NEW MISSIONARIES HAVE ARRIVED STRAIGHT FROM THE MISSIONARY TRAINING CENTER

Sister Ward and Sister Fry


Elders Nersisyan, and Hess

Elder Young with Elder Norman

Elder Norman is an Assistant to the President

Elder Dietrich, Sister Ward, Elder Young, Elder Hess, and Elder Nersisyan

A few hours after they arrived President Fry took the new Missionaries, The AP's, and the Hewlett's, the Doxey's and the Kinghorn's out to eat at "The Three Fat Guys".

DINNER AT THREE FAT GUYS

The Hewlett's
The Doxey's at Three Fat Guys

GOING HOME

Yesterday one of the younger missionaries asked me what  the first thing is that I am looking forward to doing when I get home. The answer was easy.....Sitting in my living room surrounded by my loved ones who are happily living life.

It will probably look something like this............
my son and my son-in-law sitting on the couch surrounded by little ones. Maybe one under each arm, and one or two others sitting on the floor nearby surrounded by a pile of toys.My husband sitting with a book or the newspaper in his hands, stopping to engage in conversation with a grandchild now and then or to soothe someones hurt away; and our daugther nearby getting someone a snack, or nursing her baby.

I had a glimpe of this a week or so ago when I got to Skype with my son as while he sat in his sisters living room. Monroe (our soon to be 4-year old granddaugher) was sitting next to him tucked under his arm. The other children were nearby. I could see them pass in front of the camera, and sometimes I could hear a childs voice call to his mother from the kitchen. Monroe leaned over and whispered something to her Uncle Nate and a big smile came over his face. In that brief moment they had forgotten that they were involved in a telephone conversation with me and something sweet and tender was transpiring between them. I felt like I was sitting in the room with them surrounded by the sounds and smells of HOME.

It was a moment a shear joy for me. I love my son, and this sweet little granddaugher.I was touched by the sweet tender blessing of being a family.This is heaven. It just doesn't get any better than this. Life is really so simple and so beautiful. It got me thinking about when we return to our Eternal Home.................
we believe that someday we will all leave this temporal life behind and return to live with our Father in Heaven. Have you ever thought about what you look forward to most when at last you enter into His Kingdom??
Will it be the moment you are reunited with loved ones? O will it be that joyous moment when your Savior extends his arms to you and pulls you into him as he whispers "well done, thou good and faithful servant." Or will it be perfect bodies free from disease or affliction of any kind, eternal families, eternal life??
What are you looking most forward to???

MOVIE

SAYING GOOD-BYE AGAIN

Tonight we had a dinner at President and Sister Fry's home to say good-bye to some amazing missionaries. Tomorrow morning Elders Brown, Via Gomez, Hunt, Hulet, and Sutherland all board a plane back to America, Elder Hewlett's parents arrived last night to pick him up and Elder Doxey's parents will be here Tuesday. We will sure miss them all they are truly wonderful young men who have served the lord honorably.

Elder Hewlett and his parents above followed by some random photos of missionaries during General Conference in Donetsk

Marina, Sister Kinghorn, Elder Doxey, and Annya at General Conference in the Kalininsky Building

These two wanted to show off their cufflinks that match their ties

Their District had matching ties at Conference today

Me and two of my favorite girls

This was just a small group of the missionaries who were standing outside the church building in between conference sessions and I asked if I could get a group picture

Elder Kinghorn, Annya, and Sister Kinghorn
Genya and her mom who is getting baptized next Saturday

This is the room where most of us watched General Conference
Elders Rasmussen and Noyes

Elders Sutherland and Hulet

I promised these 4 I would post this on the blog

Today was General Conference. Every six months members of our church have the opportunity to listen to talks given by the General Authorities of the church. They have a huge conference center in Salt Lake City where the conference is held. The conference was the first week-end in April but we had to record it and then watch it on the television. Some people watch it live but because of the time change it is the middle of the night here when it is being broadcast so we watched it here today. The members of the Church watched it in our large Chapel where it was translated into Russian and most of the English Speaking Missionaries watched it in a classroom.I loved the talks and I loved being in a small classroom surrounded by these wonderful missionaries as we received words of wisdom from the leaders of our church.