Our mission is really over

Our mission is really over. This morning we reported to the High Council and in the afternoon we spoke in church. We had quite a few of the parents who still have missionaries serving who came and visited with us in our home after the meeting as well as 3 returned missionaries and President and Sister Hale's daughter, Heather.

Thanks to all of our family and friends for your support during this beautiful chapter in our lives.

We're on our way home ....

We traveled a long 2 days (about 1,330 miles) to get to Jeremy and Rebecca's home in McKinney, Texas. It was so good to see them and to meet Foster who was born while we were serving our mission. We played a lot of games and even got to attend church with them. We went to school and had lunch with each of the 3 older boys. Jeremy and Rebecca also took us to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing where they print money. Thanks, Jeremy and Rebecca for a great time!

Grandpa Tim with Davis, Easton and Foster.

Foster and Grandma Janet.

Foster, Grandpa Tim and silly Easton.

Grandma Janet playing games with Easton.

Somehow he always seemed to win.

Saying goodbye at the end of our visit.

Back row: Grandpa Tim, Janet, Foster, Jeremy

Front row: Easton, Cade & Davis

It took us 2 more days to arrive in Wyoming. When we arrived in Laramie there was snow on the ground. The temperature was about 34 degrees but it felt like 18 degrees with the wind chill. I told Tim we had made a huge mistake and that we needed to turn around and go back to Florida

One more day of traveling and we were finally home in Centerville, Utah. I was surprised at how green everything was. I expected a desert. We were welcomed home with signs and balloons "Welcome home Sister Grandma and Elder Grandpa".

Grandma Janet, McKenzie, Grandpa Tim and Canyon

We also got lots of hugs and kisses!!

Sam, Grandpa Tim, Clayton, Grandma Janet. Clayton wasn't sure he was in for all of this hugging business.

Abby and Alex watch as Josh gave Grandma Janet a big hug. He felt good.

We missed the picture of the hug from Brian but Mitchell is willing to hug Grandma Janet.

It took Alex a minute before he wanted to come to Grandma Janet but then I got quite the squeeze. Steff also gave me a good one.

Hugs from Mary too!

Grandpa Tim and Grandma Janet got a really good hug from Abby. They came to visit us in Florida in October so she remembered us.

The good hug from Alexander!

Hugs from Josh and Maxwell! Maxwell wasn't sure he liked what was happening.

Janet holding Autumn for the first time. I couldn't tell if she was happy or wondering who I was and where was her mother!

Sam sorta gave me a hug but was a good sport about it all!

Sam lets Janet hug him.

Grandma and Grandpa brought all of the grandkids a Ft. Lauderdale shirt!

When all of the hugging was over, it was time to unpack! We were home!!!! Our trip home was a total of a little over 2,700 miles and 5 long days.

Thanks to Amber we got all of these precious pictures. Unfortunately she didn't get one of her hugs. Everett came a little later and no picture was taken of him. We were too busy trying to maneuver through boxes to take one.

Our Finisher's Fireside..............

Tim, Janet with Sister & President Hale at our "Finisher's Fireside"


This is the group of missionaries departing prior to their departure on April 22. We shared our testimonies and had a delicious meal prepared by Sister Hale.

We'll leave our heart in Fort Lauderdale.....

WOW! I can't believe our mission is already coming to an end. It has really hit us hard this week. Monday evening we welcomed the new couple, the Martins from Washington by going out to dinner with all of the senior couples. Tuesday morning we moved furniture from our apartment to the Martins. It happened to be a very hot muggy day and we were drenched before we could finish. Tuesday afternoon we met 7 new missionaries arriving in the mission and helped prepare their dinner at the mission home and Dad and I did the cleaning up and dishes. Wednesday was transfer day. We didn't get to go to the temple with the departing missionaries for fear Dad would have a kidney stone attack while we were gone. We spent the day training the Martins as well as the Hogges who are transfering from the employement center to the office. They have only been in 3 other times so they also needed a little help that day. At 4:00 we all left the office to pick up potaotes, gravy and pies for the dinner at the mission home for those departing the next morning. Once again we helped prepare as well as clean up afterwards. We then had a testimony meeting where all of those leaving the mission bore their testimonies. There were 9 of us in all. It was a great meeting. Thursday and Friday were very busy days with trying to get all the training in that we could. We are exhausted!!!

