Today is our P day and not only do we need to do grocery shopping and laundry and some cleaning, but we like to go see something. So we were at the 'temple' at 8:40 this morning only to find out it didn't open until 10. So we headed to Costco and then came back. This is the Community of Christ temple (RLDS). It is a very interesting looking building, but a little strange lookiing also. And inside it look real strange as you look up into the spire or whatever it is called. They are about as far from the original LDS as you can get. A woman in their first presidency. Four women in this twelve apostles. Not much to do with the Book of Mormon. Their philosophy is PEACE. As in world peace. That is their goal. The man who conducted the tour didn't really know much about what he was telling us.

We had a wonderful day today. At the office at our usual 8am. But at 1:30 we walked down to the stake center which is just 1/2 block away down the hill from the mission office. They started lining us up for a mission picture. 230 missionaries there for the pic. Thankfully they sat us seniors down on chairs to begin with. Then it was getting the other 200 people situated so that they could see everyone. I can't imagine that it will turn out, but we will see.

We then walked quietly into the chapel and up to the front to shake hands with Elder Russell M. Nelson and his wife and our mission president and his wife. You could have heard a pin drop. We were all seated and the chapel was full of missionaries and the overflow was full of members who had driven missionaries to the conference.

It is always exciting to sing with a group of missionaries. They really sing! None of the kind that you hear at Sacrament meeting. This is powerful. Everyone is singing with all their heart.

Sister Nelson gave a wonderful talk. Said she wished she could pull out our premortal DVD and truly see ourselves premortally. Who we stood by.......Jesus Christ, the covenants we made. If we could look at that premortal DVD for 10 minutes, we would rise up as the true sisters and elders that we are and never look back. She talked about pre mortal stirrings. The feeling we have when we meet some people and instead of saying glad to meet you, we should probably say, so great to see you again.

She also said---when the Spirit teaches you something, write it down. She wishes that we all had a 'things to do list while you are on earth' attached to our spirits. We have low grade unhappiness if we are not doing what is on the list.

Elder Nelson really involved the missionaries in his talk. Asked them questions and make then come up the the pulpit to give him answers. 'What do you know today that you didn't know before you came on your mission, about what happened in this area? There is a lot of church history here. D&C 57 and 58. D&C 121-123. And how about D&C 116. And we have been there and seen where it happened.

He also said to several young people-----I am not a member of the church, why should I listen to you? The best answers were those about having a way to make you and your family happy now and forever and telling people about Jesus Christ and his plan of happiness for us. Whenever the missionary said Jesus Christ, you could feel a difference in whatever else they said. It was pretty powerful.

So it was a wonderful afternoon. All those missionaries and some that we will never know. Even the Elders don't get to know everyone in their mission. Crazy huh!

A good day that made us grateful to be here and partake of such blessings and the sweet spirit that we felt.

This is called an osage orange. It is the size of a large to very large grapefruit and is very heavy. If this fell out of the tree onto your head, it could be serious! The outside skin is bumpy as you can tell and they are not for eating. They are good for keeping bugs away, so they say. One of the sisters tries to juggle with them and she does a pretty good job. We have one sitting in our living room window and one in the kitchen window. I don't really know how well they work, except that we haven't had any bugs over here like we had at the first place. It will rot in a short while and we will throw it out. (I don't know if it is one of those urban legends or if it is really true)

This is the tree outside of our office. It is a maple tree and there are squirrels around all the time. Running up and down the trees and gathering their little acorns. They are all over town. This morning on our walk the sidewalk was covered with leaves. It reminded us both of being young and walking to Garfield School up Westminster Avenue which always had sidewalks covered with leaves.

This pic is actually at Adah-ondi-Ahman. With the sun on it it looked like gold in the late afternoon.

Wanted to share some pics of the scenery around here. It has been quite beautiful with the fall colors. There are lots of maple trees and they have been so colorful this fall. Also lots of that bush call 'the burning bush'. Green all summer and then turns red for fall. It is beautiful.

Gosh, I just did some pics. Yea for me. But I must tell you about yesterday and today.

We went to the office at our usual 8am. Had a meeting with the office staff and our Pres. He is a very soft spoken man. You have to really listen to hear him. But what a wonderful, inspired man he is.

