On Dec. 4th we toured temple square at night to see the lights and all the beautiful things. then on Dec. 5th we had the blesssing of taking Michelle to the temple for her endowments. what a special day that was. We are so proud of Michelle,. she is so capable and loved the temple. she is a pure vessel. She cares for her mother and does a great job. Her siblings are so supportive too. We got to have a nice visit with them that evening. After the temple we went to Chuck A Rama for dinner and took Michelle and Evelyn, Kendall and Todd and his fiance' Beverly , Lois and golden were there and De and Mary met us there too. It was a great day! The temple square was awesome to say the least. Before dark we went to the 10th floor of the Jos. Smith Mem. bldg and had a very luxurioius, decidant meal at the "Roof". It was fabulous. Yeah, costly too but oh well, it was almost our "last supper". Mary and De served us the real "last supper " before our mission and Kendall was able to be there too. It was great to spend that time with him. I didn't take enough pictures at the gathereings. Just caught up in the moment and spaced it!

MTC

Here we are at the MTC. What a great place. We are pointing to New Orleans on the map. The bkie riders are outside the buildings and the group are the welfare missionaries who are assigned to employment like us. One couple is going to Indonesia one to the Phillipines and one to Nashville Tennessee area whith a mission more like ours. We took all of our training together. They are amazing people and we enjoyed them, the Thompsons,from Utah, Lukes from Pheonix and Kinneys from New Jersey.

Mission

these pictures are from our visit to Welfare Square. the pictures of the starving girl who is 8 years old are the before and only 6 months after she began taking a supplement that is made at Welfare Square. It is cooked up like a cereal and is called ATMIT. It is just basically powedered milk enriched, oatmeal flour and a little sugar and salt for taste. This product can save a childs life. It has saved thousands of children and only takes about $10.00 to do so. The product they were using in Africa was no longer available because they lost their goats to draught and they were using goat milk. They asked the wefare center if they could make something so BYU did the research and came up with the formula. You can save lives by donating your money to Humanitarian Services and even better, go on a humanitarian mission.--The cheese is made and trimmed and the trimmings go to the Cathoic church along with the lunch meat and bread for a huge sandwich program they have where they will give anyone who asks a sandwich there at the "Church of madeline" I think it is called. Anyway, the Church from Welfare Square works closelly with the Catholics to feed the poor on this project. Welfare square smells like fresh bread and they served us fresh bread and peanut butter and jam and cheese at the end of our instruction there. Yum.

Date Nut Pudding

Make a Smilebox recipe

Grand Canyon

This is so huge and amazing. what a place. We loved seeing it. the following poast is of Bryce Canyon. It is such a fabulous "up close " look. Wow! the angels must have had a great time creating these wonders.

Fabulous Rock Formations

This one is called the "Poodle"

this is called the Natural Bridge but is really an arch. awesome to see.
We stopped by Grand Canyon and Bryce Canyon on our way home from Tucson. what a great works and miracles of nature they are.

the call

We are really excited and happy about our call to New Orleans (the Jackson Mississippi mission. We are not sure what we will be doing but we think since we are assigned to "employment resources" that Jerry will be helping people find construction jobs. Where else do they need a construction guru more than New Orleans. I think I will be in the office working with people. I am quite certain that we will be working with people in our ward or branch where we will attend. That will be a great experience.

It will be like going to a foriegn country. Laura C tells me that her brother went there and he called it an international mission. There will be lots of diversification for sure.

I have been reading about the hurricane Katrina that devestated New Orleans 4 years ago. I hope it goes well and fast or I will miss all of my family too much. We will miss weddings, ordinations, birthdays and holidays but I know each one of our family will be blessed because we will be praying for each one individually as we do now.

We enter MTC on Dec. 7 09 and will be driving our car to LA we will probably recieve extra training after the original 5 days in the MTC. There is special welfare training so I am guessing that we will get that.

I think I will be able to wear the nice clothes I have been making. I think I will be there two winters and indoors in air conditioning in the summer.

