was very impressive.  In fact, we got a year membership so that we can take some of the young Elders and Sisters (or other visitors) with us.  We decided it was so interesting to us that we can spend many more hours there.

There is a whole floor dedicated to sports and we thought of all of our family as we visited this floor.  We took a few pictures that we thought some of them might like.

Turns out that the first jeep was invented in the
small town of 'Butler' that is in an area northeast of Pittsburgh.  We plan to visit there one day.

Of course, there's also lots about the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Pirates.

A lot of other sports like golf, hockey and women's sports were represented.

They had a whole section about black sport leagues too.

 Our museum membership also includes the Fort Pitt museum.  It is located on "The Point" that is at the confluence of three rivers--The Alleghenny, The Monogahala, and the Ohio. There is a beautiful state park there.  The fort was used mostly during the French and Indian War.  There was a lot of Revolutionary history information here and also lots about George Washington.

Almost everywhere we drive we see beautiful views of the city with a bridge or river or interesting houses nestled in the hills.  There is so much to do on our "P" days that we think we will become like the younger missionaries who sometimes count how long they have left on their missions by the number of "P" days that they have left!

Following our fun activities of the day we also went with the Elders to help with a family home evening at the home of Sister Martin and her daughter and son.  She has only been a church member for a few months, but seems like she could have been a member all of her life.

Even though we had a great time today we are now looking forward to a busy week ahead with many missionary opportunities.

• work on a Power Point for the mission president's wife on Poison Ivy (seems most missionaries from the West don't have any idea what it looks like and how bad it can be to get into it).
• work on Family History so that we can start being able to help some of our single sisters with their family trees
• try to keep our fridge and cupboards stocked up and food ready to feed hungry Elders
• visits with the Elders in our apartment building who teach lessons that we help with
• visit by ourselves to the single sisters to try and get to know them all
• follow up with women at the senior center who expressed interest in what we do.  We left "pass along cards" with them (small pocket size cards with information on videos that the church makes available to those who call in)
• study, study, study--to try and learn and remember everything. 

We miss everyone at home, especially at Thanksgiving time.  But we are so thankful for all the love and support that we feel, especially from each of our children and their families.  

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone from Pittsburgh

Home Sweet Home---A Tour

We thought it might be fun to take you on a tour of our new little dwelling.  We are mostly getting settled in and REALLY like it---but it has a few interesting quirks.  It is in an old building with steel doors everywhere.  Jim can't get over how the hallways look like the maximum security cells that he once visited when working on a job that Beacon Metals was doing at the Utah State Prison (Note to Jared---FG2 with solid panels).

The building hallways look like a giant corn maze to Pat who seems to have some sort of "directional disability" that we think is getting worse!  When we were at the MTC they asked each of us why we were each glad to be with our companion.  She said it was because Jim could compensate for her lack of sense of direction.  She has to take her phone in the hallways so she can call if she gets lost!  We've decided she could get lost in a paper bag!

The biggest PLUS for the apartment is the HEATED GARAGE.  We go from our apartment into the elevator or stairs, and then into a car that is hardly even cold.  The weather outside has been freezing.  The Arctic cold front seems to still be with us, but it really doesn't seem too bad  because of this extra little perk.  It makes us feel a little guilty though when we think of the Elders and Sisters who are out in it a lot more than we are.

The inside of the apartment is much more spacious than we expected with an open style living room and dining area.  We brought a few pictures to hang from home and we were given some others by the mission office staff.
It has been fun to do a slight bit of decorating to make things feel like home.

The apartment is on the second floor and is cozy and warm.  It seems like we are sandwiched between the first and third floor and that keeps us well insulated.

We have a nice desk and lots of storage space.  We are not used to having much empty storage space at home so we hope we can keep it empty. We know for sure that we won't be able to fit anything else in our car when we come home.

One of the things we wondered about the most before coming was what kind of a bed that we would have.  We have gotten VERY attached to our bed at home!  The beds are great though and almost as good as our one at home.



The last picture is of our GUEST ROOM! Hint Hint!!  President Johnson has told us that as long as we get approval from him and don't get too carried away with lots and lots of company that he thinks having family here for a few days is a great idea.  So...... everyone just let us know the dates you would like to come and we will schedule you in.

Home Sweet Home

We love Pittsburgh already!

