Today in Sacrament Meeting a very, very shy young adult blessed the sacrament. He spoke so slowly and expressively it just filled the room with the Spirit. After church we told him how beautifully he blessed the sacrament. The young man related a spiritual experience he had as a teenager when a missionary who didn't speak English very well blessed the sacrament in his ward. The missionary spoke so slowly and carefully that this young man was touched by the Spirit. He vowed back then that he would always try to bless the sacrament slowly and carefully. Today we were all blessed by his reverent treatment of the sacrament prayer.

 

 Hey y'all

We've never been called "Sir" or "Ma'am" so much in our whole lives. The grocery store clerks, people in Sam's Club, people in restaurants, all address us with Sir or Ma'am. We are not sure whether it makes us feel important or old. 

Every time it rained hard in our town of St. Johns, Norman loved to drive out to the Big Hollow to see how deep the water was running. He would guess 2 feet? 4 feet? or sometimes more (whatever that was). But it was always a guess. In Abilene, it rained super hard so of course we got in the car to check the water running in the nearby drainage area and what did we find to our great delight--a Measuring Stick!!! For your information the water measured a foot deep on the low area of the road. Too bad they don't have a nice measuring stick down in the drainage area itself, then Norman would be tickled pink, I mean blue.

We met our friend pictured here by mistake. We meant to call a "James" who had been in church but by mistake called a different "James" because of a wrong number. We visited with him for a while because he was so lonely and far from family. He is living in a group home because of some challenges and was thrilled to receive our phone call. We have talked to him almost every day for a short time. After learning what his favorite drink was, one day we took him a large Dr. Pepper and he was like a little child on Christmas morning.  

 

 We went to play pickleball with the sister missionaries working in our YSA branch. Sister Beesley had never played pickleball before. She didn't want to play with the elders because they were too good. So she asked us to teach her how to play. (We must be safe competition in her eyes.) 

As we all rode together to the Stake Center, we visited about the people in the branch. Sister Beesley, with emotion and conviction said, "I feel like a mother. I'm so concerned about everyone. It's stressful to see someone standing by themselves or not being talked to. I want to tell people to go sit by them, talk to them, make them feel welcome so they will come next week. I just can't help mothering them."

She expressed exactly what we have been feeling too. Tonight we had two young adults come to institute who were not members of our church. Both of them were brought by members of the YSA branch. Our "parent hearts" were bursting with pride as the branch members surrounded these young men with love and inclusion. 

This is our apartment and it has this beautiful picture of Christ that came out of the Lubbock Temple. The first time we opened our fridge we were greeted by this beautiful rose the missionary couple before us left. We have felt very at home.

Our Welcome to Abilene

Our first week in Abilene the missionaries heart attacked our front door. The group of missionaries here are a lot of fun. 

Sister Arick Conners sacrificed her time the Friday of her daughter's high school graduation to take us out to Dyess Air Force Base and gave us a tour. We have several young men in our YSA Branch stationed at the base. She also took us to the local library, which is in the mall about a half mile from our house, to get our library cards. 

Our Branch President, Pres. Luke, gave us a tour of the B1 Bomber he was working on. The airplane is HUGE! It can carry every kind of bomb and missile they use, even nuclear bombs. We climbed a narrow ladder to the tight quarters of the cockpit area. There were buttons and switches on every surface, including the ceiling. Pres. Luke just kept warning us NOT TO TOUCH ANYTHING IN RED OR YELLOW in the cockpit. We were nervous we might accidentally lose our balance in the darkness of the cockpit and end up touching something red or yellow. 

Heading to Abilene Texas

We loved being in Provo at the MTC and seeing our daughter Rebecca several evenings.  But all good things come to an end and we finally pushed ourselves out of our little cocoon so we could spread our wings in Abilene. We left Provo Thursday morning, spent the night in Albuquerque, then got to Abilene Friday night. We made a quick stop at the mission home in Lubbock, Texas before driving the 2 1/2 hours to Abilene. We saw lots of cotton fields, wind towers, and oil pumps on the mostly very flat terrain. We have discovered that the highest point in Abilene to see out is the freeway overpasses. It's just too bad they don't provide little pullouts to park on the overpasses. 

The tullips were beautiful at the MTC and we had a chance to go to the temple.

Before we left Provo, we were able to visit Norman's Aunt Louine Shields who is in her mid 90's. She is Norman's dad's last living sibling. Norman lived with the Shields family his freshman year of college and so Aunt Louine was his second mother and he has always felt close to her. Aunt Louine's daughter and son-in-law were also there, Julie & Doug Ahlstrom, who are serving a full-time mission from home. It was so fun to see everyone and visit before we left to Abilene.

New Friends

We met so many wonderful people in the MTC. One evening as we headed into a fireside, Elder Michael Greer met us at the door. We were so lucky to see him before he left the MTC. 

We missed seeing Elder Logan Harmon, from St. Johns, at the MTC by a week. Elder Harmon is also serving in the Lubbock, TX mission with us but he is in Dalhart, about as far from  Abilene as one can be. 

Elder and Sister Duncan were in our district for the first week and stayed in our group the 2nd week since they were also CES missionaries. We became good friends. They are now working as missionaries in NY City at the Brooklyn Institute. Elder Duncan retired as a professor in the School of Family Life at BYU recently.

One day we were doing "relative finder" on the Family Search app with all the senior missionary couples around us. It turned out that Sister Duncan and Karen are 3rd cousins through the Terry family in Enterprise, Utah. We had an enjoyable dinner at the Duncans home one night and watched Pres. & Sister Nelson's YA World Wide Fireside on their comfortable couch. 

These are out fellow CES Missionaries we studied with at the MTC. Elder Stockton had taught Seminary with Norman's cousin Eric Shields in California. It was fun to laugh and interact with Eric & Heidi Shields and the Stocktons at lunch in the MTC. I think we were the last ones out of the cafeteria that day. The Marshalls live just a few streets below where Karen grew up in the East Mill Creek Stake in SLC. Sister Marshall knew some of Karen's friends such as Liz & Craig VanLeeuwen, Karen's BYU roommate Jill Bunting, and she had been in the house where Karen grew up.

MTC - Great Experience

The Mission Training Center was an uplifting, all around great time. We were only there for 10 days but a lot was packed in. One of the highlights was listening to  Elder Jeffrey R. Holland and his wife Patricia in a missionary devotional. Elder Holland encouraged us to come home from our missions a different person, a better person and more converted person than we were when we left home.