Its feeling like home here.

We go very few places that we haven't visited these days.  I've noticed that its much more relaxing to do return visits; first because you can find it more easily and second because you already know what to expect.  I think that's why this week has felt so relaxing.  We had a cool week, but its back up in the mid 80's in the days, so we're sweating again.  The morning temps are perfect for our walks!

Here are some firsts for the week: Elder Quincy drove a tractor and mowed down someone's back 40 early one morning.  He got said tractor in running order last week with Br. Roberts.  I only cooked one meal this week and then ended up feeding it to the missionaries for lunch the next day.  After feeding us and the Elders dinner and having a short lesson our investigator came with us to paint another investigator's preschool.  They loved each other!  We had our Trunk or Treat activity Saturday night and we had 20 plus investigators and non members come!  About 150 people!! Best Activity Ever!  The Jones family with the dad who vowed to never come back showed up with the whole family and I was so excited to see lots of good members talk to him!!  I'm seriously thinking we need an activity every month!  Investigators love them!  A sister who's been in the hospital since we got here, and did not recognize that we were there for our last visit with her, died this week, I hear that Sweet Sister Ramsay went up to bear her testimony when she was bald from chemo and was faithful to the end.  Elder Quincy gave her a couple of blessings at her daughter's request.

We had a Senior Missionary luncheon at the Mission Home.  The sister on the far left is Becky Smith  or Sister Lowe as we call her here.  She grew up in my ward in Taylorsville!  Next to her is Sister Drake, the Mission Mom.  There are only 8 couples serving in our whole mission!  Only one ward and one branch have a senior couple!  The others work in the office, take care of cars and bikes, are the area Medical Supervisor and teach Institute classes in 3 cities (The Lowes).  President Drake says he wishes he had 30 more couples here! 

Richard's favorite sign in the Cowhand Café.

Fog on the way to paint Saturday morning.

Our 2nd farewell dinner.  One sister from the Spanish branch and one from our ward enter the MTC on Wednesday!  They are going to The Redlands, CA Spanish speaking and to Richmond, VA.

This is the street we walk on in the mornings.  We turn around at this water tower to head back.

This is a new home you could buy and come live in it and serve here.  We need more senior missionaries here!

2 highlights of the week were visiting with a man who hadn't been to church in 18 years whose had his heart softened and then him coming to church and staying to meet with the Bishop after church. And having the Gospel Doctrine teacher (Elder Quincy gave him a blessing a few weeks ago to help him quit smoking and then we've been visiting him a couple of times a week) teach the lesson on Eternal Marriage and say he plans to get his temple recommend soon and can't wait to return to the temple.  Time flies here! 

A South Jordan connection, a great realization and sooo many meetings!!

Monday night we had a FHE with the Tippetts, and yes they are related to Roy and Barbara, and Br. Tippetts asked if we knew the Sherwoods.  He grew up with Doug Sherwood.  They hung out in high school!  Small world!!  From there we picked up the Elders and had an incredible lesson with the 4 generation Allen family.  We challenged them all to read Alma 32 this week.  Tammy, one of the 2nd generation said she's scared to read  the Book of Mormon because she knows its going to completely change her life and the direction she's headed.  Can't wait to hear how it went. I texted her and know she read this week. 
Okay, we had Zone Conference on Tuesday; it is an all day affair, our usual Missionary Correlation meeting Wednesday afternoon and then District meeting on Friday morning, then we had the adult session of Stake Conference Saturday night and regular Stake Conference this morning.  That left only one day without meetings this week! 
Firsts for the week; our first Zone Meeting. We met a less active sister and her significant other who plays in the band "The Texas Twisters".  They showed us his memory room which has pictures of him with Willie Nelson.  He lost a finger in and accident once and had them cut off his toe and attach it, so he can still play the guitar.  This is really cool; Brandon was baptized on Saturday morning.  At Stake Conference the next day, before he was confirmed, the Area 70; Elder Karl Tilleman called him up to bear his testimony in front of 600 plus people!!  Then two great new members from our ward were ordained as Elders after the meeting and Elder Tilleman, a General Authority stood in the circle to confirm Brandon with these 2 new Elders!  Oh and the mission president; President Drake.  We helped the Spanish Elders to teach a couple of kids a lesson.  It was fun because I had to repeat everything Elder Riches said because he doesn't know how to talk to kids.  I'm good at simplifying.  By the time we finished the lesson their Grandma and teenage sister had joined us.  Now the Spanish Elders want us to come to all of their lessons. 
We had a great time with a family for dinner tonight.  Brother Rich hopes that we will be able to get his wife back to church.  She and Elder Quincy could talk about baseball all night!  A great ending to a wonderful week! 
Trying to get a good picture of the full moon.

