With Change Comes Blessings~

Our Life is about to change. We have 10 left days on our mission. We have enjoyed serving a full time mission in the Utah Salt Lake South Mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. For the past 2 years we have had a fairly structured life.During these two years we have had the privilege to work with a variety of individuals and families. Many are families that are less active in our faith, some are non-members who know nothing about what we believe. We visited several that just needed encouragement in their lives. Our purpose has been to invite them to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel and or renew their faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end.
I have served with the best companion ever; my eternal husband. We have grown closer as a couple and learned so much from this experience and from each other. We have witnessed many miracles small and large. We know beyond doubt that our loving Heavenly Father is in the details of our lives. He loves all His Children and that means everyone born on this earth.
We have enjoyed relationships with other Member Leadership Support missionaries like ourselves. We have been blessed to work closely with the younger Elders and Sisters. These young people are incredible. They work hard in spreading the truths of the gospel. We watch as they conduct meetings and guide discussions. We find them to be amazing young adults.
We are finding it difficult to leave all of these brothers and sisters that we have grown to love as we have visited with and taught them about the gospel of Jesus Christ.  We hope since we will remain in the same area that we can have continued associations with them. 
We will be now able to spend more quality moments with our beloved children and grandchildren who have supported us in this endeavor. There have been miracle blessings in our family. We know these blessings have come because we were promised that if we served this mission our family would be blessed. 

Many friends have asked me what we will do with our time now that our mission is almost completed. They wonder if we will feel lost without anything to do. Trust me that will never happen. We will embrace the changes in our lives. We will always be involved in some aspect of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

I thought  I would share my bucket list of things I want to accomplish in the next few years. 

 1. Enjoy increased moments with our children and grandchildren. Perhaps attend more of their activities than we have been able to. 

 2. Wake up and be happy that we don't have an agenda for the day. 

 3. Work on Genealogy and Family History.

 4. Do both of our own histories

 5. Organize all the photos and movies we have made through the years. 

 6. Work in the Jordan River Temple when it reopens. 

 7. Travel and go to different temples in Utah and surrounding states. 

 8. Visit other relatives that live out of state. 

 9. Travel to church history sites such as Palmyra, New York. 

10.Travel to Hawaii; this is already a plan for December. 

11. Continue to fulfill callings in our church. 

12. Be a member missionary

13. Catch up on all our house hold needs. 

14. Read some novels.

15. Grow a garden.

I will be sad to leave this marvelous mission but look forward to other changes that will surely come. We do live in a remarkable day with so many wonderful things that we can do and become. I will rise up and continue to be faithful in the work of loving and caring about all of my brothers and sisters throughout this beautiful world of ours. 

Our Delightful Month of August~

Wow, this month has flown by so fast that it has left me reeling. We only have 3 1/2 weeks left on our 2 year mission. It has been a huge blessing in our lives. We have learned so much. We have been privileged  to meet, teach and work with some wonderful individuals and families. We are feeling sad that we won't have as much contact with them. However, we will still be able to visit them occasionally  since we all live in the same stake. 

We have also enjoyed our relationship with the other MLS Senior missionaries and younger missionaries. We will probably not see many of them except at Mission reunions. 

We started off the month of August at our monthly Multi-District meeting. Here we all are! I think we have an awesome mixture of young and old serving our Savior, Jesus Christ. 

We received permission to drive to Idaho for a family event. There were some fires burning and the road became very hazy with smoke. The moon was a light red color. The photo didn't pick up the darker shade, but it was unique. 

Our Grandson, Ryley was receiving the Aaronic Priesthood and being ordained to the office of Deacon in our church. My sweet husband, his Grandfather did the ordination. Ryley was so happy to receive the priesthood. It was a wonderful time to be with him. 

We were able to be with both of our sons families for a get together. We were with our second son Travis and Amanda and their 8 children and then with James and Amber and their 3 children. What a blessing all these children and grandchildren are in our lives. It was such an enjoyable time. 

The next week we traveled up to our oldest son Sean's church. Our Grandson, Jonathan was being advanced in the Aaronic Priesthood to the office of a Priest. This is a very important moment for the 16 year old young men. The Priests bless the Sacrament which is a very sacred ordinance in our faith. Regretfully, I didn't get photos, so I am posting pictures of Jonathan and his family that were taken this summer. We love this family of ours. Sean and Mary have some awesome young men. They are also the parents of our two oldest grandsons who are married and our oldest Granddaughter. 

Just a moment to say Happy Birthday to our beloved prophet, President Thomas S. Monson. He turned 90 on August 21st. We love him and revere him. I loved these photos of him and wanted to share them on this post. 

We have District meetings weekly except for when we have our Multi-District meeting. Here are some photos of just one of our District meetings. We took the group photo because this next week is transfer week and we will probably have some changes. We are hoping that our Sister will not be transferred. 

A new MLS senior couple; Elder and Sister Park started their mission in our Stake.  They are like us and live in our Stake boundaries.  It is called a stay at home mission. We had our Weekly Planning meeting with them and the sisters; Sister Cox and Sister Casinas. They are taking over three of the wards in our Stake so we will just have 6 wards to work in for another three weeks.

Guess What?? Our precious sisters were transferred out. Both of them went to new assignments. This is called Pink Wash. Two Elders will replace them. These two young men will be coming in and not know  the area or the people the Sisters have been teaching. Luckily, the sisters gave us all the information at our weekly meeting so we will be helping the Elders learn their new area 
As you can see Sister Casinas and Sister Cox do not want to leave each other. They have been very hardworking and dedicated Sisters. We are so proud of the work they have been doing. 
Sister Shaw came by to say good by to them. Sister Park and I helped to take them to their new areas. In the bottom two photos Sister Cox's new companion is Sister Pinkham; another sweet sister that we served with. It was fun to see her again. 

 Our endearing Sister Casinas has collected a lot of belongings since being on her mission for 17 months. This is her last transfer. She will be going back to the Philippines the first of October. Our cute Sister Cox has only been in the mission field for 6 weeks, so she hasn't started collecting yet. What marvelous and fun missionaries they have both been. 
saying good by was hard. 

This week we went to the temple with Sister Brown, whom we love very much. We were so happy to have some moments with her. It was a beautiful day to go to the Oquirrh  Mountain Temple. 
It's been another month of marvelous missionary moments and precious family times.