Another week flew by...

Not much to tell about the past week.  It came and went very quickly.  We had packed up our winter clothes in boxes to send home, but have been pulling some back out of the boxes as the weather turned cold and rainy again.  The trees, bushes, and flowers are still beautiful though.  We are enjoying them so much.

We did our usual chores, shopping, and laundry on Monday, then picked up a couple of single women in our ward and took them out to the home of the couple that host our family home evening group.  We watched the DVD "Meet the Mormons" and all enjoyed it.  Tomorrow night we have been invited to our friends Johnny and Janet's home for dinner, and afterward will show the movie to a several families:  Janet's inactive daughter and her family, recent convert Sonja, and investigator Katja and her family.  Should be fun. I have also lent a copy to another ward member who is going to invite a less active neighbor and a new convert to her home to view it.  Copies of this DVD are cheap through Deseret Book and what a great missionary tool! Use it...

Tuesday my companion, Elder Orton, and I separated for most of the day.  That doesn't happen very often! I left about 8:30 am, picked up my VT companion in Moorefield (13 miles away), then drove out past Mathias (another 30 miles) to visit Crystal and her daughter Ariann.  Beautiful drive and fun visit.  Then we came back down the road a ways and off in another direction to see Carol L.  Another sweet, fun visit.  By the time I took Janet home and drove back to Petersburg I just had time for a quick sandwich then met Wanda at the church for 3 hours of genealogy work.  Miracles occurred while we pieced a family together, starting out with only two children that she knew of, but we eventually found all 11 of them, with source verification of births, marriages, and deaths.  The last piece was the cemetery record of one of the younger daughters with an obituary attached that said she had been preceded in death by her five brothers and five sisters!  That

By the river where Wayne fished

More scenic river shots....

matched perfectly with the information we had found.  Wanda and I both find this work exciting and fun. (And she came to church again today!)   While I was having such fun, Wayne was having his own fun - fishing with a friend in the morning and having the van serviced, yet again, in the afternoon.  We started out our mission with about 42,000 miles on our trusty gray van,  I think we'll be over 100,000 by the time we travel home!  (And very few of those miles are on straight roads!  It's a good thing we don't get carsick because the only roads around here are very curvy...)   In the evening we continued on in our separate ways, I did volunteer work at the nursing home, he went visiting with his priesthood leader, they found three missing members.

Wednesday was District Meeting in Front Royal and interviews there with our awesome Mission President.  In the evening we and the Elders had dinner with our friend Sonja and her teenage son Joseph.  We did a little Family Home Evening with her followed by a rousing game of Spoons.

Thursday we made some visits, gave blood at our local Blood Drive, and volunteered at the nursing home again. Friday after a meeting with our Ward Mission Leader we visited an older widow, Irene, then made the beautiful drive to Romney to visit our friend Woneda in the nursing home there and, by assignment, take a Book of Mormon to the regional jail.
On the way back through Moorefield we stopped by our favorite Mexican restaurant for dinner.  Saturday

Deb & Hunter with their beautiful cake

was awesome - we were invited out to Jack and Deb's for dinner.  Two of Jack's sisters, Dot and Jean, and Deb's sister Barb helped them fix a lovely meal for us, Elder Saunders, and Elder Sloan.  What great people. Wish we could get them to come to church .... but they love the missionaries and treat us well. After our visit with them we stopped in on several people to invite them to church.  One of the three came.  We had a regional broadcast today and it was so good.  Elder Kacher, Sister Reeves, Elder Anderson, and Elder Hales spoke.  Wonderful.
Now Wayne is off helping a friend make some home teaching visits.  I think I will work on some genealogy - this latest family for Wanda is not coming together so easily as the last.

Today we are hoping for some comments on our blog from anyone who is enjoying it,  or suggestions on how we can improve.  Also looking for some pictures from the Acors of Kelsie's princess party, and an update from Dylan & Sara on last week's trip to San Diego.  Any news from family or friends would be appreciated, maybe we are a little homesick....