Hump day!

What an amazing week!  We had another super busy P-day, but managed to do laundry and a trip to get groceries.  The awesome things that happened tbat day were finding out that Pauls eye procedure worked!  The hole in the retina is gone!  Alain may have insurance! Pauline didnt have cataracts. We had a great Family Home Evening at the Church that night.
Tuesday was Zone Conference in Des Moines which was inspiring, fun, and sad; great trainings, fun lunch and visits with missionaries, and farewell testimonies from those leaving us next week.
We took another load of stuff to our apartment down there. Wednesday we celebrated our halfway Mark of the mission by going to Smokin Gs for lunch. Delicious!  Elder Quincy fixed a window casing, put a tv stand together, and put new siding up.
I helped Nancy with her job interview at the Veterans home.  We practiced telling why she wants to work there in English and she did great!
I translated Leas talk I to English and was surprised how easy it was!  The hard part was saying it after her in church without crying.  It was a beautiful testimony of Christ!  I tried Fufu and recoup.
We got to teach 16 youth and 4 adults at the Methodist church is Gilman Wednesday night!  We are going to miss  many things about our time here, the youth group more than most.  We taught them (including the Pastor) the Plan of Salvation and they were engaged and had so many questions that we went over our hour time allotted.
We took the Sisters to teach a new referral in Union.  She is Marshallese and golden!  We stopped to eat dinner at Woodys which pretty much is a bar.  Oops!  Good food though!   We got 3 less actives to Young Women's that night!
We had a super fun brunch and Easter Egg hunt!
A full week.  Our daughter-in-law had emergency surgery Tuesday and had her appendix removed.  They moved yesterday.  We wanted to be there to help, but were glad to hear that their Relief Society came and helped pack and clean, the Bishop came and helped our son give her a blessing, and the ward moved them yesterday!   The gospel in action!  We are truly blessed!

Our last trip to Toledo and Conrad to take the sacrament to people. We had to get our picture by the sign.  Best dirt in the world right there in Conrad!

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!