A week for the books!

So funny that I thought it was so cold last week! This week has been seriously cold!  The school district cancels school when  the raw temperature is below -15 or the wind chill is -25.  They only held school 2 days this week!
We had 2 awesome Family Home Evenings this week with the Rodriguez family and the Fox family!  Elder Quincy  got some shoveling done.  We had lots of opportunities to travel in the cold!  We are thankful for our Subaru! We loved helping to feed the homeless with the young men!
We helped Sarah hang pictures and had dinner with her and the Newberrys!
We did our first apartment inspections on Saturday traveling one and a half hours South through Ankeny to Oskaloosa and back through Newton.
Br Harringtons having heart and lung trouble on his chemo treatments, so we've been to the hospital in Ames 3 times to see he and his cute wife .  We've seen Linda Bennett in the hospital here in Marshalltown twice. And we took Manathan to the emergency room today!
We took Nancy and son to the airport Monday, then had quite the adventure trying to pick her up last night!  First time experiencing freezing rain!  She had missed her connection in Atlanta, so we got to drive back to get her this morning!   Not much opportunity to prepare this pday!  But we are grounded for the next 2 days.  Too cold to be outside!  We are losing both of our Elders this transfer!  We will have Sisters!
And I found out I'm getting another grandbaby in August!

Sundogs

Cold roads

This week's forecast

Cute Elliottis getting baptized!  It's harder to leave for a few days than I thought it would be, but we are so excited! 

Freezing rain

The Harringtons

It was fun to visit with great missionaries while we inspected!

Bonus!  My cousin lives in Oskaloosa and fed us a delicious lunch!

Helping hang pictures 

View from the skywalk over Main Street

Last lunch before transfers

Great young men

The rest of the crew

3 super ladies

Meal prep

Brrr!

Winter arrived!   It's been really cold!  We are so glad that we bought warmer coats! And we got new tires on the car just before the snow hit us!  Monday we had a great Family Home Evening with Jerry, Nancy, Kevin and the Elders! We had an appointment with the Social Security office Tuesday morning, it's hard to decide when to start taking money.  Poor Elder Barker had food poisoning so we got to teach Nancy and Kevin about living prophets alone!  Then Elder Quincy took gatorade and crackers to the Elders while I went to the Relief Society meeting.  Wednesday we had brunch with the Roberts and the Dahls and got to teach the youth group about setting goals and choice and consequences.  We really enjoy that group!

Thursday before we had District Council we took Pauline to our Bishops dental office, had lunch with the missionaries, took Pauline to the store and had a Family Home Evening with the Carillos!  Friday we got Lea from Toledo and took her to the Bishops dental office and to Wal-Mart, helped Manathan move a load to the new apartment, met with Alain to help with paperwork, moved another load to the apartment, then drove to teach the Dents in the storm.  It was totally worth it!  Great lesson on temples.  While we were making brownies for Sunday's potluck, the Harringtons called Saturday morning.  We helped them with a computer issue and borrowed their shovel.  We stopped and bought some ice melt and shoveled and salted a few places.  Well Elder Quincy did 95 percent of the work as usual!

We waited for the Elders to get back from exchanges as the temperatures kept dropping.  Finally, with Br Keys help and truck and when it was 9 degrees with a wind chill of -15 we started moving the big things out of Hardy and Manathan's apartment. The Elders arrived in time to help unload and get the last load.  Elder Quincy got some well deserved rest while I took Elysee and kids to Walmart. It was down to 0 when I got home that night!

Today's been a great Sunday!  I was amazed that we had 100 people come to church in the cold and storm!  We're taking Nancy and Kevin to the airport at 2:00 am and Alain to the doctor at 8:30 am so I'm posting tonight!

Manathan

The Dents

On the way home from the Dents

They pile snow in the middle of the road so lane changes are tricky!

Our awesome Sunday night Self Reliance class. (2 families joined us via cell phones tonight)

On the way to get Lea early Friday.

Lunch with the district

My cute mom fell Monday.  My awesome siblings are taking good care of her, but it was good to call her and hear her voice Tuesday morning! Life is good here, cold but good!

A Wonderful Week!