Dad hasn't had any discomfort or pain at all since Tuesday. He almost feels like he passed his kidney stone and didn't realize it. We can only pray that is the case.

We will also need your prayers for good weather as we leave Friday morning. We see there was a terrible tornado in Jackson, Mississippi area. Mapquest told us to take that very route going home because it was 1 1/4 hours faster getting to Jeremy and Rebecca's but Dad wants to go further west before we head to McKinney. I remember a couple of years ago when we were in McKinney in April and was stuck at the airport because of a tornado that touched down. So it sounds like this is the time of year for them. Had we left this past Friday instead of next Friday, we may have experienced a little of it as we would have been passing through Mississippi on the day it struck. Please pray for our safety.

We are really going to push hard and try to make it to McKinney late Saturday night. It will be an 11+ hour drive on Friday and about 10 hours on Saturday to make it. That may sound easy for you young folks but it sounds like a looooooooooooooooong ride for old people. My back has really been aching the last few days so I hope it will last that long. We want to attend church with them. We will most likely leave Wednesday morning to head to Utah. That will give us 4 days to arrive before Saturday evening. It is the same distance from Florida to McKinney as from McKinney to Centerville so we should be able to do that.
We love you all and are excited to see you in a couple of weeks.

Leaving dear friends.....

It is going to be so hard leaving the NOVA (YSA) Branch. There are some really wonderful members here and we have come to love them. This is the Relief Society. The Sister on the front left side is Deedee, an investigator. Janet got to go with the Sister missionaries last night to teach her. We ended up sitting on a park bench overlooking the boardwalk by the lake near her apartment. She does not have a baptism date set yet but we hope it will come soon. The tiny girl on the front row, 2nd from the left, was baptized on Feb 14. Her name is Chrissy. She is going to be a dentist. She has a sweet testimony. She is an only child and her mom is single. She said her mother goes to a church every day and prays for about 3-4 hours. She still hasn't told her mother that she has joined our church. She thinks it will break her heart. She has been dating the counselor in the Bishopric until today. She met a returned missionary before her baptism that was returning from a cruise and happened to come to the branch for church and met Chrissy. They have been corresponding a lot and he flew here to visit her this weekend. They were holding hands in Sunday School. This young man, who is from Alberta, Canada, suits her a lot more than the counselor. The young lady in the back just right of Janet is Alana. She was baptized December 26 and now has a desire to go on a mission. However I think, Jake, a member of our branch has other ideas. They are pretty chummy at church.

This is one of the sweetest young ladies you will ever meet. Her name is Princesse. She is Haitian and a returned missionary. No one else in her family are members. She always gives me a hug and told me one day that she appreciates so much having older Sister missionaries in the branch. That made my day because sometimes we feel like we are chaperones and out of place. I have come to love her so much. She has one of the most beautiful smiles!!

We decided that Tim needed to be in a picture with Princesse also. She is darling no matter what she is wearing.

Our going home get-to-gether.....

Last night the Welch's hosted a going home get-together for the Blacks and us. The Blacks will leave a week from tomorrow, April 19. Tim had a couple of good hours between his pain so we took advantage and enjoyed the other senior couples.
Elders Colllins, Black, Welch, Holdstock & Hogge


Sisters Black, Welch, Holdtock, Collins & Hogge


Tim wasn't feeling totally up to par but he was a good sport. We enjoyed a good dinner, visited and then we played charades and pictionary for the rest of the evening. We are really going to miss our association with the other Senior couples.

Our creative missionaries.....

I have had such a fun time seeing the creative letters that are sent to the missionaries. This is a tortilla that was sent from missionary to his former companion. The back side has little notes on it.


Elders Wardle, Sister Holdstock and Elder Dube show off the Title of Liberty the Hollywood Zone created. Each one of the companionships added a little bit to the banner. It is our mission symbol showing palm trees and our future temple.

Another ER visit......

