Hello and more frustration. I did an entry last night and it would not print out. I am still such a novice at this. And now I have just loaded these 5 pics and they did not come out the way I had planned. Crazy.

This is a pic of the President with his AP's. Elder Clayton on the left side and Elder Thomas on the right. Elder Clayton is going home in two weeks and I am nearly in tears right now. We get to know the AP's quite well since they are in the office quite regularly and we just happen to be in the same ward with them, so we see them at church and have them to dinner. Tomorrow night in fact. And I have not even thought about it. Whoops! What to eat. Did chicken enchiladas last time and they loved that. Anyway, I am going to find out when he will be talking in Sacrament meeting and it would be fun if you could go meet him. He lives in Provo just above the temple so I will let you know. Elder Clayton is from England and you occasionally hear his accent. It is so fun. And he is one of the happiest missionaries I have ever seen.

This was last Friday night. We got home from the office and I started the wash and at 7pm, Dad said, let's go find a high school football game to watch. So we drove to the nearest high school and here we are. If was fun to see. Still the same as at home. The kids don't come to watch the game, just socialize and the parents are there to see the game.

Fireside at Liberty Jail on Sunday. This is one of the newly baptized members. She had a very interesting story. Blind since birth because she was a small baby and under the lights and whatever happens with that. She had a 9 year old son and the two of them live together alone. He is a sweet boy. And then there is her dog. She has only had her a short time and loves her so. She has really changed her life. I got talking to her after the fireside and asked a lot of questions about the dog training. You know I thought about doing that when we lived in Pocatello. I think it would be a great thing to do. Any takers?

Lost my pic of the Pres and AP's and ended up with two of this. Go figure.

OK. Saw the pics of the hailstorm in Lehi. Here is ours. We went to te Harts to watch a BYU football game and it started storming after we got there. Dad went out and picked up this hail stone. It was nearly as big as a golf ball. and pure ice. We saw a pic on TV that showed an orange with hail stones all around it. Small ones and some that were bigger than an orange. It is unbelievable. Several calls on Monday reporting hail damage to the cars.

Don't know what I am doing any more. Will sign off and try again tomorrow.

Love you every day.

Just finished reading all the blogs, so I must add something about our adventure.
I guess it is just the fact that we work at least from 8 to 5 every day and I sometimes spend another couple of hours and then usually anywhere from 2-4 hours on Saturday. A week ago it was 6 1/2 hours on Saturday. I like to go over and get the mail out and then just start doing my other duties. By the time we get home at night, find something to eat, do an errand or two, go VTing, we just want to put our feet up and relax a little, fall asleep in a chair, watch SURVIVOR, and then trudge off to bed. It is quite a life!

Over Labor Day, we have what is called SantaCaliGon Days. That means Santa Fe Trail, California Trail, and Oregon Trail. Years ago they did historical things in remembrance of people taking off from here to head West. (They don't mention the Mormon Trail though) But now it is a huge carnival, craft fair, deep fried food fest!

The street that we go to work on was shut down for about 5 days. The downtown streets are all full or tents and food wagons and ferris wheels. Sister Bouy and I walked downtown on Friday when it started and enjoyed walking around and thru tents. You could probably buy just about anything you can think of that is at a craft fair only about 5 times as much as usual.

On Saturday, Dad and I went over and wandered for a bit and there were lines 20 people long to even get into the tents. Then it was just a mass of body movement pressed together. We didn't stay too long. Dad had to buy a funnel cake though. Didn't know what it was. Deep fried cake batter with a big blob of strawberries on top of it. We tasted about 1/4 to 1/3 of it and then found the nearest trash barrel. It brings thousands of people here and I was told is the biggest craft fair in the country. We would have liked a little more history and a little less crafts.

On Monday, Sister Bouy and I went to the Community Center to see the quilt display. I already know what I am going to do when I get home. Take a class in quilt making. I love them.

This quilt was all embroidered and then quilted. It was stunning. I could do that. I love to embroider and then quilt it.

