Saturday, August 10 Our week started out with a wonderful time with the missionaries. We had the annual mission Bar-B-Q with the President and senior elders cooking. The picture shows there is more smoke than cooking, but everything turned out well. The missionaries love to get together with each other. The other picture shows how much they do love each other. They are singing and just enjoying. They really become each other's family and it shows what good families they come from that they can help and support each other. They did skits about the new shoulder bag instead of back packs that's the new directive. They can be very creative. President and Sister Weaver gave out fun awards like: little model cars to the bike elders because Sister Weaver worries about the elders on bikes and wants they all to have cars; a medical award to Elder Burt for passing his kidney stone - "The Golden Stone Award"; we seniors got Dad's root beer for the Mom and Pop award; most placed Book of Mormons, referrals, etc. Everyone got an award even WA-TAC rulers because we all measure up. They were all tickled. The President gave a very insightful talk about Samuel Smith the first missionary of the Church. He said he only gave out one Book of Mormon on his mission and sold only one, but they were to Brigham Young's brother and sister and as a result both Brigham and Heber C. Kimball were baptized. You never know your influence. I'm sure it uplifted the missionaries. It's so easy to get discouraged. Saturday we had another adventure. We drove up to Whidbey Island to see the tall ships festival. We got on the island over Deception Pass Bridge. What a gorgeous site. I tried to get a good picture. This bridge was built in 1935, part of President Roosevelt's Work Projects. It has a fascinating background. "In the spring of 1792, Captain George Vancouver of the H.M.S. Discovery sent Master Joseph Whidbey and a small exploring party through the pass, Vancouver had already dismissed the pass as a large river due to the strong current. Whidbey proved the narrow passage we call Deception did not lead into a small bay, as chartered by the Spaniards, but was a deep turbulent channel. This channel completely divided the mainland from its supposed peninsula thus, making the peninsula an island. Vancouver named the land south of the Pass Whidbey Island in honor of Master Whidbey and corrected his charts to read Deception Pass because he felt he had been deceived by the nature of the fast moving water." That's how history reads. Then we drove down to Coupeville to see the ships and darling harbor town where an arts and crafts show was going one. Just my cup of tea. We ate wonderful fair food and shopped the booths and took in the scenery and then came back by way of a ferry ride. A beautiful day in Washington. Hope I haven't bored you all with Washington history which I love.