It's Finally Spring!!

Our last few hours with the Acors, in Hershey, Pennsylvania

We were sad to send the Acors back to their home in Montana.  We did enjoy their visit so much.  And

we incorporated missionary work in too - at the temple Dakota, Kadyn, and Cass did baptisms for names provided by our ward members.  At the Easter Egg hunt they met Katja and her family, invited them into their cabin, and even fed the kids lunch.  Katja is taking the missionary lessons and will be baptized in a couple weeks. Good fellowshipping...   Sunday Acors helped us entertain and feed the full-time Elders and our ward mission leader, so see, we didn't completely slack off. Monday we drove with them to Chocolate World in Hershey, Pennsylvania.  Enjoyed the ride, free chocolate, and shopping.  We ate sandwiches in the parking lot, then sadly had to part ways.  We had lots of rain next day, then the sun came out and the flowers and trees have exploded.  I kept telling Angie it would be so much prettier around here very soon,  now we are seeing it.  So many forsythia bushes and daffodils.  Beautiful trees in bloom.  Green, green grass.  So refreshing after a long, drab winter.

Angie, these trees burst into bloom a few days after you left.

We had another sad good-by Wednesday, as one of our favorite missionaries, Elder Aubrey, was

Elder Aubrey with our neighbor (and Ward Mission Leader) Oscar

transferred.  We took Elder Sloan and Elder Aubrey (and all Aubrey's stuff and his bike) to Columbia, which is on the outskirts of Baltimore, about 3 hours away, for transfer meeting .  It was an emotional meeting as 12 incoming and 12 returning home missionaries each got to briefly speak.  Our new missionary is Elder Saunders from Kaysville, Utah.  He seems very nice, just has a few months left of his mission.  Soon he will be one of our favorites too.

I made some great chili last week.  I got the recipe from a ward member after she made it for a Relief Society dinner and I thought it was so good.  Now I know why - I just didn't know you put butter and sugar in chili!  Fun West Virginia recipe.  And I have learned that the best spaghetti sauce has brown sugar in it!

We made lots of visits last week.  I worked with Wanda W. one afternoon on her genealogy and was so excited to see her come in to church today - it's been years since she's been to church!  And I picked up another returning member for church today,  JoAnn, cute lady.

Yesterday (Saturday) was a perfectly awesome day, as we traveled to the Washington DC Temple and were able to do initiatory work, endowments, and sealings for some of the people whose names Dakota, Kadyn, and Cassidy did baptisms for last week!  Another couple from our ward, Steve and Linda, were there too.  It was very busy at the temple and the freeways were pretty clogged at times on our drive there and back, but it was surely worth the drive and the time. And we saw deer, groundhogs, and lots of flowers along the way.  We had a nice dinner at Cracker Barrel on the way home too.  Our good friend Sonja who was baptized exactly one year ago said that she had a special dream last week about her deceased father, she felt like he was letting her know that he was pleased and content to have his baptism done last week (thanks, Dakota!).  We anticipate getting to go to the temple with Sonja for the first time next month, and what a special experience it will be for her to be sealed to her parents.

Wonderful week, wonderful experiences.  It's awesome to serve a mission.  And Spring has arrived. Happy Birthday to our wonderful oldest daughter, Karli.  We love you and appreciate you so much.  Glad you had a fun cruise.