Saturday, July 27, 2013

Saturday, July 27 We had a nice Saturday after a horrendous week. It seemed many of the missionaries had problems: Started with a sister and an appendectomy, then an elder ate peanuts and went into allergic shock and had to be ambulanced to the hospital, then another has bad asthma and we had to go check out the apartment for mold - yes, a lot was in the bathroom so Jerry had the manager fix every thing, then a sister's brakes didn't work on her bike and she crashed and was banged up with 30 stitches in her behind, then an elder had to go home, one of the senior couples had a heart attack and had to go home - was that enough? To top if off we had the devastating news of Jeff Pryor's passing. We talked to Shelly and were amazed at her strength and the things that had been happening to uphold her. We assured her that we would be there for her when we got home. We will look more closely and go more often through the fence to her back yard to see everything is going all right. Jeff was a quiet but giving and caring man who affected and helped many people. He will be missed. Then we got word from Greg that one of McKay's friends had drowned and that Blake had flown over the handle bars of his bike and broke three bones in his arm. I think that has been a record for a terrible week. It had started so well with our high councilman talking in Church. He is Elder Oaks' son and gave a great talk on obedience. He said that obedience brings blessings...strict obedience brings miracles. You could tell that he was his father's son, but he had hair. He also told about his third great grandmother who said when her family was called to settle Castle Valley, Utah, "What Da.... man would send a woman to live there?" I'm afraid in my low moments I've said the same thing. She repented and I have been doing better too. Had a busy Monday e-mailing all the parents of the missionaries about the new directive of no back packs - only shoulder bags. McKay had been told and left his back pack home and took a should bag. (By the way, he is doing great and is a District Leaders and can pray in Japanese all ready.) Many were concerned about riding bikes with shoulder bags. I guess time will tell. We are going to have a bike safety course in the mission with the accident and the new rules. Well, back to today. We went to the glass museum in the morning. Tacoma is known for their glass bridge and glass blowing. I'll include a picture of the fountain there. Then our Stake put on Pirates of Penzance. They did a fabulous job - what great voices and the sound system worked so well we were able to hear everything. A number of people in our ward here were in it. I'll included a picture from that too. Hope this week is more calm with sadness down. We keep all of you dear friends and family in our prayers. We all seem to need more and more. Love, Carolyn and Jerry

Sunday, July 21, 2013

July 21 The last few days of the week were devoted to the young missionaries. One sister called and said that something in her mattress kept poking her all night and she couldn't sleep. She thought she had to go and buy herself a mattress. Jerry told her we'd be right out, so on Thursday we took her a new mattress. She was so excited. When it was unwrapped she just rubbed it and lay down on it and sighed. The elders were there to take the old mattress out and carry up the new mattress. We all had a good laugh and then we took them all out to lunch in Port Orchard. If you don't follow the Hallmark Channel then you should and here's why. There is an author who lives in Port Orchard who has written many books and one of her books is being made into a movie for TV series called Cedar Cove. It has views of the Puget Sound and scenes from Seattle. It was so fun to watch and realize you'd been there. Next time I need to find out where she lives and go and get an autographed copy of her book. The elders knew exactly where they wanted to eat lunch and it was a great Mexican restaurant. Then that evening a sister had an emergency appendectomy and an elder passed a kidney stone. Sister Weaver was very busy. The elder was so much better, but the sister has two weeks of recovery. Sister Weaver now has a new companion for two weeks. I'm sure she'll get extra special care. Saturday we had a new adventure. I wanted to go to the Lavender Festival in Sequim and Jerry wanted to go see Hurricane Ridge. So we compromised and saw both. The Trotters went with us and their friend and granddaughter were visiting so the car was filled. We think everyone in the area went to the festival. The cars were a solid line and backed up 10 miles out of town. We stopped at the first lavender farm which was the largest and smelled our way through beautiful lavender and learned a number of things about lavender - a perennial crop, hand harvested, dried, seeds broken out of pods by hand, crush for oil. The harvest is in July and early August. They sell everything from oil to lotions, to decorations to perfumes, to edibles and everything is decorated in purple. We then got back in traffic and went to the John Wayne Marina, got out of traffic and had lunch at the marina. It was so pretty and we ate and watched the fishermen come in with their catches of crab, clams and oysters. I had clam chowder and Elder Trotter had oyster stew. Jerry had a chicken sandwich. You can tell who is adventuresome. Saw a starfish on the rocks of the harbor and a seal swimming around in the harbor, so it was very picturesque. Back in the line to downtown Sequim and parked and walked the Street Fair where more lavender was sold. It looked like a combination of Art in the Park and Western Idaho Fair - food and booths galore. Then after suffering through all our shopping Jerry finally got his wish and we drove up to Hurricane Ridge and saw a spectacular view of the Olympic Mountain range. On one side the mountains went forever and the other view took us across the Strait of Juan De Fuca and you could see clear to Victoria, Canada. The drive up and down was cliff hugging and the scenery awed us completely. Jerry thought he'd made the best choice of the day. There were also deer walking around and so relaxed with all the people taking pictures of them. I will post some pictures of our day. Ready to relax today and prepare for work on Monday. We found out Friday that three military relations couples are coming this Fall to the Mission. That will up our number of seniors to 25 but then 6 will be going home - including guess who. (Still not counting, right.) Have a new book for all of you to check out. It's called "The Life of the Savior - compiled solely from Scripture." Karen Coleman gave it to me and it's such informative reading with the actual scriptures all compiled together. Hope you all have a good week and cool off. We've been rather cool here and maybe a tender mercy to us is that it's the driest summer they've had in 60 years. Love, Carolyn

