BBC: Birthday, Breakfasts, and Conference

We had a fun week!  I had a birthday which happened to be interviews with the President that day in Ames, so we decided to visit the cemetery in Madrid which is close to Ames.  We got interviewed, had a short District Council, had breakfast at Village Inn, and headed to Madrid. We got back in time to have dinner with Nancy, Conchita and Kevin.  Sister Jones was there too.  We had pauses.  They were delish! I heard from all of my kids and was sung to by 4 different groups in 2 languages!  I feel very loved! Elder Quincy gave me a new temple dress and a cookie scooper!

The road into the Dalander cemetery was sketchy, but we made it.  

Sven Magnus Anderson has always been a favorite from my family history.  His mom and him  were the only ones who joined the church and traveled to Salt Lake City.  The rest of the family stayed in Iowa and lots of them are buried in the little cemetery.

The Des Moines river was full!

We finally had youth group again!  Elder Quincy took this great picture of the window with the twilight shining in.

We had 20 kids to teach for an hour!  It was awesome!

The fields are getting plowed up and ready to plant.

We got to go to Kevin's school program!  

These redwinged black birds were at the pond on my walk.

We drove to Iowa City to see this possible site for the mission office.  Such a cool old building! 

Our future apartment on the other hand is new and very nice!

Family Home Evening group was fun!

We fed the ward breakfast (30 of them anyway) Saturday morning before conference for the Spring cleanup at the church. It was fun and delicious!

Sunday morning we had more than usual come to the church!

Luis was the only Spanish speaker

We had all the African men French speakers, only Lea of the women.

We fed them breakfast between sessions,  a tradition we started in Texas.  Conference was amazing!  I am overwhelmed with the inspired messages!  We had English and Spanish speaking people being taught come and listen! Life is good in Iowa!

All over the place!

We had a fun, busy week! Lots of walks around the pond for me and runs for Elder Quincy. 

School playground with the Tsolukas while Elder Quincy and their dad looked at a house.

Pauiline is crocheting.  It's helping her stop smoking!

I made coffee for the first time at the House of Compassion!

A great dishwasher!

The serving crew.

Bring your own lunch to District Council. 

Moss on the pond!

Moving furniture.

Sweet Sister Bennett gave it away.

The Tsolukas love the upgrade!

Paul and Lea took us all out to the China Buffet for Lea' S birthday!

Saturday we inspected 6 missionary apartments from Ankenny to Red Rock, from Red Rock to Oskaloosa, from Oskaloosa to Newton.  It was a beautiful cloudy day!

Some interesting decor, but all in all cleaner and nicer!

Elder Quincy changed light bulbs and fixed blinds.  We found a broken microwave, more broken blinds, and furniture, mop, and cooking pan needs.

Church today was awesome!  Paul blessed the sacrament in French!  Amy gave the prayer, and sweet testimonies were born!  All of our Africans but Manathan were there!  I attempted another trilingual testimony.  We made an appointment to take Amy to do baptisms in Nauvoo!  We took the sacrament to 2 nursing homes and to the Harringtons.  They are wishing Darrell felt good enough to go for a ride on their Harley.  Elder Quincy gave 5 blessings, fixed a tire, jumped a car, and worked on a chainsaw this week.  The Harringtons fed us dinner, Br Kynaston bought us lunch, the Kangnis bought us dinner and we ate dinner with the homeless, so we only ate at home once this week since we fasted last night.  March really flew by in a blur!  Spring is arriving and we love it!  

I love this picture of the clouds reflected in my pond.

A Fun Mix

What a fun week!  We had a great mixture of service, Family Home Evenings, Doctors appointments, Primary activity, lessons, and paper work. Monday, our supposed to be P Day ended up being our busiest day!  Alain was in the emergency room, Elysee had an emergency dentist visit, and Paul had an appointment with the eye doctor.  It was kind of all at the same time and overlapping, so we had to be creative and separate.  When we tried to drop Elysee home, we had to break into the house!  Elder Quincy is pretty amazing and got them in!  We barely made it in time to help schedule Paul's eye procedure, and then we got Alain back home.  Luckily Elder 

Quincy got the laundry done while I was with Elysee!  We had no time for grocery shopping! 

We got the Tsolukas and Kevin to the Primary activity and found rides for the Banderas!  They all had a blast making sticky buns at the Kynaston's!

A foggy walk around the pond.

We had fun with the Steinbacks, Luis, Jerry, and our super Sisters at our Family Home Evening on Monday night!

Ice starting to melt on the pond.

Lots of water by the river.

Pretty sunset

Yup a man ice fishing on the pond!  Kind of iffy looking ice!

We had a lesson with Steven and the Sisters.  He let me take a picture of his son's cute hand print nativity.

This porch collapsed last week.

Casey's is almost rebuilt.

The day after the ice fishing!

Lea wearing her birthday present from us!

 Cinceanos for Kimberly today!

Paul's eye procedure went well. We had a couple of hours to walk around Hiawatha, Iowa while they did it.  More tests, doctor visits and frustration for Alain.  A couple of trips to the Ames hospital to see the Harringtons.  A great Plan of Salvation lesson with Nancy and her mom in Spanish, with Sister Jones there for back up! Family Home Evenings with the Banderas and Foxes that were a blast!   We even got down to Des Moines to see our next apartment AND it has 2 bathrooms and a laundry room! Elder Quincy fixed the Sisters dryer and a few other things in their apartment.  We actually got to District Council!  We had 4 investigators at church!