More beautiful baptisms......

Today has been a great day. We attended the singles ward for the 2nd time. When it was time to start the meeting, the counselor came and asked if any of us could play the piano because their pianist hadn't shown up. I volunteered. We had a combined RS and priesthood session so I again played for that. We usually get about 40 people there. There is an investigator who is really close. She actually had this Saturday set up to be baptized but is going to San Antonio to see her family for Thanksgiving and had forgotten that she wouldn't be home by Saturday. Hopefully the following week will work for her. We are trying to have a "White Christmas" and reach 100 baptisms in our mission in December. That is really a stretch as the highest we have ever had before is 61. Please keep us in your prayers that we can reach that goal.
Today we went back to the Fort Lauderdale Ward to see Sheryl Zayas get baptized by her husband, Socrates. He was just baptized 7 weeks ago. He is Cuban. They have 2 darling little girls. It was so exciting to see the completion of both parents getting baptized. They are looking forward to going to the temple next year. Sheryl will become a family practice doctor in a couple of months. They were fellowshipped by a couple in our ward who lives in their apartment complex. They will be a huge blessing to the Fort Lauderdale Ward.
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We also had the father of another family who was baptized about 6 weeks ago get baptized last week. That completes their family of a mom, dad, a teenage daughter and son and an 11-year old daughter. The mom and teenagers have already been to the temple to do baptisms for the dead and are coming along super fantastic.

Christmas shopping in 80 degree weather........

I had a really odd experience this afternoon. I decided to go to the new Kohl’s down the street from the office to see if there was anything that would make me feel better about the way I dress. I pretty much walked in and out but couldn’t believe what I was hearing and seeing. There were people everywhere and nothing but HOT sweaters and winter clothing. (People were actually in coats and boots last week because it got down do about 73 degrees). Christmas music was playing “It isn’t Christmas unless there is snow”. I thought to myself….”Are they really playing Christmas music?? IT IS 80 degrees OUTSIDE!!!! Are they insane?” Then I realized that they must all be Christmas shopping. How weird. I knew right then and there that Christmas will NOT be the same this year. I don’t even have a desire to put up a tree. Elder Dalling said I was “Bah hum-bug” so maybe we will put up the 3 ft tinsel one that is here in our apartment. I think it will look pretty silly but “Oh well”. There won’t be any presents underneath it because we are going to give the couples here a poinsettia right after Thanksgiving to put in their homes. We are not buying gifts this year---everyone will just get money. It is so hard to imagine that it is cold and snowy in Utah right now. It feels like August in Utah.

Nightmare hospital experience.....

Friday night found me in the ER at the local hospital. I had been having a headache, dizziness, the shakes, pain in my abdomen as well as in my shoulder area. It was similar to what happened to me about 4 years ago. On Friday at the Sister's conference I noticed that my jaw on my left side was aching like I had a toothache. I mentioned it to Sister Dalling and she said her friend had just e-mailed her the day before about a friend who had a heart attack and her only symptom was the pain in her jaw. That scared me enough that I went to the Dr and of course you know what they do.......examine you and have you go to the hospital for more tests. I was surprised that the Dr told me the jaw was one of the symptoms.
I spent 5 hours in emergency before they took me to the room. 2 of those hours were AFTER they said they were admitting me. It was NOT a comfortable bed. I arrived in my room about 11:00 at night. There was a man in the room next to me that was yelling all night so they shut my door to keep the noise down. The lady in the bed next to me said she wouldn't be able to sleep so she kept her TV on as well as her light until about 3:30 am. We had different nurses so it was a constant "in and out" between the 2 of us getting blood drawn and blood pressure taken all night. I was nearest the door. Everytime one of the nurses came in they would make noises opening the door and getting their cart over to each of us. Once the other nurse ran into my bed and another time let go of her cart and it ran into the door and banged. (Heavens sakes. Don't they know people are trying to sleep that time of night?) The lady didn't want to take the kind of medications they were trying to give her and so there were some lengthy conversations trying to convince her that she needed them. I wanted to yell "Take the pills and let me sleep." Then about 4:00 the lady by me started to snore so I knew she had gone to sleep.
By morning I was exhausted. The nurse brought in my roommate's breakfast tray about 7:30 am. By 8:30 they still hadn't brought mine so I asked for it. I was told the cardiologist said I was not to eat until he had done a test on me. He finally showed up about 12:30 (noonish) and said everything was fine and I could go home. He said it was most likely acid reflux and indigestion (same as 4 years ago). I said I wasn't going until they brought me something to eat. He asked why I hadn't eaten and I told him. He said, "I didn't say you couldn't eat." The nurse then got a piece of his mind for not feeding me. It took 3 more hours before they got the hosptial Dr up to release me and get my paperwork to me!!!!! How ridiculus. Bless Tim's little pea-pickin heart. He did all of the laundry, grocery shopping, menu planning and some house cleaning while he was waiting for me to call him and say they were releasing me. He's a trooper.