This was a darling pieced and quilted jacket. Must make one of these.

This was very interesting. Looked like yo-yo's, only square, and then had a different old fashioned button in the center of each square.

This is just beautiful.

Another beauty. Appliqued and quilted. I want to learn to do this.

Can you believe the size of these little squares! It was unreal.

These are the Gunnell's. They left on Tuesday after Labor Day. We had a Senior Conference on Monday night and the President had asked them about the highlight of their mission. You won't believe this. It was coming to our study group at 8am each morning. Not that that is bad, but their job was not to be envied. They went around to 28 chapels in Independence and surrounding areas and took care of physical problems. Glued carpet down, hung cleaned drapes, switched out tile in bathrooms, etc. They put 17, 500 miles on their car (did get compensation for using their own car). They were happy to be going home. They live in Draper, so we are anxious to see them when we get home. Good people fulfilling their assignment.

We had a funeral that we took six of the sisters to last week. We were waiting for a couple of them when they found a butterfly in Sister Love's hair, and got it on their hand. Oh these sweet sisters are great.

This is Sister Lasalosi and Sister Howe communicating with the butterfly.

Darn, I have lost about 4 pics. Will try to find them and continue.

Friday night.....guess what!

TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALLGAME..............Dad and I had been to one ballgame in St. Louis about 40 years ago and it was so boring that we left early. Well, here we go again.

Gotta have one of those hot dogs at the ball game. The first order of business. Only $4.50 for a short dog and $6.50 for a footlong. Outrageous!

Presenting the colors. My favorite thing no matter where it is being done.

I don't know what these guys are called, but they carried that hose all over so the lead man could spray down that beautiful stuff! The best looking dirt I ever did see.

The lovely scoreboard. We scored four runs in the 2nd inning and then 1 more in the 8th. Not enough to win the game.

Always entertainment going on. This was the Hot Dog Race. That is Relish in the lead, followed by Ketchup and Mustard bringing up the rear. They raced to the finish line. Couldn't really see where they were going.

Beautiful fountains with all sorts of water displays with different colored lights on them all the time except when they were playing ball. I think since the Bellagio started in Vegas, everyone has to do better with their water displays. I love it.

Don't know what they call this mascot. He is running around all the time. Patting bald heads, kissing kids, rolling over on the dugout roof, leading cheers, just one busy lion.

And he has that tail out back. Kinda cute.

Sing alongs with the words posted for you.

That hose crew out again. This time they are raking and smoothing out that beautiful red dirt.

And the Friday Fireworks display was amazing. Beautiful! They are coming up with more fantastic fireworks. One that looks like puffs of cotton. It was amazing.

And yes, there was even a baseball game going on. We really quite enjoyed it. It was a cool night where we even had to put on jackets at the end. Thankfully!

The huddle out on the pitcher's mound. There were several of these. How do we win this game? They never did figure that one out.

Yes, these are the KC Royals and they have a beautiful stadium.

The final score. Yes, under R, we had only 5 while for the Detroit Tigers it says 9. How did that happen? We went the Auke and Norma Hart. He is in the office with us doing finances, but we are in the same ward with them and have gotten to know them there. She has such a bad back that she cannot do a mission with him as they had hoped. She takes lots of medication just so she can be out of bed.

Hope you enjoyed your Friday night as much as we did. Mom and Dad

Tuesday night we had 'our' Elders over for dinner. I call them ours because we are all in the same ward. Those are usually the ones you have to dinner. But you can also have anyone who is around come to dinner. It is fun for us too, because these are the two AP's and so they are on exchanges a lot with other Elders, so often we have one of these guys and another Elder. On the left is Elder Clayton (from Provo, yes, he walked to the MTC since he lives just above the temple in Provo and also saw his Dad at the MTC since he works there). One outstanding Elder. He is from England and you can detect an English accent quite often. Elder Thomas is on the right and he is from Kaysville. Another outstanding Elder. We keep thinking that there cannot be any as good as those who just left, but WOW! these guys have reached new heights. Elder Thomas is such an organizer and a great leader. He stepped in and took hold and is such a great leader. They taught us a 1st discussion, actually asked if they could practice on us. The church is changing once again, the way that missionaries teach. It was just implemented in all the missions in August where our mission had a four day leadership conference. All of the zone leaders, district leaders, etc. 60 of them, were together and listened and practiced on one another about how to teach by the spirit.

