Monday, April 25,2016

Warm and beautiful days. 

I am looking at my missionary planner and it is completed as we did 7 weeks this transfer not 6 weeks. What a great tool to use to track appointments and lessons taught or scripture study. I use it for my prompting and who I should call or visit. It even becomes a food list for me. Bob does a few different things and adds the weather to his. 

We have had a wonderful week. District meeting. Visit with our branch president. Taught a temple prep class to a good sister who is working to go to the temple soon. Visited with one of our young women's mother who is not a member. It went well as a first visit. Taught 2 members at our home ( Estelle and Adam ) some genealogy and they are finding names to take to the temple. Worked Thursday at the family history center which we love doing every week and then on Friday we toured the Naval academy with the senior missionaries and it was a wonderful day seeing new thing and visiting the capital building. When our week is full we are happy 

Pictures below are some of the highlights of our week. 

Look at that jacket Elder Tharpe let me try on. I might need to borrow it. 

Place where Washington resigned his military commission. 

Famous painting hanging in the capital. 

What we saw happen on Saturday as we came around the corner to a members house. BMW can you believe it. 

Visit and lunch with our soon to be new daughter-in law. She is so precious. Wish we could be there. Love you Sam and Brent. 

Beautiful silver below. Glad I don't like silver. Too much work

April 21, 2016

On Monday April 18, 2016, we took a trip to Gettysburg, PA to tour the battlefield, then went to Antietam battlefield south of Hagerstown, MD.  Both tours took about 3 hours each.  The Gettysburg tour guide was knowledgeable and animated, and brought the 3-day battle to life.  The tour guide in Antietam started the tour in his home.  The home was built in early 1800 and during the war a cannon ball went through the house and broke out the stone wall of the house on the opposite side.  A Maple tree in the side yard received an artillery shell and scars the tree today.  This also was a great tour.

Our Gettysburg tour guide, Jim Miller

The view from Little Round Top looking north, northwest

One of the cannons on Little Round Top

The cannon ball went through the house

Cute!

The artillery wound on the old Maple Tree

Irene and our Antietam tour guide, Charles Marvil

Looking northward toward Burnside's Bridge.  Key factor in the Antietam battle.

 We also visited a Hebrew cemetery about two miles from our apartment.  Here are some pictures of it.

April 7,2016

What have we been up too?  

It is always fun serving the lord. March just came and went so quickly. I made 2 full batches of oatmeal butterscotch cookies for zone training because it is the last meeting with Elder and Sister Crane before they leave for home. 2 for each person. 

We decided that we wanted to take Estelle and her daughter Amber to lunch before she goes back to boarding school and get her out because her mom doesn't drive. They loved it. 

Japanese steak house. They cook In front of you. They next day we took Estelle to a sonagram at the doctors office. 

Later during the week Sister Crites let me use her sewing machine to mend the elders pants. I did 4 pants that were pretty riped.  They owe me. 

April fools was the best. We were able to trick 6 Elders and Estelle and her daughter. It was so funny watching them not knowing what to say to us. One Elder held it in his mouth and chocolate was oozing from his lips. He didn't know what to do and didn't want to tell me it was gross because he said that I alway cook good food. He didn't want to make me feel bad. I told him what we'd done and we laughed a lot. Cotton hid in cherries. 

 Visited this wonderful part of American history. Fort McHenry. Where Francis Scott Key saw the flag after battle from a distance and wrote the Star Spangled Banner from a distance. Beautiful place on the Harbor. 

General Conference was wonderful and enjoyed sharing it with the Elders. We are still teaching  lessons but it has slowed down a lot. We decided to see if we could volunteer at the family history center and quess what? Here we are one day a week on Thursday. Learning so much that we can share with members of our branch. 

We are so blessed as a people to have the gospel and to know our Savior lives. To be able to do work for our families who have passed on. Grateful every day.