Storm approaching.

Brandon's baptism.  He is almost 18 although he doesn't look it.

Another Church.

Elder Johnson made it just in time for the baptism!!

The District with the 3 newbies; Elder Burdsol, Elder Kent and Sister Smith!  Funny that Elder Quincy and I are the only missionaries from Utah in our District.

2 months as missionaries! Unbelievable!

We realized yesterday that we entered the MTC on August 15th, so we have been missionaries for 2 months!  So it seems like we should feel more like we have our role here figured out better.  We are still doing new things every week and learning as we go.  Here's the firsts for the week; First baptism of a grandma!! Elder Quincy went fishing in the gravel pits and got so sick that night that he had to crawl into the bathroom, so I had to go to Zone Meeting without him.  We had a birthday party for Elder Riches!  After 2 cancelled appointments and about 5 visits to their house we had an amazing Family Home Evening with the Jones family!  It was so sweet when we asked when we could come back and have another one and the oldest said; "tomorrow"! and the younger boy invited us to his birthday party!  We asked if they were ok with the Sisters teaching their kids and preparing them for baptism (three of them are old enough) and they said yes!!  We LOVE this family.  We went to Br Weitzel's funeral and attended the luncheon after which was finger foods!  Actually it was perfect!  The other highlights of the week were meeting a humble less active member who wants to come back and misses the spirit.  We are having a FHE with him this week.  We finally had a lesson with the part member family the Howards.  The Elders have literally done dozens of hours of service at their house without being able to teach them a lesson.  They had us over for lunch last week, so this week I cooked lunch (Café Rio burritos).  While JoAnn and I finished the prep the Elders and Richard helped install a light on their patio. We'd left some videos with them the week before to watch and then talk with us about, but they hadn't watched them, so while the Elders went home and changed, we watched a video with them and started answering Jack's questions about doctrine.  The Elders came back and taught them a little, and then Richard suggested they have the lessons again.  They agreed to lunch and a lesson every week!!  Its been another great week!

The whole Weitzel family!

Jeanette ready to be baptized!

 Sister White got to come to the baptism!  I've really missed her!

More pictures of churches.

Jon, if you wanted a job down here, I found your place!

A close up of the some of the yellow blooms.

A pretty sunset.

These clouds!!

This ranch decorates Santa for each season.

This was in a member's yard.  Just a huge old rusted junk bus.

Living the dream in Cleveland!

I can not believe how quickly time passes down here!  Here are the new firsts for the month; We drove from the very top to the very bottom of the ward all in one day.  Our Relief Society President lives in a very nice place right on Lake Livingston, which is 45 minutes north of us.  One of the Elder's investigators had a lesson at his grandma's store which is right on the bottom of our ward about 35 minutes south of us.  We had the first death of a ward member, a sweet guy we'd visited in the hospital and then at his home just the week before.  We taught Gospel Doctrine Class for the first time.  Elder Quincy made it to help teach Preschool for the first time. We visited RV members who came from Utah and travel back and forth between their kids there and in Florida.  Brianna was baptized!  Her grandma and mom gave the talks and her great uncle came all the way from Dallas to baptize her!  We set up 2 temple trips with sisters in the ward who haven't been for a long time!!  We get to go to a session that way!  We had our first sleep over at Jenny's house last night.  Dean and Jane have been begging us to stay over, and they were out of school for Columbus day today and we had our FHE for last night cancel, so we headed down and got to see Jason's family too!  This has got to be the best mission ever!

Elder Johnson got to come from Orange, Texas for the baptism!  

Another trip to the temple to trade garments for a bigger size.

More churches.

Long drive back from up north!

These Baptist churches look a lot like our's, except for the billboards out front.

Cleveland started out as a logging, timber, milling place.  This is the main place still in business.

Lake Livingston.

The Golds, the Relief Society President and her good husband.  He spends 2 hours on the lake 6 days a week.  His goal is to catch 1,000 fish this year (he never keeps any of them). You can't tell from the picture, but they have parking for 30 cars and bunking for all of their kids and grandkids!

Another storm coming!

The Stuver's RV.

This is about a third of this house's yard and Halloween decorations.  

More progress on Br. Bright's dome shed.

Fall brings these pretty yellow flowers growing beside the road.

I tried to get both varieties of them.

Sydney doing her princess walk down Jenny's staircase.

Alice.

Dean.

These 4 are obsessed with my tablet.

Not these 3!

These girls are going to be besties!

Apparently I only got this shot of Jenny's cute new haircut!

I asked Jane to get some pictures of Richard doing crossfit while I fed the baby this morning and she got quite a few got shots.

I especially like this one!

More churches.

Brianna's mom and grandma with her.