A visit with Shawn Bradley....NBA Player

President and Sister Hale flew Shawn Bradley, former BYU basketball player, who also played for Philadelphia 76ers, Dallas Mavericks and one other NBA team to be the guest speaker with his wife, Annette, for our Sister's Conference on Friday. He is about 7'6". There were about 30 of us at the President's home for the conference. Our President is about 6'4" tall and looked like a midget next to Shawn. Shawn and Annette are very humble but spiritual people. Annette served her mission here in Fort Lauderdale so she really enjoyed "reliving" being here. This is a picture of Shawn, the President's 9 year old son Cameron and Elder Bachynski (I have a picture with him previously on the blog) who just signed to play with Arizona State when he gets off his mission. His papers were sent to the President's home and he signed them in front of Shawn which gave Elder Bachynski a boost. Janet is the short one! His wife is about the same height as Janet. Someone once asked him how they kissed and he said "with our lips". He is a very emotional person and cried during our opening prayer which was offered by one of our sign language Sisters. He then cried through our opening song "Walk Tall, You're a Daughter of God."

Sister Bradley is a darling lady. They have 4 daughters and 2 sons. Shawn has retired and helps his friend run a ranch in Castle Dale, Utah (Central Souther Utah)

Shawn said that he had as assignment to sign about 200 basketballs for charity one day. The next day they went into their little 3 year-old girl's room and noticed black majic marker all over all of her toys. When they asked her why she did it, she said, "I signed my autograph!"

Another daughter used to ask him to sign her homework book every night when she was in 2nd grade. He was quite thrilled that she would ask him to do it instead of her mom. A few weeks later he noticed that the bottom of all of the previous pages had been cut off. He asked her why that was and found out that she had sold his autograph to her friends.

Meet our friends.....the Goodmans

This is our friends that we have been working with for about 5 months to get them baptized. Their names are Ed and Margie Goodman. She is soooooooo close. They are so good to the missionaries and have them to dinner quite often. Their granddaughter, Jessica, was baptized about 2 months ago. We are now in the singles ward where she is attending. It seems like we have known them forever. She has a cute Georgia accent. They are both retired and neither one of them have good health. He has had a previous heart attach and she was diagnosed with a brain tumor about 2 months ago. She doesn't seem to be worried about it though. They went to Tennessee a while back and it seemed like they were gone forever. I am going to miss seeing them at church every week now that we are assigned to the Young Single Adult Branch. We will definitely keep in touch with them. We have gone out to dinner with them and had them here for dinner. There is never a break in the talking when we are with them. Janet and Marge are usually having their conversation while Tim and Ed have their own at the same table.

Transfers & accidents....

This has been one crazy and busy week. We had transfers. It was the first one with the new finance system involved for Tim. Five new proselyting areas were created and we got 15 new missionaries which always creates a lot of work for me. One of our zone leaders decided to change the name of the areas in his zone and switch the phones around. They are both tied to our computer system and he didn't bother to tell us so it created all kinds of havoc. The phones drive the areas that I send referrals to. I hope it is finally straightened out but it took a lot of work.
The evening the new missionaries arrived we helped Sister Hale serve the dinner and clean up. Afterwards Tim had to get the mission van out of their garage for another senior couple to use the next day. The President's car was parked behind the van so Sister Hale said she would back it out while tim moved the President's car out of the way. He turned too sharp as he started backing up and crunched the right front passenger bumper. I just grabbed my head when I heard and saw it happening. We may be sent home before May 1.
We also got our first transfer this week. We have been attending the Fort Lauderdale Ward which is a very diversified and noisy ward. We are now going to be working with the Young Single Adult branch here in Plantation. It will really be different. We attend our first meeting tomorrow. We are really sad because he are still working with the Goodmans to get them baptized. We have been friends with them for about 5 months now. They are coming for dinner tomorrow.
We love our family so much. They have really been a great support to us. We have such amazing friends also. Know that you are loved also.

Another great week full of fun......

We threw a Halloween party for the 5 senior couples last night. We had soup, breaksticks, veggie tray, salad and sugar cookies and sherbert. It was yummy! We played games and Tim did the "Name the TV show music" game with them. We had a good time.

Elder & Sister Black

This is us! This is Elder & Sister Welch. They are from Provo and have been here 1 month.
We didn't get a picture of Elder & Sister Dalling.

We had a wonderful week this week. We worked really hard and did a little overtime at the beginning of the week so we could enjoy being with Brian, Mary, Clayton, Mitchell, Sam & Abby the 2 days they were here to see us. We kept them moving!

We went to a place called Shark Valley to see the alligators. Unfortunately, some of us saw 3 and others who went ahead of the group only saw 1!! It has just finished the rainy season so there is plenty of water for the alligotors to lay around in. It is also very hot so they like to stay in the water, back in the shade rather than be out where we can see them. The best time to come is about March or April when it is cool and it has been dry. Then the alligators have to all go to the few spots where there is water left to survive.

We showed them some of our funny trees. They may be banyon trees with the trunk looking like it has a ton of roots all twisted around each other. We took a picture standing inside of the tree. We also spent a few hours at the beach. The sunburn was worth it all! We then hit the swimming pool. Grandpa took everyone to a Chinese all-you-can-eat restaurant and the boys love it. Abby preferred to stick with the watermelon.

It was fun to be with them and see how much they have grown. Hopefully it will be lots of memories for them.