On the Move!

We spent an unusual amount of time moving people this week.  This cute family moved to Omaha, Nebraska.  We've been teaching Lulu with the rest of the neighborhood, so we were able to send a referral and the great Elders down there were waiting when they arrived to unload the truck that Br. Westwater from the Bishopric drove down for them!  We've also been moving Amy this week, but just across town. We moved one sister to a homeless shelter in Ames on Monday and then brought her back here on Thursday, when they didn't have a spot for her.

 We spent some time delivering flyers about the Trunk or Treat we had Friday night.  This was a pretty sketchy road we traveled getting from one small town to another.

 Halloween isn't my favorite holiday, but seeing the cute kids in their costumes almost makes it on my list.

The trunk or Treat was a huge success!  We had about 28 nonmembers come and quite a few members came to church for the first time since we got here!  

The colors keep getting more and more beautiful here.

More cuties in costume.

This is the Relief Society President and the Young Men's President and their cute family!

 We had a few hours to look for some places on the ward list we hadn't been able to find yet.  One led us to this cool shop.

Another window at the Rodriguez's.  Taking out the big one in the shower and installing this small one .

Lulu"s twin sister. 

One of the addresses we searched for took us to this church community.

While the men were working inside Marisol and I picked up all the debris from the roofing job.

Window in.

Lulu's niece, Ella is less than a month old! Her mom is 6'4"!  

The Bishop's cute family.

Some of the Gobbles.

Most of Santos and Maria's grandkids were at the trunk or treat.  One family missing!

Alex fixing drywall in the kitchen.

The Reece boys.

Elder Quincy fixing the outside of the window.

The truckload of debris we cleaned up.

Harvesting is going great guns this week!

We spent very little time teaching this week, but we were able to take dinner to a family that we've been trying to get in the door to since we arrived and are excited to have a FHE with them tomorrow!
The wonderful Spanish temple prep class is the highlight of the week still.  We are very excited to go to the temple with them later this year! The Nauvoo temple is closed for 8 more weeks!
Today we made 4 trips to get people to church!  We left at 8:10 this morning and didn't get back until 7:10 tonight.  As we hot home tired and hungry we found the Rodriquezes waiting for us with tamales and Mexican pastries!  We are truly blessed!
We loved doing sharing time today!  As you can see the kids here are absolutely adorable!  Our 4 year old grandson asked to borrow tge car to come see us.  We miss him and the other 18 grandkids but we love what we are doing!

Service of many kinds

I think that this has been our week of the most diverse service opportunities. It went by really fast with our shortened Pday (taking Alain to Immigration that day) and Zone Meeting.
We've spent time helping people fill out applications for housing, met landlords, seen apartments, scheduled appointments for viewing apartments, loaded up possessions for moving, cleaned up the new home, fixed flooring and prepared a bathroom for use in the new place, given English lessons, temple prep lessons, driving lessons, French nursery lessons, called the Rental Inspection Department about problems with rentals, called and made doctors appointments, helped prepare a house to move into by installing another window, and then a little bit of teaching the gospel. We haven't spent this much time in work clothes since our first couple of weeks after the tornado.
Housing is a real issue here.  There are lots of really nice apartments for those who make less than $28,000 a year, but for those that make more than that its hard to find decent affordable housing.
The weather has been mostly gorgeous this week!  The fall colors are blooming, the leaves are falling and the harvest is ongoing.  It really is a beautiful place.

 I have to share this picture from Zone Conference lunch because I don't have one of the Badgers. They are really great!

The flora around my pond is everchanging.

The Elders only had a few minutes to help, but we got all heavy stuff loaded.

I finally got a shot of a squirrel.  They are everywhere gathering nuts.

Fixing the bathroom flooring.

Amelia was cooking Liberian food at the lesson at her house, so I had to get some pictures of it. 

I had lots of fun at Super Saturday while Elder Quincy helped with more moving.  They took some furniture and a fridge from one home to the home of another family.

This tree has just about lost all its leaves.  Lots of the trees are still green.

I caught this blue heron taking off.

First they took out the old broken window, then they made the hole bigger and put the new window in.

The perfect marriage of Elder Quincy and my favorite candy!

Moving out.

The Primary Children's sacrament meeting presentation was Sunday and it was super!  I was especially happy that Rovy participated!  He knew most of the songs and said his part in a mostly understandable way!  We had parts in French and Spanish and children from many countries participate.  I think there were over 125 people there!  If we had the Primary present every week, we'd be ready for the next phase of a building in no time!  Kids are just the best thing ever!  We've spent time today shopping a Goodwill for a purse to take to someone 30 minutes away, delivered it, then picked up a sister to take to a Women's shelter 45 minutes away so luckily I started laundry at 7:00 this morning and got 2 batches done before we left the house.  We have 3 appointments tonight, so its a good Pday!  We love this work!  Each week is another opportunity to serve in surprising new ways!