There are so many great things happening in our lives! Here's a few of the ones we've experienced this week!
We only had the Elders and us to our Family Home Evening Monday, but we had a great lesson, yummy treats and had fun teaching the Elders how to play Speed Scrabble.  Tuesday we had a wonderful Zone conference in Des Moines.  We said goodbye to the Drummonds, met their great replacements and another new senior couple, the Williams.

We discovered changes at the Jays home.  Remember all the broken glass and the building that used to be next door?

We had a great visit with the Beneshes who told us the best way to celebrate 6 months as missionaries in Iowa was dinner at the Sunshine Cafe in LeGrande.  It was really good and we met an interesting couple there.  

We had our first real snow storm.  Only 5 inches of snow but the cars were grounded because of icy conditions.  

I made cookies all morning.  Elder Quincy got a little stir crazy and was glad when we could get out to shovel the Church sidewalks.

We had 3 Family Home Evenings; one in English and two in Spanish and all three families fed us yummy dinners!  We loved playing Don't Eat Pete with 9 kids at Maria Hernandez' and 2 at the Newberry's.  

We were really happy that 3 families came to church Sunday for the first time since we've been  here!  

Sadly, when we showed up at the nursing home to take Dawn Lough the sacrament Sunday, we found out she'd died that morning!  She called me Friday and asked for help with some Social Security issues.  When we took her the sacrament on December 30th she mentioned that she wanted to make amends with some family members, so on New Years Day we brought her a couple of cards to send them.  I hope she got them sent.  We'd watched "What Matters Most" with her, which says;"cherish those we hold dear and express your love to tbem..send that note to a friend you've been neglecting." Its interesting how the Spirit touches hearts and gives people the message they need to hear!

We got a call from the Harringtons Tuesday.  We'd hurried home from zone meeting to jump start Hardy's van for him and were so glad we were able to say we'd be right there when they told us that Br. Harrington had just found out he has bone cancer!  We were able to meet with them again on Friday with the Bishop and be there for a priesthood blessing.  Br Harrington has watched 3 of the Prince of Peace videos with us this week and they really touch him.

I'm going to share a fun video from in the car taking the Tsolukas to buy groceries as they try to teach me to count in Lingala.  We have lots of happy times here, too!

Oh well, not working.. its on my Instagram account. 

I'm reminded today about how blessed I am to have my wonderful family and especially my good husband, who makes my life fun and oh so sweet!

A new year, a new opportunity

We had a lot of fun with our FHE group on New Years Eve!  Then we had fun visiting people with the Elders on New Years day. The Roberts fed us this delicious lunch of oyster stew!  Notice I am wearing slacks!  Another new change!

We visited the Harringtons, Dawn Lough, had a lesson with Nancy and Kevin, and took Edmond to see cars for sale in Marshalltown. 

Wednesday bright and early we had interviews with the Mission President and his wife.  They asked us to take on the New responsibility of inspecting apartments in a neighboring zone. Then we had District Lunch at Carvers.

We tried to get to  our of the homes of less active to let them know about the new church schedule.  And we printed the reminder in French and delivered it to all the French speakers.  

The sun was setting when we got to this farm in Eldora.

The road to a member's in Mountour was very muddy, but I was fascinated with the frozen swamps.

Our car was filthy when we picked up the kids from school.  We washed right after, I promise! 

This sweet sister was roommate to my good friend Cindy Hilton!  The things we learn from Facebook !

Sunday was awesome with all but one of our Africans there!  Hardy and Lea bore their testimonies, too!  I had to get a picture with Elysee and Lea in their new wigs!

We took Edmond to Ames on Friday to the Honda dealership to test drive this Pilot. He called Saturday and asked us to take him back to buy it!  The whole family was soo excited!  Being able to drive themselves to church was awesome! And Elder Quincy doesn't have to get up in the middle of the night to get Edmond from work!

It was warm enough to walk Saturday!  The pond is still frozen though.

We spent many hours helping Alain with medical and financial issues.  Yesterday he found out he has financial help from the hospital!  He's feeling better and hopefully will soon be back to work.
Another cool thing was that in our French Sunday School class I was able start the discussion and communicate better than I have so far.  Having discussions is going to force me into a new level of French SPEAKING.
2019 is looking good so far with amazingly nice temperatures!  Life is good here in the Lord's vineyard in Iowa!