IT is going to be a great next two months visiting folks and preparing, getting shots and replacing the windsheild of our car and whatever else we need.

As you can see by the pictures, I was really surprised when I saw where we are going. I never thought of the south. My Grandpa Brown went on three mission to the Southern States mission. It took in all of the southern states. I don't know if he served in LA but he probably did at some time. I will read his journals againand find out. He may have been up there tweeking it for us. *U*

Mission picture

Here is the picture we are putting on our missiona application. I wish I had curled myhair first but I think it is too late now. The application is ready for the Stake President as near as we know so we might be having interviews soon.

Here we are, ready to go

Yes, ready to go on a mission. Atleast we hope that some day in about two or three weeks all of our forms will be filled out and we can wait some more to find out where we will get to serve. WE took these pictures of each other but now have learned that our picture needs to be of us together im missionary attire so nest Sunday I will put on a gray or navy jacket to look as much like a missionary as I can and we will do this again with the tripod or a real person on the button.

Yummy Chicken Salad

Hi Pam,
Here are the recipes you asked for, Enjoy.

Make a Smilebox recipe

Bread recipe

Make a Smilebox recipe

Come on over for a barbeque

Guess who came to Visit

Allison, Marshall, Marcella, Madeline, Rachelle, Anna Belle

Craftroom

I have worked really hard but the craftroom looks so neat and inviting. I wanted you to see it. It is missing all the plastic drawers of rubber stamps and scrap paper. they can be stored in a closet sometime when we move.

Comments

God's Protective Care

This is our 2009 Camry. We were driving to boise on March 6th. We had just gone over the summit between Pendleton and LeGrande when we looked up and realized that there were three trucks stopped in front of us. The road was ice with water on top. they had tried to scrap it but just took off the gravel. Jerry slammed on the brakes to no avail. WE just kept going. Just before we were to crash into the back of the truck and as I said "Heavely Father" the next thing I knew we were going between the left truck and the concrete median. There actually was not room for us but Jerry took the o nly daylight he could see and drove as close to the concrete as possible actually up on the curved edge of it as my side was being chinked off the the truck with it's two trailers. the lights, hubcap and doors were trashed but we were not even jarred. We didn't even loose our drink from their cups.!!! Jerry got cell service and called the police, they came and didn't give him a citation because of the road conditions. the woman with two kids up front had gone into a spin so the trucks stopped. they must have had more space than us to come to a stop. We clipped her mirror off and got her front bumper as it was sticking out. No one was hurt. She had no drivers license or insurance. She got tickets.

I just felt like God was opening a corridor for us to get through. After the police were done, Jerry pulled off the lights and put them in the trunk and pulled the fender off of the tire and we drove 200 miles to Meridian. we got to the repair shop just before they closed. Estimate to get it fixed is $8,400. and three weeks. Thank goodness for insurance. It will pay for the woman's car too. Even though we really did not cause the accident we are responsible because we hit them. Our insurance will fix her car too.I don't think the truck got more than a few scratches.

You can see that Jerry's side didn't hardly get a dent. That is because of the curved concrete. Whew!

It sure makes me feel the love and care God has for us and that He is not ready for us to go home yet! We have more to do. We are so grateful. I can't count how many thankyou prayers I have said over this.

livingroom

We are going to really miss this place

It is almost 4200 square feet counting the walk our basement. Two storage rooms. fruit trees and roses in the yard and other mature plants. Huge extra sturdy deck for parties and nice climate for them. Nice area up the down the street form elementary school but not too close. view of both bridges from the deck.

For Sale

Our Home

Our home sweet home

This week

We just got home from a short trip to Boise. It was great toa visit the kids and take one 4-wheeler, 1 picnic table and a computer desk and get them out of our hair. We had a fun family Home Evening. I showed them my mothers scrapbook of clippings that I have recently restored by assembling them into one huge album of 12x12 sheet protectors. she was really very well know and made quite a stir with her writing. I left the camera in the truck and didn't take any pictures.

Make a Smilebox greeting

Bread

Make a Smilebox recipe