Visit from the family!

Mmmmm...We love ice cream!


"I'll never let go Jack... I'll never let go!" - Ode to Titanic


Heidi runs into a leech problem.


We love lighthouses! (Old Mission Peninsula Lighthouse - Traverse City)


Building castles at Mackinac Bay

Kyler and Emma singing Josh Groban in the van. They wanted to make sure daddy could hear them back in Utah. How do they know Josh Groban, you ask? Becky and Heidi have an obsession - it's true. It's even worse since they saw him in concert this August. Apparently he actually IS better than sliced bread.

Kyler discovers acorns... Hmmm, what can I destroy with acorns? Nothing? Worthless!

Emma tries to give Grandma a push!

Summer in Michigan 2007

Elder Staley is training a greenie - just arrived missionary - Elder Baker.

We have lots of fun with them!

Zone Conference with the senior missionaries serving in the

far northern areas of the mission:

Elder & Sister Mobley, Elder & Sister Benton, Elder & Sister Murri,

Elder & Sister Jeske, Sister Edwards, the Goodfellows, and Us!

We volunteered to make 24th of July come to life for the Branch this year!

Here are some of our guests on the wagon ride, a very popular feature.

Of course any 24th of July celebration must have authentic dutch oven cooking,

and indians with teepees!

We also had log cutting race, sack races, stick pull, button sewing contest, pie contest, pioneer games for the kids, story-telling and lots more. It was a fun day and very well attended.


Wow giant cows at the Elsie Dairy Festival.
Everything in MI is bigger!



Some of the wildlife in our pond that we are able to enjoy every day.

Many of the homes in MI are decorated with geese.

March & April Fun

It's March in Michigan and although the pond outside our apartment is still mostly frozen over, the sun is shining and there's a hope of Spring...so, we had our first meal on our wonderful little deck! No table, folding chairs for our seating, but we had a great time.

Elder Sheffield and Elder Hurst are the Assistants to the President who have been so kind to us and helped us get oriented to Michigan life, led us home from Zone Conference, helped us get furniture for our apartment, and much more. We think they are amazing!

Elder Staley and Elder Mineer are serving in the St Johns Branch, where we also serve. They live about 10 minutes away from us and have been our guiding light as to how missionaries here do anything/everything. We have them to our house for dinner and anything else we can think of as often as we and they can. They've become our substitute kids and we love them to death!

We took a break from our labors for a few hours and went to the Maple Syrup Festival in one of the little towns not too far away. It was a fun few hours learning where maple syrup comes from.

Another little town, another short diversion...antique car show!

These are the senior missionaries we get to see frequently: Elder and Sister Peterson serve as CES missionaries on the campus of Michigan State University here in Lansing. Elder and Sister Goodfellow are training us in the Mission Office.

Elder Stock and Elder Lovett are also currently serving in the Mission Office, along with their normal missionary responsibilities. They're great and keep us laughing and having fun every day.

Elder Hurst and Elder Meeker are the current Assistants to the President. They brought balloons and poster to celebrate the wonderfulness of the office missionaries. So fun!

The Mission Office

We're settling in and learning and working as hard as we can. We have wonderful missionaries to work with for several months as we learn the ropes, and great Mission President and his wife, President and Sister Edwards.

We're Here!

We did it! We conquered the MTC and left wondering if we would remember a thing we learned about how to run a mission office. But the MTC spiritual high is what we know will get us through the hard beginning weeks . We're grateful for a few more days with our family and all their help as we pack up a UHaul trailer to bring a few important needs with us: our wonderful pillow top mattress, Ron's recliner, and since there's room, a few other must haves for the next two years. We bid our family a tearful goodbye and head off for the 3 day, 2000 + mile drive to Michigan. The next step in our adventure begins!

And here we are...in our new home! It took several days to find an apartment we liked, but the looking was worth the effort because our new home has all the comforts of our old home, but with much less space to keep up. We love having two bedrooms that allows us a place to set up a desk and computer and we even have covered parking and a deck overlooking a pond with wildlife. Home sweet home!

MTC

These are our cute MTC trainers and other senior couples who will be serving, as we are, in a mission office. Some will be in the USA, some in far-away lands. We're in classes all day, with wonderful devotionals and firesides and spiritual highlights mixed in everywhere. We're loving it, and being scared to death all at the same time. Study time each morning and evening and meeting so many wonderful missionaries. What a choice experience the MTC is!

The Adventure Begins!

At the Stake Center prior to being set apart as full time missionaries.

At home the evening of our mission farewell.

Study group friends at our last gathering before we leave.

Today we said goodbye to our beautiful children and grandchildren for 23 months as we embark on a new adventure as senior missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We're headed to Michigan...but first, learning at the Missionary Training Center for the next 11 days. We're excited, sad, nervous, happy...and a ton of other emotions all wrapped up together. Day one as missionaries!