Sunday,February 24 Guess you've all heard the big announcement of 58 new missions. Three big ones hit us - two in Washington and yes, our own Nampa, Idaho. All I could think of was that we could have stayed home and worked in the mission office maybe in our own back yard. We are excited to learn all the details. You keep us posted on Nampa and we'll keep you posted on Washington. Since the new Federal Way Mission is on our north and east and the new Vancouver is on our south, we know that it will take many of our zones. All of this will happen by July so it's very interesting. We had a busy week. Our Sister Clark is still recooperating. Hopefully one more week and she'll be back. Since that's the week of transfers we are scrambling to get everything she does done. The one MLS couple is coming in to help us since no one knows exactly what Sister Clark does except the President. Monday he is going to try and direct us. (Some days I don't even know what I do.) We get 31 new missionaries on the 5th and then it's down to 12 in April. We've been told they will no longer come to us in big groups, but will just come constantly, like every time the MTC needs more room. I think everyone is learning. Our McKay gets his call this week. We are all guessing where he might go. Now Nampa is on the list. I had a neat experience this week and felt like a true missionary. A brother came into the office with 100 sets of blocks he had made for the President. They are all labeled and decopaged to illustrate the Plan of Salvation and the missionaries use them to teach. He is from Puyallup and had made some for the missionaries in that area so the President wanted him to make them for all the missionaries. Since I was the only one in the office he was telling me about how many thousands he had made in many many languages and that just this week when he was making so many at one time, his wife who isn't a member asked him what exactly they were for. She had been through many missionaries trying to teach her, but she just wasn't interested. When he told her their purpose she asked him why he didn't teach her with them. He was so shocked and pleased and told me he was going to begin teaching his wife the Gospel. Something told me to take him in our supply room and show him all our DVDs and pamphlets that the missionaries use and see if any of them would help him in his new challenge. I told him what ones the missionaires seemed to use the most and where they were the most effective and he choose a few and seemed so pleased with the help and went on his way. I felt like I had just given a discussion and it was so exciting. I know now a little of what the misisonaires must feel when they have taught someone. Then I went back to my phones and computer - ugh! If I only could do those spread sheets with confidence. Jerry has all the apartments ready for the new missionaries but is still fighting with Sprint to keep the cell phones working correctly. Last week was a mess with many missionaries not being able to call out of their areas. Hopefully it is fixed now. Our Sprint agent was on vacation and no one else seemed to want to help. Jerry is getting a flat ear from being on the phone so much. He's looking forward to a more peacful week. Rain began again this week. They keep telling us to wait until Spring and the flowers and it will all be worth it. I'm counting on that. Yesterday we drove through the park that is by us and the moss is really green. I took some pictures and maybe Connie can post them. It was very beautiful. At least we don't have the snow that some of you are dealing with. We all get our different trials. Almost ready for our new month at the end of this week, February down and 9 to go. Miss you all but feel your love.

Sunday, February 17 We are back in Tacoma after a fabulous weekend. Dee gave me a great gift. I'm sure she asked me to speak at her funeral because she knew I needed to come home and have a taste of the love I feel there. It was a lovely funeral and I think Dee would have been pleased. She looked beautiful and so peaceful - all the pain gone from her face. The music at the funeral and flowers were wonderful. Melissa had such a good idea for the flowers in an arrangement of her purse and shoes - her loves. Her family will continue to need our love and support. We will call and I hope they will call us too. We got to see so many dear friends and see how they are doing. It was Kyle's birthday and so we got to go to dinner with his and Greg's family and then to McKay's basketball game. Jerry had so missed seeing McKay play basketball. I even got to take Avery shopping for her birthday that will be at the end of the month. She wanted to go to Build a Bear and so we did. Sunday was Church with Greg's family and Blake gave his first talk in Sacrament meeting and McKay was called up extemporaneously to bear his testimony, so we were doubly blessed. Had lunch with Kyle, Melissa and Avery and Kyle took us to the airport for our hour flight back on a prop plane. (Didn't know they still made those and made people fly on them.) We arrived safely and are back but missing home and friends. Sylvia feed us and Craig showed how well he keeps checking on the house. Everything looked great. Monday we will be back in the office and see what we missed. Our other office sister has been in the hospital all last week and we sure miss having her there and all she does. Hopefully we can get back in shape as she is back from the hospital but still recovering her strength. I got to help the missionaries last week with their French. Yes, I'm as bad with forgotten French as I am with the computer, but they were teaching an African woman who only spoke French, so I helped them with a few phrases. It's amazing what you need to remember on a mission. They left with two pamphlets - same pamphlet but one in French and the other in English. They can point to both languages and hopefully get a message across. Hope you all had a great Valentines Day. The tradition continued - heart shaped sugar cookies for the missionaries with the help this year from Albertsons. They didn't taste too bad. We will report again next week and as all reminded us this weekend - we are 1/4 through our mission.