So our Elders gave us a wonderful lesson and we pretended to be investigators and they just answered our questions. They bore their testimonies and then asked us to critique their lesson. I, of coarse, told them they were perfect, which they are. But we did talk about a couple of things that they thought they could improve on. Oh, they are good kids.

Of coarse, when I asked if I could take their pic just sitting there, Elder Thomas got a little crazy!

Oh, we love them.

It has been hard lately, haven't found anything interesting enough to take a pic of.

But this was on Sunday night as I was driving to the church to pick up the Sisters. I was driving alone so it was kind of hard to get the pic when I wanted to, but it was sure pretty.

One of Dad's cars what got smooshed! Someone pulled out of a parking lot and hit the Elders.
New policy now in missions--you must see a doctor if you are in any kind of accident, bicycles included. They are both OK.


These are my little starts off the leaves that Erin mailed to me in a plastic bag! I love to grow things I guess. They are coming along nicely. Two different kinds. I have not ever seen the white ones. Don't know how they are going to look.

I got these two pics switched. This is Elder Mackie. I love him. He has called in more referrals than anyone in the mission. I think he must talk to everyone that he walks by, meets, or maybe even trips in passing. Anyway, the other day he was in the office and we were talking about Elder Clayson (picture below) and how he had lost so much weight. Elder Mackie said, "I cannot afford to gain weight, this face already looks old and more weight would only make it look older, and I do not want to attract some 35 year old woman!" Oh, we had a good laugh. He does have an older looking face, especially compared to some out here. He is a wonderful missionary.

This is Elder Clayson and I think I have told you how he reminds us of our own boys. If he leaves me a message on my phone, he always says, "this is your favorite missionary in the whole mission". Gosh, it would be hard to pick a favorite, but he is way up there on my list! The last time he was in the office he had lost 25 pounds and you could really tell and he looked so good. I have heard Elders say that he is up to 30 pounds now. His method: 2 Slim-Fast a day and two good snacks and one sensible meal. It is really working for him. He is so good. Doesn't even dip into my candy jar! He lives in American Fork.

We have new arrivals on Wednesday. Here we go again. There are 15 missionaries coming in. Then Thursday is transfers. Everyone is wondering and worrying or hoping! Some want a change, some are going home, some don't want to move again, oh, the emotions running around are evident. Tomorrow we will know a little more.

Finished my second little baby quilt. This one is for Grandma and Grandpa Stutz. Their youngest daughter and husband have been to China to pick up a 2 year old boy. They have four other children, one is a daughter they adopted from Taiwan. So after Sister Stutz saw the first green quilt, she asked if we could make one for thei new grandson. So we went shopping and she picked out the fabric and I made it. This one took a week. The first one took 2 days! Can't believe I did it in 2 days.

I like the back almost as well as the front!

Kind of looks like railroad tracks, doesn't it?

Well, it was fun and I hope he likes it.

How about one pic! Everyone knows that I have been addicted to BYU Ranch Dressing for years. I have actually made trips to Provo to buy it and have had different people pick it up for me when they are there. Well, being several hundred miles from Provo, it has been difficult to ask someone to pick some up for me! I came to Independence and I cannot tell you how many different ranch dressings I tried. It is really pitiful! So I just came to the conclusion that I had to find something else. And heeerrrrrrrreeeee it is!

It is really very good and seems to have taken the place of BYU Ranch. And I think I can find it anywhere. Try it, you'll like it!