We are down to the last 3 weeks of our mission and can't believe it is almost over. We are, however, needing everyone's prayers for Tim. He has been having excruciating pain the last couple of days and finally ended up in ER at the hospital on Saturday morning. We found out he has a 5mm kidney stone he is trying to pass and another 2mm one still in the kidney. The Dr said that the 5mm point is where they consider blasting it because it is extremely difficult to pass on your own. Wouldn't you know that he has to suffer for 2 days before Monday morning is here and we can try to get into an urologist for help. Hopefully we can talk them into blasting it for him. The last 2 nights he has spent almost the entire night pacing the floor in pain. We need to get this over with so we can finish our mission up full force. Tim is doing the job of 2 senior Elders until our new couple arrives on Apr 20. We are supposed to take the departing missionaries to the Orlando Temple, a 3 1/4 hr. drive each way, in 10 days. There is no way we can go if he is still sick. We are also have transfer planning and preparation going on this week. The next 2 weeks are the busiest weeks of the 6-week transfer period. We also have our new couple arriving a week from Tuesday and need to start training them and moving our apartment furniture from ours to theirs. You can see it is a busy time!!!! Please keep Tim in your prayers. We know that mighty prayers are effective.
We should arrive home about May 9 or 10th.

More missionaries moments for us.....

Yesterday was a very interesting day. First thing this morning a man called and asked if we were Mormons. I said we were. He said his friend’s mother had just passed away in Utah and she was a Mormon. He didn’t want to offend his friend by saying something wrong and didn’t know what we believed about death. He asked if I could send him by e-mail a poem or words from a song that might be appropriate to send to this friend. I told him that even though we were sad when someone died, we knew it was not the end because we would see them again. I told him that Daddy said “Today is Mom’s graduation day!” on the day she died. He then had to hurry and hang up because he got another important call.
I started to write the e-mail to him telling him of the Plan of Salvation with the pre-earth life, this life and the next life. I told him that we were spirit children of a loving Heavenly Father who has an individual plan for each of us and that we can live with Him again. I wrote the words to “O My Father” and had part of the words to “I Believe in Christ” when the phone rang again. It was the gentleman again apologizing for hanging up on me and being so abrupt. He said the phone call was one that could have cost him his job had he not answered it. He then said, “I was intrigued by the comment your father made when your mother died. How did you handle that?” I told him that I knew it was a temporary separation from my mother and knew I could see her again. I then said there was probably a grand reunion going on on the other side with those loved ones who had passed on before this lady, including her husband. He was quite complimentary and said, “what a beautiful idea”. I told him I would send him a phamphlet on the Plan of Salvation and a DVD of Families Can Be Together Forever and he said he would like that. I volunteered to have the missionaries deliver them but he said that might be something he would be interested in in the future. I send the e-mail off and within about ½ hour I received another one back from him thanking me over and over for being so kind and helping him understand our view on death. I told him his friend would be impressed that he was aware enough of the O My Father song to send it to her.
In the afternoon I got a package from the Orland Florida mission with 8 demo DVDs of Gladys Knight along with cards that had been filled out by 8 people. Gladys put on 2 firesides in the Orlando area the first part of March and they got 900 referrals form then. Now that is quite the lady when she can hand in that many in 2 days. She and her husband had born their testimonies and told why they had joined the church. She promised them if they would fill out the card she would have some representatives of the church (missionaries) deliver a DVD along with a Book of Mormon and a Restoration DVD. It was fun to send these to the missionaries to deliver. Tim said he thinks Gladys was called on “a mission to spread the gospel with her music” by the First Presidency some time back. I don’t know if she is still officially called but she is doing a great work to try and help still.

Happy birthday to me.........

I turned 61 today! It was a dreary rainy day. Tim remembered the minute he saw me in the morning. About 10:30 Elder Parry came in and told Elder Burrows he needed him to help with the phones. I had been training him on a couple of different programs on the computer. They left the office and went out into the hall. I had needed to use the restroom for a while and thought “Now’s my chance to run to the bathroom.” As I headed down the hall I saw a group of Elders and Sisters near the door to the entrance of the building, huddled up and it looked like I could see fire. They looked up and gasped. I thought it was because they were caught with fire. As one of them backed up I noticed they were holding a cake and trying to light it. I immediately turned around and went back into the office realizing what they were up to. They then came in singing to me with the candles burning. Elder Parry had made it. He was so tickled with himself. He said, “Look Sister Holdstock, it’s a double layer one.” It was orange flavor with chocolate frosting. It really meant a lot to me!

Janet, Sisters Cluff & Ramey, Elders Wardle, Burrows, Holland (AP) and Parry

This is one way to take care of ruining our diet.

