Cold hands, Warm hearts

It's still cold here, but we've had a day over freezing and the sound of dripping warms my heart! They had to cancel church again yesterday! And Pauline was going to come!  We get around fine so we decided to take the sacrament to Br Hoffa in Conrad.  It was bad!  The roads were fine, but the wind would blow the snow in spots to create whiteouts! We ended up turning around just a couple of miles from Conrad.  So we were worried about driving to Iowa City 100 miles away for the African fireside!  We had arranged to give Paul and Lea a ride to make sure they got there in time because they had speaking assignments!  We decided to go to Toledo and take the sacrament to Linda Bennett and see how the roads were before picking up Paul and Lea.  Long story short is we went to the fireside and they gave wonderful talks!  

Brandon sent me this picture of the pigs he feeds.  Cute things!

Funky icicle on our patio.

Monday's family home evening was so Fun! Luis came, Jerry came, Susan came. Nancy, Kevin and Keyden came, and the Sisters came!  Big change from last week when we were alone!

We took cute Marisol to Grinnell for a job interview.

Elder Quincy did lots more shoveling!   He also put new brake pads on Nancy's car.  We helped Alain get an MRI!  That was a miracle that it even happened!   And we took him to the orthopedic surgeon and helped him apply at Wal-Mart.  We talked to his HR department and sent more info to the insurance. We took Paul to get new glasses and set up an appointment with a retina specialist and took Lea to get her phone working again! We took Susan to the store and the church and home. We took kids to school and Elysee to Walmart. We took Pauline to the doctor in Nevada.

Melting!

 

Paul and Lea missed our messages about no church again! So we took them to visit the Tsolukas.  Samuels ear is hurting so Paul ( his first time and in French) anointed and Elder Quincy (in English) sealed the annointing. 

The road to Conrad.

The squirrels here don't hibernate!  I don't know how they survive the -50 wind chill!  These guys came right up to my car at the stop sign.

After the fireside.

There were 5 African countries represented there.

We didn't realize that the missionaries were grounded for the day until we were headed home!

Life is good here!  We are looking forward to warmer weather but enjoy the kind and warm hearted people we serve here!

Loving Iowa

Elder Quincy got me these awesome flowers to brighten our apartment all week!  We also had a delicious dinner at Legends.  We took Valentine's to some lonely people and to some kids.  

We were the only attendees at Family Home Evening Monday night!  First time that's happened!

Thankfully our Subaru gets us everywhere safely!  We took the Tsolukas to see an apartment,  kids to school and back, to Toledo, Conrad, State Center, and back delivering Valentine's, to Ames for District Council, to Des Moines and Ankeny taking care of supplies for apartments we've inspected and it does great even when we see lots of cars off the road!

Elder Quincy shoveled the church sidewalk at least 3 times this week!

This cool machine grabs the snow piled in the road and spits it into a truck.  It reminds me of the one the Cat in the Hat drives.

Keyden is Nancy's adorable baby!  He came to the church with her to fill out a job application. 

We showed up to shovel at the Harringtons and ended up putting their rain gutter back up!

Getting stuff from the mission's storage.

Jamison loved his Pokemon!

We helped Sarah hang the rest of her pictures.

Evelyn and her bunny.

Friday we helped Paul and Lea with their taxes and get Paul an appointment to get new glasses. Saturday we helped Alain send in paperwork,  get his prescription, and fax a letter to insurance.  Then we took Lea to get her phone working and took Elysee grocery shopping.

Church was cancelled Sunday!

We had about 8 inches of snow.  

We rescued the Sisters who live down behind this house and brought them with us taking the sacrament to;

And to Barbara Costello. Then we brought them home to help us eat the food I'd cooked for the pot luck we didn't have after church.

We visited the Harringtons.  Elder Quincy shoveled their driveway.  Everyone was thrilled to meet the Sisters!

We shoveled the church and then borrowed the shovels to get the Sisters driveway done.  

Soon after we started a kind soul with a plow on his truck came and helped so we just had to clean that pile out from in front of their car!

I was summoned for jury duty.  I wonder if they'll excuse me?

Meg sent us this heart warming picture last night!

Wal-Mart parking lot this morning.

This is us standing on the pond we walk around in the  nicer weather.   Thick enough for me to brave it!

We talked with our daughter in Texas this morning who said it was too cold for her kids to play outside at 53 degrees.  We thought 19 felt nice today!

Meanwhile back in Iowa...

We met our great new missionaries; Sister Smith from Mesa and Sister Peterson from Santaquin!

Max's grandson wrote this letter about this dog.  It gives us a chuckle Every time we visit.

We gave Tim a ride home from the car rental place and were stopped for a while which allowed me to get a picture of another Sun Dog.

It was about 2 degrees with a wind chill of -16 So we were surprised to see a car fire was the reason for our slow down!

We love the Carillo family!  We had a fun meeting with them!  She made the cute Pokemon on the table.  Our grandson gets a couple for his birthday this week!

Lots of new missionaries in our district this transfer!  

Tony had to get his appendix out!

We had a super fun ward game night!  

Sunday we had a bunch of snow which seemed like no big deal with temperatures in the 20's, but church attendance was sparse Sunday morning and the Self Reliance class was cancelled!  We love the warming trend here!

To Utah and back in 4 days!

What a crazy week!  Being grounded for 2 days, then flying out Friday meant trying to fit everything into one day!  Manathan lost her baby and not being able to visit was awful, but we were able to see her and cry with her on Thursday! We had fun being grounded.  We made soup and did a puzzle got all packed up for the trip!
Friday was a really long day; waking up at 2:15, flying to SLC, taking the train to downtown and going to the Salt Lake temple for a session, then lunch all before noon.  We met Meg at her work, made it to Deseret Book (no distribution center in Iowa!) And went home with Meg!  Jon and Nathan joined us for dinner!
Saturday was all about Elliott's baptism!  It was awesome!  A great crowd of friends and family gathered at their home for lunch . Then we headed to see Joni 's family!  Elder Quincy fixed their dryer and we played with the grandkids.
Sunday we visited our home ward!  It was fun to see everyone!  After church we had dinner with Joni and Mikey, Jon and Nathan and the kids!  We had a Family meeting at my little brother's beautiful home with 2 sisters facetiming with 2 other sisters, one brother, 2 sister-in-laws, 2 brother-in-laws and my mom and dad!  Such amazing people!
We stopped at Elder Quincy' s brother's house and saw he and  his wife, a nephew and great niece.  Then back to Josh and Meg's!
Monday we got to tend our granddaughter while Josh and Meg went snowshoeing, had a delicious dinner Meg fixed us and then Josh took to the airport to fly back to Iowa!  We didn't get home until 1:30! Its nice to be back!