Rain, mud and blessings!

We had a wonderful week!  We got to meet Nancys mom from El Salvador!  Discovered that the missionaries there had been  visiting her there!  All 4 of their family came to church today and the ward was very welcoming!  Nancys cute baby received a blessing from 2 brothers at church today.  We took the Sisters to meet the awesome Dent and Fox families!   Pauline surprised us and tore up her cigarettes and threw away her ashtray after our lesson with her on Thursday!  She had Elder Quincy give her a blessing. We have FHEs with 2 families this week!  Its been too long!  Fortino gave his first talk Sunday and it was awesome! Our great friend Duke in Texas also gave his first talk today!  We got to share chili with a couple of people this week.  We finished fixing the Elders apartment.  Now it's time to inspect again. 

Our new zone is lots of fun and a great group of missionaries!

This is the first grass we'd seen for 4 months!

Ready to paint the Elders wall!

And painted!

Snow almost off the balcony!

We walked arou d the pond!

A cool building in Marshalltown. 

There was a little ice to walk through, but passable! 

And Tada! Snowless!

Lots of rain caused some flooding and a few closed roads!

We had Lots of new missionaries in our zone!

Lunch at Texas Roadhouse after Zone Council.

We took Paul to the retina specialist.

His left eye has this hole in the retina.  The good news is it's treatable. 2 good brothers gave him a blessing at church today.

The river is overflowing into neighboring corn fields.

Buds on trees!

2 days later no more ice on our pond path!

It’s melting!

I can't tell you how wonderful the sound of dripping is to us!  It sounds like the long cold winter may be ending! We had a busy week with lots of visits to doctors.  We took Manathan to her postpartum in Ames in the morning and then brought Alain to his neurologist in Ames that afternoon.  We took two sets of kids to school every morning. We helped Alain and Nancy apply for jobs.  We took Edmond to talk to Immigration in Des Moines trying to figure out why they sent his green card application back.  Man this stuff is complicated! We even got to teach Pauline and Nancy lessons.  We took Pauline to her doctor in Nevada and to run errands in town.   We took dinner to the Dents and shared the chicken tortilla soup with Pauline and the Harringtons too. My sinus infection is better!  

It started snowing in Des Moines and this is what the car looked like when we got home!

We tried Taco Johns

Elder Quincy changed Amy's tire.

There were 8 deer behind the church when we left last night.

Good Br Jones met with and helped 3 African families with their taxes.

We had fun guests for Sunday dinner!

They took down this tornado damaged church!

They took down lots of tornado damaged trees this week!

Driving to Ankenny we saw something we haven't seen for months!  Cornstalks!   It's been all covered with snow until now!

Snow in Des Moines!

Another layer of mud on the damaged walls.

The last icicle dripping from our deck which came down Saturday !

 Life is good and getting warmer in Iowa! We were stopping by some homes on Friday night and we weren't cold!  The walk from the car to the door was enjoyable!  I didn't even have my coat zipped or my gloves on!  I could really get used to this!

Surprising change

We had another really cold week.  Apparently it's been unusually cold and snowy in Iowa this winter. We only had Luis and the Sisters for our FHE!  It was good though and our demonstration with sand and a rock foundation worked great!

We had zone conference changed to Wednesday because of road conditions.  President Badger asked us to stay after and meet with him for a minute.  He asked us to change assignments and come work in the office starting in May.  So we'll move to Des Moines and get trained for a month, then the mission headquarters are moving to Iowa City in June.  I am not sure how my Africans will get by, but Elder Quincy tells me that no one is indispensable! 

The Rodriguez' neighbor's kitchen caught on fire and burnt done their fence and melted some siding!  Scary!

We had all our French Sunday School class there but Alain! 

We fed the habitat for humanity work crew at the Church Saturday!   The Sisters had one young lady ask how to join our church.

Credo dressed up in my coat Saturday. While we arranged an appointment with immigration for her dad.

Zone meeting was great as usual!

This is the couple well replace in the office. 

Thursday we took the time to mend walls in the Ankenny Elders apartment.  They had Fufu mix on their table.

This was the smaller of the two holes.

Still repairing Marshalltown .

Samuel on the high frozen snowbank in front of the school where we pick the kids up. We took a friend of Hardy's to Des Moines for a court date.  We took a friend of Susan's to get her car from the repair shop.

We got Paul's glasses. Alain had his EEG.  We visited Pauline in the hospital.

I gave Elysee a little driving lesson. We took dinner to the Newberry's and saw their new baby!  I attempted bearing my testimony in 3 languages today. I used Whats App for the first time.  We had a fun FHE with the cute Bickham family.  We taught Nancy and Kevin about priesthood and arranged for a spanish speaker to give the baby a blessing.  Timing got mixed up but it will happen.  We put more sand in Amy's driveway and Elder Quincy did lots of shoveling and ice removal at the Church. I've been battling a cold turned into a sinus infection and Elder Quincy gave me a blessing and has been babying me.  I sure married a good man!

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!