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Wednesday, July 17 Today is the big day and reason for our great trip home. McKay went into the MTC. McKay called to say good-bye and Greg sent picture updates. He was to arrive at 1:00 and the first picture was the back of his body pulling his suitcases and it was 1:11. Greg said they efficiently wisked him off and "the count down begins." I guess a few of the Jones' are counting now. Back to the weekend. It couldn't have been better. We left Thursday morning and got to Nampa just before the McCall vacationers arrived. Kyle and Melissa and Avery came over so I got some special time with them. So good to sleep in our own bed. Friday I went to the dentist and then great friends brought in lunch and we sat on the patio and visited and enjoyed. Then it was over to Greg's for Nathan's birthday party. Saturday we planned for the guests. We were so pleased that my sister Connie and her friend Louise were coming up. Tom and Jan came and Brent, Trevor and Derek came too. We felt so loved and supported and so did McKay. Saturday night Greg and DaNel had an open house for McKay and then Sunday was his farewell. He did a great job with the subject the Bishop gave him to talk on - sacrifice. He started with relating sacrifice to the only thing he knows and loves - sports. First it was baseball and the batter sacrificing with a butt and then basketball and the guard placing himself between the basket and the opposing team player. Then he progressed and related it to life and service. It was so good. I just was beaming the entire time. There were tons of kids there to support him and wish him well. Afterwards everyone came over to our house for lunch. It was a booming time. Monday we all headed out. My house doesn't look quite as put together as it was when we left, but Linda, Kimmie and Kristie took all the towels home to wash, so they won't be hanging around dirty until we get back in November. We sure have great and wonderful friends who help us survive. Jerry went to his doctor Monday morning and got a good report with a change in medicine. Hopefully this will help these last few months up here with more balance and support. We had a surprise last week with the couple replacing us calling. They are excited and from Idaho Falls. I'm excited to train them. They will arrive around November 1. Sister Trotter kept the office going while we were gone so Tuesday it was just catching up. We had just had transfers so she had to put a lot back together. We had some great sayings at transfers. Sister Weaver said something that hit me. She said someone told her, "You're not dying, you're just going on a mission." I need to remember that and then her next statement, "Live the moment." I need to learn to enjoy every thing that happens and know that this is the only time it will happen this way. Jerry enjoys everything and I just endure. Got to visit Terah Young and Bruce Schaeffer while we were home - great examples for enduring the right way. I will post some pictures for the weekend. Thanks again to all of you. Love, Carolyn

Saturday, July 6, 2013

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Pictures

Saturday July 5

Saturday, July 6 We got to go to the Temple today. I sure miss our weekly trips. This has only been our third time since we've been here. The flowers were beautiful. It's hydrangea time up here and I took a picture of a beautiful one at the Temple, but also a blue one here in University Place. We are taking care of the other office couple's fish and garden while they are on vacation and this is a bush by their home. I just see hydrangeas in pots at home, if you are lucky to get them to grow. But up here they are huge bushes and mostly blue. Mary Crockett taught me that this means a base soil, red means acid soil. I remember something about that in chemistry class. Enjoy the pictures. I have been enjoying text pictures from the kids in McCall. They are having a great time. It seems to be our whole family's favorite place, even with the oven and refrigerator not working. I have a remodeling project when we get home. I hear it's been hot down in Idaho. Well, poor Seattle area got hit too. We had a couple of days when the fans were going 24/7 and it really didn't cut it. Luckily we have four fans here in the apartment, but you couldn't buy a fan in town to save you. It was 95 one day and that was a record setter. The office is air conditioned and we almost went there to sleep. It's cooled off again, so we are happy. We have been getting ready this week for transfers on Tuesday. We are only getting 16 new missionaries. That's like half. It will be an easier day. We will get all settled and then on Thursday we head home for McKay's farewell. We are so anxious to see everyone and enjoy wonderful Nampa. It looks better every day. The President gave his approval today and told us to enjoy. Even a 9 hour drive sounds good. Monday night we had dinner with the other MLS couple and four elders. We had fried chicken and apple pie al-la-mode - good American food (one elder is from Australia). It was a fun night. We were saying good bye to our "Donny Osmond" elder. We will miss his wonderful singing voice. It's really fun being around these young missionaries. They have a wonderful spirit about them. Had a visit from the senior couple in the new Federal Way Mission. I'm now counting myself blessed as they are having such a hard time because nothing is set up to work. I actually was able to give her some helpful tips and she was grateful. All of this was set up for me - just because it took me forever to figure it out was my fault. I hope things get better for them. I've had a call from her and she seems to be getting for information an help. Hope you all had a great 4th of July. We went to see The Lone Ranger movie with three other senior couples and then had a bar-b-que. I actually made them Winger Salad. It was a nice day. We watched the McCall fireworks with the kids on their cell phone and New York's on TV. Very relaxing. We weren't quite sure where to go up here, but we heard it all until about 12:30 a.m. Friday it was back to the office with the highlite taking 4 missionaries to lunch. Two will be transferred and they are some of our favorites, so it was another farewell party. All these good bye are very hard. The only one I'm looking forward to is my own. I'm just like Dorothy, "There's no place like home." Well, looking forward to seeing many of you this Friday. Senior missionaries are truly blessed to have this kind of opportunity and we are blessed to be this close to drive. Love to all.