TRAVELING HOME

Our map home

What beautiful country we have been serving in.

This was posted the 9th but written starting July 6th.  I just haven't had time to blog.  I will try to get caught up.
It was fun to go to church with Kristin’s family.  It felt weird to be in such a large congregation.  Not even our stake conference was that large.  Both Baylie and Kristin bore their testimonies.  We love testimony Sunday, especially when we hear such pure testimonies from our family; makes ours stronger.

We came home and napped some more.  We must really be tired.  We had no idea.

The Dragon's tail is in our new mission boundaries.  It is 11 miles long and 118 curves.  It is very dangerous because there are so many motorcycles on it.  The bikers come from all over for the ride.

Tree of shame.  Motorcycles that have crashed.

One of many horse shoe turns.

Dam where the Fugitive was filmed.  I forgot to put this in an earlier blog.

Back to the now blog:

table decor

It was so much fun to be with Kristin’s family.  Baylie gave a beautiful Home Evening lesson on repentance.  She  really told it the way it is.  Brought back many memories.

During our visit with Kristin, back in Utah, our Lily was baptized by her father.  We are so proud of her decision to be a member of the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.  She is making the right decisions.

We got up Monday morning and after a breakfast of biscuits and eggs we headed out.  We came across a Wells Fargo  Bank (We haven’t had one for 18 months) and cashed the first check we have cashed since leaving Provo.  It felt so weird walking in a bank.  Of course I told two people about the church.

We traveled all day and ended in Paducha, Kentucky.  KING SIZE BED.  WOW!!!!  It has been pretty but absolutely no mountains.  Quite a shock after the Smokeys for 9 months.

We traveled to St. Louis, MO and saw the arch.  It was fun because I can remember traveling back and forth to BYU from Dayton while it was being built.  It’s amazing.  We also passed Busch Stadium.

We passed the Missouri River many times.  Read D&C 121:33.  We had to memorize from here to the end of the chapter.  We love it.

Here we were driving down the freeway and guess who had to go to the  you know where.  While desperately looking for a place, Elder Bayles said,  “That’s the temple.”  He hurried and switched lanes and we got there just in the nick of time.  It is so beautiful.

 

We left there for Independence, MO and the information center.  We had a wonderful tour.  We then went right to another free Marriott.

While traveling we listed to a CD by missionaries singing.  One of the songs was "The hardest thing I ever did was tell my mother good-bye, but now the hardest thing was telling the people I grew to love good-bye."  We were both crying so hard we decided to not listen to that tape again.

                                          Missouri River

July 10^th we spent the whole day visiting Church history sites.  We started by driving to Kansas City and Council Bluffs.  We visited the visitor’s center and Liberty Jail.  They did a great job of making it the way it was.  I cannot even slightly imagine what those great men went through with complete faith in our Father.

 Joseph Smith prayed to our Father asking,  “Oh God, where art thou?” and was answered, “My son, peace be unto thy soul;”  Read D & C 121:1-8.  You might as well continue on to the end of the chapter.  We were invited by President Craven to memorize 33-to the end.  It’s beautiful and powerful.  It strengthened our testimonies greatly.

At Council Bluffs we saw a movie on the Mormon Batallion.  Ephraim K. Hanks was 20 when he joined.  It was a very good movie. 

We saw the Kanesville Tabernacle (replica of the very first tabernacle in the church)but our favorite thing was going into town and seeing the sculpts of Blair Buswell. Elder Bayles was his bishop at one time.  He’s an incredibly talented man. He wrote that this work was his Mt. Rushmore.

We then went to Winter Quarters and saw the temple and pioneer cemetery.  There is always such a great spirit at temple sites. 

We loved this day and enjoyed it thoroughly.  We just wish we had more time to stay but we headed to Kearney, Mo. for another free Marriott.

We were so tired but traveled all day so we could get home when everyone could be there from Utah.  The kids kept calling to see where we were and how much longer it would take.  We were so tired but we had to sally forth.  Only dad drove the entire way.

We drove in at 8:00 to a huge sign on the window signed by all of the family and yellow ribbons and balloons everywhere.  The grands were standing on the brick wall waiting and of course we both started crying.  We have done a lot of that. 

The kids (Scott & Erik's families) gave us a tour of our home and garden. It seemed so different. The garden was beautiful. They had a pizza dinner for us. Bishop Hoopes stopped by.  When everyone left we just fell into bed.  How great it was to be in our own bed again.  We felt very empty not being in the mission field though.  It just didn’t seem right.

We spent the next day unpacking and reorganizing things.  It was so fun to see old things we had forgotten and to see the new things we had brought home.  We had dinner at Scott’s new home.  They have really worked hard and made it beautiful. 

Erik’s boys were there because Scott’s family were tending them while Erik and Shanelle were on an anniversary trip.

Next day we continued the work of getting settled in.  Clark came in first in his Olympic tri.  They came to visit and it was so good to see them.  What a great family.

We ate at Scott’s again.  Great pulled pork.

We are so missing the wonderful people we grew to love so much, but are happy to be home.  We still have a lot of tears for love of our mission.

Thurs, Sept 6th 1905  We started out again this morning in good time & walked three miles to Benaja & got our mail. From there we walked 10 miles to Reidsville.  After buying a bunch of envelopes & 10 cents worth of cakes & a can of salmon we went outside of town & ate them and had just started out again & we met a man who stoped us & ask us where we were going.  After talking with him a few minutes we found that he was a member of the Church & he ask us to go & stay all night with him & we kindly accepted the invitation. He lived about three miles out in the country.  We then went on & after going a short distance a man came along with a wagon & ask us to get on & ride.  We rode about a mile with him & had a nice talk with him upon the Gospel.  We arrived at Bro. Meal's at about 5 P.M.  We were treated very kindly.