This is one of the scenes similar to what we saw the first night we arrived in Pittsburgh.  We drove through a long tunnel in the early evening and on the other side of the tunnel this is what greeted us! What a great welcome!
The next morning when we went to the mission office, Elder and Sister Thorne accompanied us and led us to our apartment on Friday afternoon, the 14th.  They got a little lost in downtown so we got a pretty good tour of the city trying to follow them up and down the narrow streets.

The neighborhood where we live is kind of a mix of row type houses and apartment buildings.  It is not in the 'skyscraper' section of town, but more on the outskirts.  It is still considered downtown.  There are alot of cool old buildings that seem to each have a story about them that we are anxious to find out about.

We arrived at the apartment and had a welcome and moving crew 'all in one' with a set of young Elders who were waiting for us and are also living in the same building.  They are Elder Harper from Las Vegas and Elder Sorenson from Gunnison, Utah. We have a feeling we will become good friends with them.

The Elders had bought us a few groceries to get us started and we settled in unpacking and arranging everything. We wondered what we would do on Saturday and thought we might have time to catch up on all the reading and computer work we have to do, but that was not the case.  No sooner had the Elders gotten to know us, than they invited us to a service project, a first lesson to a sister from Turkey who is investigating the church, and dinner at the Bishop's house. Then we also got a call inviting us to attend a Relief Society activity at noon at the church.

Saturday morning came and we had to bow out of the service project because Jim had been developing a skin infection while we drove to Pittsburgh that kept getting increasingly worse.  We were told by President Johnson that we could call Dr. Campbell who is a Pittsburgh doctor who donates his time to help missionaries with medical problems.  We called him about 9 o'clock in the morning and got him while he was still at Mercy Hospital downtown--- just a few minutes away from us.  We drove there and met him just before he was leaving to go home.  He prescribed antibiotics and told us a few other remedies to try.  What a blessing for us to get things taken care of so quickly!

We attended the Relief Society activity, had lunch, and met some of the wonderful women in the ward.  Many of the women there have husbands who work or attend school at nearby University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.  Others are women going to school while their husbands play Mr. Mom.  Others are single and married sisters of many nationalities.  We wear name tags but they don't-- so it will take us quite a while to remember all of their names!

Somehow we were also able to fit in our first grocery shopping trip to a crowded nearby grocery store called Giant Eagle.  It has been years since Jim and I have been grocery shopping together for more than two or three items.  Working together is still a work in progress!

We unloaded groceries just in time to be able to get ready to meet Sibel at the church for her first lesson about the gospel.  She is from Turkey and has been searching for truth concerning religion.  She has been attending Bible study classes in an international student group, but has not been happy learning from the revised, modern translations of the Bible.  She is very educated and has a PhD in pathology and embryology.  After our first class with her and the Elders we decided that she is what they call a "golden investigator".  She is reading the Book of Mormon and is coming to church tomorrow!

We then went to Bishop Geherin's home for dinner with his wife and daughter, the Elder's and another couple from the ward and their children.  Then....the bishop asked us to go with the Elder's to the home of Sister Martin.  She is a black, single sister with two children who has been in the military and recently joined the church in April.  She has had struggles, but it was such an inspiration to meet with her and feel of her spirit.  She had asked that her home be dedicated as a new start for her and her children.  The Elders performed this priesthood blessing for her and she was very grateful.

These were two posters that helped welcome us to our apartment on the first day.  We later found out that they were made by Sister Toupin from Ogden and Sister Rock from Morgan, Utah.

We had a hard time figuring out what the yellow one said at first.  Finally figured out that it says "We Stinkin love you"!!


We feel very grateful to get to know such great young people.

We met these two Sister missionaries for the first time after an Addiction Recovery meeting at night when it was about 16 degrees outside.  They don't have a car and so they walk most of the time everywhere they go.  They had come to the meeting by car that night, but they were still so cold and bundled up from their days work. They somehow still had BIG smiles on their faces.