February 9, Saturday Got a call this morning from Tyra Crockett that Dee had passed away. It doesn't seem real even though we knew it was coming. We got permission from our mission president to go down to the funeral as she had asked me to talk and Jerry to pray. She even had me read to her the talk she has requested - mostly about relationships. She said she was pleased. It was hard to read it to her, so I imagine it will be even harder at the funeral. We will only miss Friday from the office and will be back on Sunday. Of course, being home it might be hard for Jerry to pull me away again. Maybe that's why the missionaries can't do this, but seniors they are more easy on. Finished all my transfer board pictures finally. Now we're good for another 4 weeks when we have to do it again with new missionaries coming in. The President also had individual interviews with the staff. I guess we passed as we are still here. Jerry has found all his apartments for the incoming missionaries and is quite pleased with himself. He really works well with the ward mission leaders and bishops finding these apartments and furnishing them. We also got two new military support couples in this week. They are all moved in and seem to like what Jerry did for them as far as housing goes. We had a surpirse this week with new office furniture. It seems furniture destined for the Temple had some flaws and so they sent it to the mission homes and offices. It is very nice and we look all new and fancy. It was a mess arranging it thought - especially for the men and their desks. I just had to rearrange all my ordered Book of Mormons. We now have them coming out of our ears. My orders have arrived with a vengence. We can order almost 2,000 a month and the president wants me to order our quota. Since we were out for a week, you can see that these great missionaries really use them and "flood the earth" as President Benson wanted them to do. Tomorrow night we have another Fireside - and yes I will be singing again. Good thing we got a lot of new sisters because maybe it will be too crowded in the choir chairs and they won't need me. I do love to hear the other missionaires sing. We learned a Primary song in Sign Class this week - "I Love Mother." It is very slow and simple and was very fun to learn. I'm still advertising for another calling. Our little Megan turned 8 this week and since her Dad is in the Mid East on deployment her Uncle Kyle is flying to Oklahoma to baptise her. Her Uncle Matt will confirm her and I'm sure they will be the best of the best next best to great Dad Keven who is serving our country and keeping us all safe here. One of my favorite sayings is "Home of the Free Because of the Brave." We certainly feel this way about Keven. Today we had to take a mattress to the elders in Comopolis. Good thing we got this new car that carries everything. Our GPS got messed up and we got lost looking for them in Aberdeen. (Maybe Dee had something to do with this.) Finally found them. I think they were worried these old folks would find their way back home. We went further to the coast and saw the ocean at Gray's Harbor. It has Wesport on the south of the Harbor and Ocean Shores on the north side. We ate at a fun crab place. This is great crabbing waters. It was Bennett's Crab Shack and we had the best crab cakes and clam chowder and then did find our way home. Because of Jerry's calling we are seeing a lot of the mission. My goal is still to go to Forks. I think I'll tell the elders to request new mattresses up there. We will report late next week after we get back from the funeral. Keep your prayers going for the Crocketts.