The passing of the torch

Yesterday, I found out that our wonderful Branch President from the Clear Springs Branch has moved on.  I don't know the second counselor, but I love the new President and 1st Counselor and their families.  While it is hard to see President Tedjamulia and Virginia move on, it is also wonderful to see these fine men ready to take over the reins. And their families are wonderful, too.

President Tedjamulia helped our mission to be a wonderful experience.  He wasn't afraid to give us assignments and trusted us with lots of things.  The first day we met, he gave us a list four pages long of things he wanted us to work on.

President Tedjamulia was kind about our language skills.  He initially told Jim how great his Portuguese was, then laughed when we were leaving at how far he had come in order to serve there.  He was understanding and helpful to me because the language just didn't come for me.

Virginia is a delight.  She appears to be very shy and reserved, but we often saw a funny side.  She served faithfully at President's side even though she did not speak Portuguese.  She was kind and supportive.

The people in the Branch have been an inspiration to me.  I learned so much from them.  I miss them every day.  I am grateful the Lord blessed them with wonderful families to continue their great work.

We went from Atlanta weather to THIS!

s the first winter we have been back from our mission.  There are many things about the weather that we miss, and this winter has added the weather as a big one!  Our winters in Georgia were quite mild.  We had a few snowflakes while we were there.  We experienced a weird hail storm during a tornado warning.  But we were lucky enough to miss snowmaggedon there.

We have a cabin in the mountains here in Utah.  When it snows a lot, we have to go up to shovel ThiIItthe front deck. This year has been crazy!  Fortunately, Andreia is a machine at shoveling and Kaitlyn is more than willing to help when she is around.  So, Jim and I shoveled once.  The next time Kaitlyn came and brought friends to help.




So, the snow has continued to fall.  We go from several years of drought to record snowfall.  And it isn't just one or two days of snow.  It is several times a week.  So, Kaitlyn, Andreia, Jim and I went up again to clear the deck. 

The picture is Jim standing on the mound in front of the garage door.  In the picture on the right, he is standing on the mound looking through the railing of the deck.

Titan also jumped, but I didn't get his picture. 

It is not all work, however.  Jim and the kids built a luge run in the back and had fun with that.  And Kaitlyn got to live a dream she has had for years.   She always wanted to jump from the deck into the fresh powder.  This year, there was plenty of snow and she did it.

Sweet mission friends

This week we were able to have dinner with three of the returned missionaries we grew to love on the mission.  It is always a delight to see these returned missionaries and hear the plans for their future.  We worked very closely with Kurt Cottle, Madeline Abram and Jennifer Martinez.  They were outstanding missionaries.

One of the fun things that we shared was a crazy little joke in the family.  Kaitlyn came to visit while we were on our mission and she brought 100 little flamingos.  She hid them all over our home there.  The Assistants were living in the same house at the time and they thought it was hilarious.  If they found one, they would proceed to hide it better.  When we left, we knew that there were probably some still there.

So, during their visit, our three friends secretly hid flamingos.  This time we have no idea how many are here.  We have laughed at how efficient and skilled those three were in hiding the little critters.  Titan has loved it and hides them, too.  So, Kaitlyn, the fun lives on!

Today Riley Christensen will be reporting her mission.  We hope to be able to welcome her.  She is one of the last missionaries to return that we knew well.  It is hard to believe that we have been home 8 months.