On the road

We left home on Monday, November 8th, and had a hard time deciding which way to go.  We had the choice of I80 through Laramie, WY or I70 through Vail, CO.  It was a tossup because both ways had snow forecast with a huge Artic Front coming in.  We ended up taking the southern route through Colorado.  Everything went well until we started getting closer to Vail.  At about 3 o'clock in the afternoon we saw a sign saying "Vail Pass Closed".  We kept driving just because we felt we were too far along to turn back.  It turned out to be a good decision, because although it was closed it meant we had to be 'snowed in' at a beautiful hotel in a skier's suite at off season rates!  We had a living room with a fireplace and a full kitchen plus a great exercise room in the hotel.  We made full use of all the amenities that we could.

The next morning the road was open and we made it through the pass behind the snow plows! We drove almost all day across the rest of Colorado and into Nebraska.  Our goal was to get to Lincoln, Nebraska to visit and have dinner with my dad's youngest sister, Marie, and her husband, Bill.  We made it just in time for dinner at their retirement home.  It was very nice and they had a place of honor with a red tablecloth reserved for us.  Marie is 88 and Bill is 87.  They both exercise each day and look great.  So glad we could see them.

Day Three was spent driving all the way from Lincoln to the small town of Brownsburg just before we got to Indianapolis.

Day Four we drove into Pittsburgh after about 5 or 6 hours of driving. We stopped in Davenport, Iowa at a place called the 'Machine Shed' for a steak lunch/dinner.  It's a great little place recommended by Emily (who lived there) and Jared (who discovered Rib-eye steaks there). Other than Colorado, over the Pass, we had mostly dry roads for the rest of the trip.  What a blessing!

We were texting the mission president, President Johnson, as we

drove and he invited us to stay at the mission home for the night and have breakfast with them the next morning.  We explained to him that our nephew, Mike, was in Pittsburgh for some classes for work in the downtown area and would be leaving the next day.  Mike lives in Atlanta and we don't see him often so our first evening in Pittsburgh was spent having dinner with Mike.  We drove through rush hour traffic to get to his hotel. Part of the drive included going through a long tunnel.  As we drove out of the tunnel, the beautiful city of Pittsburgh at night was in full view.  Was a great introduction to the city and what an enjoyable dinner we had with Mike.

Day Five we had a nice breakfast and discussion with President and Sister Johnson.  Their 17 year old son, Andrew, is an accomplished violinist and the evening before, after we returned from dinner, he played a beautiful piece for us.  The Johnsons are from Logan most recently, but have lived all over the country in previous years.  President Johnson has most recently been CEO of REI and they love hiking and cross country skiing. He and Sister Johnson are responsible for the well being of 260 plus or minus missionaries all over most of the state of Pennsylvania.

When we finished breakfast we left for the mission office and got keys to our apartment.  Elder and Sister Thorne are the senior couple who work in the office and had worked so hard to get our apartment all ready for us.  It all makes us realize just how many people it takes to keep the great missionary force of the church going!

We made it through the MTC experience

What a wonderful time we have had the last few days.

We spent a lot of time in small groups with three other couples. The Russells from Cardston, Canada are going to the Family History Library in Salt Lake.  They have already been on one mission to Russia.  The Tedrows were from a little town near Colorado Springs and are going to Singapore in Malaysia.  The Johnsons are from South Jordan and are going to Australia.

We had excellent teachers each day in these small groups they call Districts.  Jim was actually asked to be the District leader-----which basically meant that he asked someone to pray each time we started and ended class for the day!  Our teacher for the morning classes was Brother McCarthy.  He recently

returned from a mission to Scotland and Ireland and still had a little bit of a Scottish accent.  Our teacher for the afternoon classes was Sister Wasden.  She was a newlywed of only a couple of weeks, but she had also served a mission to Kirtland, Ohio.

Much of our time was spent in role playing situations that were meant to try and teach us how investigators in the church feel and how to respond to their questions and concerns.  We spent two mornings at the TRC (Teaching Resource Center) where we gave lessons to volunteer people from the community who are actually now members of the church.  These people were once investigators who actually participated in lessons from the missionaries.  We thought at
first that TRC should stand for Torturing Retired Couples!  It definitely got us out of our comfort zones, but it turned out to be a wonderful learning experience and we survived without too much trauma!

Our nephew, Kyle (Jim's sister, Kathy's son), came into the MTC on Wednesday and we looked and looked for him at lunch and as we were walking between classes.  Then finally on Friday as we were going into the huge cafeteria, he was just leaving.  He is going to Jackson, Mississippi and he and his companion just looked so happy.  It was great to see them.





