People we love!

 This is our district. These are the dear people we have worked with from the beginning. Our sweet teacher is in the middle. We have been taught how to prepare to assist the Spirit to teach by learning how to invite others to understand doctrine, commit to try and eventually change to becoming more like our Savior. It has been so enlightening to discuss and learn about the gospel with these lovely people and instructors. ( top left to right) Elder Catrell, Elder Weeks, Sister Farnsworth, Elder Attwood, Elder Hoopes (bottom left to right) Sister Catrell, Sister Weeks, Sister Attwood, Sister Hoopes.

We were walking through the MTC looking at all the beautiful murals and we came across these missionaries who will be in our mission! They all are dutch speaking but I'm sure we will get to see them now and then! We had not met anyone who was going to Trinidad yet, so this felt like a sweet miracle to meet up with them! There are over 2000 missionaries here so the odds were quite slim we should meet up with them.
We found out today that we will be flying into Curacao on Monday, Nov. 12th. Fly to Trinidad on the 15th and then fly to Guyana and stay there until December sometime....We are very interested to find out what our assignment is going to be...

MTC Missionary Training Center

                                                                                   

We were just leaving at 8:45 am to drive to the MTC when a lady walked by and we asked her to take our picture. We arrived in Provo at 10:30 am. There were many missionaries there to help us park and carry our bags and tell us what to do. The MTC runs like a well oiled machine. We loved getting our name tags and our authority cards signed by our Prophet!  We have been to lots of classes of training how to be good missionaries and have learned a lot from the other couples who are getting ready to serve  missions all over the world. It's fun to visit with the young missionaries too!

They have this very large map in the main building which is a fun thing to have your picture taken by. We still can't believe this is really happening but it's wonderful to be here and try to learn how to invite others to come to Christ and live His gospel.

Great Grandmother Kathinka

 This is my great grandmother on my father's side. She went on a mission to join her husband. She was 59, I am 60. I am very touched to have been given this information from the Church.

Farewell

This is all the family (minus 2) at our home after our farewell meeting in church. We took 17 pictures and there wasn't one that someone didn't have their eyes closed, so even though Graham has his eyes closed he is still adorable.  We couldn't ask for better, more wonderful children and grandchildren. Love them all so much!  We had to say good bye for the last time to our family from Colorado, Mark, Annie, Brightynn, McKinney, Brenner and Davis. It was tender and full of tears. That is the toughest part of this endeavor for sure!                                                           

  These are the sister missionaries that we had the honor of working with and loving while we were in Mississippi. All from Utah, so we got to go to their homecomings and they came to our farewell!
Thank you all, family and friends, for being there for us! We feel very loved and supported!

             7 more days!                      

Before We Go

We have packed and repacked to only get 50 lbs per suitcase.We are allowed two checked bags and one carry on each. It's almost two years worth of stuff. It's a challenge! We have lots to accomplished this week!  We will be having our "Christmas" before we go on Friday October 26th, then a grandson's baptism on Saturday October 27th and our farewell talk on Sunday October 28th. Looking forward to having all of our children and grandchildren (minus our missionary) all together!

Mission Area

This is our mission area. As of now, which we haven't even left yet....we don't know where we will be spending our time or exactly what we will be doing. We are open to anything and all of it!
The languages are Dutch, Spanish, English and Papiamento, which is a Creole language containing elements of Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, English and French, as well as Arawakan and African languages. It is spoken by about 330,000 people in Curacao, Bonaire, and Aruba which were formerly known as the Netherlands Antilles.
The mission home is in Curacao, so we will begin there.

Serving Simultaneously

This is our grandson Devon, who is serving now in the Montreal, Canada mission. His girlfriend, Kenzie, just received her call to serve in the Ohio, Columbus mission. We are very happy to be able to serve at the same time as these fabulous young people!