Grandchildren's Comments:

May 13, 2007 - Three year old Kyler told us he wants to "be a missionary and come to Missigun to be with you"

January 13, 2008 - Five year old JT was saying goodbye to us on a recent phone call. He reminded us of our daily charge when he said "have a good week teaching the people about Jesus".

The Hump

January 20, 2008 is our 1/2 mission mark. Insights and observations to this point:

• The gospel is the answer to all of lifes complexities. It brings joy and meaning, comfort and solace, direction and strength


• Missionaries are some to the most amazing people on earth - we still don't feel worthy to be counted with them


• Miracles happen every day, every hour, every minute


• People are wonderful in every location


• The Church will go forward with or without us - we are overwhelmed with the magnitude of goodness and strength it demonstrates on every front


• Families bring sweetness and goodness to life


• Michigan is beautiful in all seasons


• Missionary service is a blessing to body and spirit, brings purpose to each day, and makes us want to do more and become better


• When we're engaged in a worthy cause, the hours and time expended becomes less important than accomplishing the task at hand


• Mail and phone calls from friends and family have never been so appreciated


• Simple things we took for granted have become much more appreciated


• Life is good


• The Lord is very kind to us


• "The task ahead of you is never as great as the Power behind you"

Merry Christmas!

Dear Family and Friends,

Holiday Greetings from the Michigan Lansing Mission!
We hope you and your family are well and enjoying a beautiful Christmas season.

We’ve been serving in Michigan for almost 10 months now, and are busily engaged in all that is involved in keeping things running in the Mission Office. Our days are never dull and are filled with phone calls and visits from our missionaries needing help with apartment issues, car problems, referral questions, mail concerns, needed supplies, and a hundred other such details. We’ve become quite attached to the 138 plus missionaries we serve with in Michigan, and have daily reminders of the great work we are involved in and Whose it is. Our recognition of the very personal and intricate involvement our Heavenly Father has in the detail and affairs of our lives has increased substantially. There is not a day that goes by that we are not ever more aware of His great love and concern for each of us. How privileged we are to, in a small way, be part of sharing His love with His children. No matter where we go in the world, there is great need and many who are seeking for a better life, for peace and contentment and happiness. All this and much more can be found through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For two years we are able to spend all day, every day, trying to help people find that peace and happiness. There will never be another time like this in our lives. It truly is an amazing blessing and miracle to be so engaged.

In fact, this is our Christmas of miracles. It seems that miracles abound, once we start looking for them. Health concerns that we worried might be an ongoing challenge, have, to a large degree, improved. Though our days, and often evenings, are filled with much activity, there almost always seems to be the energy and strength to do all that is before us. That truly has been a miracle and a great blessing. And though our family at home have had challenges and great difficulties at times, they and we have felt the love of the Lord in our lives, and know that He is aware of and blessing each one in special ways. We see miracles in all we are involved in, every day

We wish you great happiness and many special blessings at this beautiful time of year.
We’re grateful for your love and kindness to our family and to us. Please forgive our shortage of communication with you in the last year.
We treasure our association with you and express
our love and warmest wishes for a wonderful
Christmas and a blessed and peaceful coming year.

Elder and Sister Brunner
(Ron and Mary)
1060 Aaron Drive, Apt 406
DeWitt, MI 48820

More Pictures from Michigan!

Our 35th Wedding Anniversary

Thanksgiving Day with senior missionaries from all over the mission.

Our homemade Christmas tree!

Assistants to the President and Zone Leaders at the Mission Office - decorated for Christmas

Favorite walking trail near our home.

We love this walking trail near our home!

Our attempt to grow tomatoes in a pot on our patio

Our apartment

More pictures of our apartment.

Trees grow in the water everywhere in MI!

Beautiful MI home. They have HUGE yards!

Lake Michigan

Walking the line!

Mackinaw Lighthouse

Golf Pro's The family together at our farewell.

Michigan Seasons

Michigan Seasons

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!