We had our picture taken by the flags at the main building entrance and then left for home Friday afternoon.  We ate leftovers for dinner, trying to use up our last bits of food in the house, and then we fell into bed early.  Today, Saturday, is packing and cleaning day.  Tomorrow we will spend time at church and with family and then we hope to hit the road early Monday morning. Of course we are watching the weather carefully and, OF COURSE, there is a big storm forecast for most of the mid west section of the nation next week!

The Missionary Training Center is AWESOME!!

We remember dropping our sons off at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah many years ago---Kent to Guatemala and Jared to Argentina (each being gone for two years).

 But..... what a weird feeling to actually be there ourselves!  Jim left many years ago for England on his first mission, but he stayed at what was then called the "mission home" in Salt Lake.  Training (and everything) was much different then.

The Missionary Training Center is quite a place with around 400 to 500 missionaries coming in each week.  We will only be there for 5 days and we decided to travel back and forth from home each day.  Many of the younger missionaries stay longer to learn a language or wait for visa's. At any one time there are between 1,000 to 3,000 missionaries in training there.

When we first arrived at the center we stood in one line after another to get badges, make travel arrangements, get a meal card and finally get into a preliminary orientation group.  It seemed like there was some sort of "heavenly connection" thing going on the first day,  because we made connection after connection with different people.  First, we met Elder and Sister Bass, a couple from South Carolina, who knew the Riches, owners of Beacon Metals (Jim's employer for 42 years). As we were talking to them we mentioned that we were from West Jordan and we heard a voice behind us say "did you say West Jordan?"  It was Elder Clarke who just graduated last year from West Jordan High School and knew many of the kids from our home ward.

Then we ended up in the orientation group with Elder and Sister Hale.  Elder Hale was a childhood friend of Jim's from Murray and it was so good to reminisce with them.  They saved us a place in the huge cafeteria for lunch and--- lo and behold-----sitting next to them when we arrived at lunch was our nephews girlfriend, Sister Pattison.  We had just seen her two weeks ago at Kyle's missionary farewell sacrament meeting.  We knew that she was leaving for San Jose, but never dreamed that we would see her at the MTC amongst the hundreds of missionaries there.

Then as we were finishing our lunch, we started visiting with the Sister missionaries sitting on the other side of the Hale's and mentioned that we were going to Pittsburgh.  Sister Smith's face lit up and she almost shouted "that's where I'm from"!  We had fun as she told us that we would be actually learning a new language there.  We will have to get used to 'warshing' our clothes and walking by the 'crick' instead of creek.  She said they say 'yinz' instead of 'y'all'.  The other kind of weird thing is that she said they call rubber bands---'gumbands'???

Jim later said that making all those connections made it seem like it was the Lord's way of making us feel like He knew who we were and that it might have been some little "tender mercies" meant just for us and those we met.


One of the speakers in our afternoon meeting asked who was nervous.  It is strange, but Jim and I both later mentioned that we are not nervous, but feel very peaceful about our mission.  Even with all the adversity we have experienced the last few months (our minor health problems and major health problems of family), we feel so fortunate and blessed that we can have this experience to serve the Lord.  We feel that it is quite a miracle that we are able to go on this mission, but perhaps an even greater miracle that we can feel peaceful about it!  It must be the prayers of so many family and friends that are helping us along.

Tying up loose ends

This is our first blog and we are very new at how it all works, so please have patience with us.  We know that we can get comments from all of you on the blog, but if some of you are more comfortable then feel free to contact us with our e-mail addresses.

We have spent the previous week trying to tie up all the loose ends in our life as we get ready to leave for 18 months.  It sometimes feels like we live in a big bowl of spaghetti and we are trying to just FIND all the ends!

We are sure glad that we can take more than just a suitcase, but we end up with the same dilemma with a car.  We still need to decide what to take and what to leave.  We will have to see if it all fits in our car.  We may end up like the pioneers and have to leave a few things behind or throw things out along the way!

We have talked with the mission president and his wife a couple of times and they have told us where our apartment is in downtown Pittsburgh.  It will be all furnished and mostly equipped with necessities.  It also has a garage which will be a big advantage for the Pittsburgh winters.

We  will send an email out when we get there with our street address and let everyone know just what Pittsburgh is like.