He had told us about a young man who was going to come into our mission. He had been in the Boise, Idaho mission and had his knee torn apart like Adrian did skiing. He was playing ball with other Elders and torn the ACL, MCL, cartlidge off the bone, just the whole 9 yards. Was sent home to Derby, Kansas to have surgery and rehabilitate. Six months later the Boise mission did not want him back. So the Stake Pres called to see if he could just come to our mission and see if it would work out for him. He actually lived in our mission in Derby and so his parents brought him to Independence a week ago last Sunday and a week from the next Monday, Dad and I took him back to Derby!

He was put with a companionship who actually lived with another set of Elders, so now there are 5 Elders in the apartment. And it must have been a, well you know what I mean, a week from hell. At a baptism on Sunday, the Bishop had to take him out because he was so inappropriate. Phone calls flying all over, emails sent home and a mother calling the mission office to see what was going on with her son. (Not the new elder's mom) So Monday morning saw the threesome of elders plus the other two they lived with, driving down from Kearny to have interviews with the pres. Each was interviewed individually and when the new Elder went in, he had his interview and came out steaming. Pres. had told him he was going home. He ripped his coat off and flew out the door. Other elders are in hot pursuit and pres. comes out and gets Doug and they go outside. Said elder is running down the street with others running behind. Dad and pres. jump in a car and follow. Dad goes up to the kid and tells him to "grow up", and other elders are trying to talk to him. Dad and pres. come back and wait to see what is going to happen. Next thing we hear is that the police have the kid cuffed. Someone saw all these five kids in white shirts and some in suits running down the street and calls the police. Someone gets his mom on the phone and she is able to calm him down. Turns out he is ADHD + something else but quit taking meds at 16 because he didn't need them! Finally said elder and the other big guy come in and go back to pres's office. Then they leave again and pres. comes to Dad and asks him to take the kid back to Derby.

We head home and get toothbrushes and clean clothes and come back and wait for 5 elders to arrive. The five rode around with him and took him a couple of places to see things. He gets in our car and we follow the four to their place in Kearny, 30 miles NE to get his stuff. Finally in the car about 6 and we get some burgers at Sonic and head home. The GPS says it is 236 miles away.

Needless to say, I am a bit nervous. This is a big kid and an out-of-control kid. And I saw him spin out of control. He is sitting behind me and I don't want to let him out of the car for fear he will run. I don't want to stop at a rest stop thinking he might not want to get back in the car, and I don't really like him sitting behind me because I wonder if he might try and put his hands around my neck. Dad didn't want him in the front seat for fear he might grab the steering wheel. He had already talked to Dad during the week about when he would be able to drive. Well, NEVER was the answer. Yes, we were just a little nervous. But all went well. We didn't get out of the car at all, we didn't stop until we were in his driveway and we just tried to make it a pleasant ride. Talked to him about his family, high school, etc. Pres. told us not to talk about the mission. But he was very well behaved and quiet, with no incidents to report.

Got him home at 10pm and took him in and met his mom. Pretty normal mom, but a very troubled kid. My heart ached for mom. He has some real problems.

So we got a room in Derby and spent the night. Got back to the office today and went in about 1:30 and had loads of papers on our desks. You just never know what is going to happen in a day around here. Dad is getting phone calls all day. Even took one in the bathroom today. Kids with questions, locking keys in car, do I need to change my oil, etc.

ALL IS WELL

This is how the wiring was in our first place. All of it seemed to be on the outside of the walls, not inside. And all the plugs were about four feet off the ground. And you can see our piles of things all over.

This was our bathroom/kitchen/laundry room. The bathroom sink is to the left of the toilet and the door there too, so it was hard to even stand in front of the sink. The shower was right next to the toilet on the right. Then you come out into the laundry area and my make up things on the dryer. No room in the bathroom for two people. So I had a mirror I would hold to do my make up in the morning. Then you can see the microwave right there and then a small dish drainer next to it and the sink and a little bit of counter space next to that. Directly opposite was a pantry with about 6 shelves that held a lot of food stuffs the then the frig and the stove. Cupboard about washer/dryer was just for soap and stuff. We just kept our few dishes on the small counter. Too far away to put them down there!



This is Dad in our eating/computer/desk area. As you can tell, we didn't really have any place to put anything away. So we just left suitcases sitting here and there and would rummage through and try and find what we needed.