Take a good look at this "double layer" cake.

I was also able to talk to Amber, Jeremy and a had a shout out from Josh. Josh was working at Amber’s house while I was talking to her so he yelled it to me. Canyon and Maxwell also sang to me. It was darling!!

We found out for sure today that the Martin’s from Olympia Washington will be entering the MTC on Apr 5 and probably get here about the 25 so we might have a couple of days with them. She will do the referrals and he will most likely do the cars.

We went to McDonald’s for dinner and had a salad. Tim is so conscious about our diet now that he sat there after he ate the salad and said, “I’m still hungry” He took a look at the menu and what he might have to fill him up and then said, “I’m not getting anything else. I will go home and have a little cup of non-fat sherbert.”

Double the work....double the pay!!

This has been an unusual week. Janet was bored to tears for the first 3 days and then transfer information was available and now she is swamped. Tim is barely keeping his head above water. He had his first accident report to fill out. One of our missionaries rear-ended another car. We are sure missing the Dallings and the fun they brought into the office. We put in a couple of 11 hour days this week and worked for 7 1/2 hours on Saturday (our preparation day).
It is transfer week so we are in for a very full week this coming week.

Blessings unmeasured.....

Yesterday (Saturday) one of our Elders needed us to take some medication to him down around the Miami area. It was about a 45 minute down and 45 minute back. when we were about 3 exits from getting off of the freeway and 8 minutes from home, the lights went on in our car saying we were losing power. It started to jerk funny but Tim didn't take the exit. Just as we passed the exit, it really started jerking. Fortunately we were able to make it to the next exit and found a shopping center parking lot just off the off ramp so we coasted into it and headed towards a parking stall. Before we got parked, the car died completely and Tim lost all power to drive it. Luckily, we were only 5 minutes from the office and got AAA while on our mission. We have never used them but were glad we had them yesterday. They showed up about one hour later and towed us to the office where we picked up a mission car and headed to Auto Zone to get a new alternator. They wanted over $300 to install one and so Tim said he would do it himself.

The guy putting in a temporary battery to start the engine so we could drive it onto the tow truck.

Tim watches, wondering what we should do.

There she goes for a ride!

We got all hitched up and the guy told us to climb into the truck. There were only 2 seats so he made Tim crawl up between the 2 seats and sit with his legs crossed for the 5-minute ride to the office. We told him we were missionaries for the church and that we had been delivering medicine to a missionary. He said that he used to live by the Fort Lauderdale Chapel and had talked with some of our missionaries several years ago and thought they were very nice young men. When we arrived I asked if we were under our 5 miles. After 5 miles, AAA charges $5 per mile to tow. He said, "Oh, sure." I then asked if he wanted to see our AAA card and my driver's license but he said "No, I'm supposed to but it's okay. Just have a good day and God bless." He never asked any more questions and off he went.

We got the alternator and Tim began installing it about 10 minutes before it started to rain and rain and rain!!! It poured for about 2 hours. He finished in 1 1/4 hours and saved us the $300. About an hour after he finished, the sun came out and the rain stopped.

We were SOOOOOOOOO blessed that it didn't happen in Miami or on the freeway in an unfamilar area. We would NOT have known where to be towed or where to buy a new alternator. We were able to go to our apartment so Tim could change clothes and get his tools which we wouldn't have had if it had happened in Miami. Heavenly Father loves us and we know that! He watches out for his missionaries.

Nightmare Phone Woes......

Tim is now the vehicle and phone coordinator as well as his financial job since the Dallings left on Wednesday. He carries 2 cell phones around with him and has been getting a lot more calls. This morning one of our Zone Leaders from over an hour away called to say that he had forgotten to take his cell phone out of his pocket when he baptized a guy last night so he needed a new phone. Easier said than done. First of all we were grocery shopping (our preparation day) so we had to finish and then go into the office and pick up my phone before taking it to him. Mine will just be a temporary one until Tim can get him a permanent one on Monday. It took us 2 1/2 hours and about 1/3 tank of gas to get it to him. It is the 2nd Elder this week to do the same thing. The other one was only 20 minutes away.

Quest for weight loss.......

Just an update on our "diet". We have finished 2 weeks now and I lost 6 lbs. and we think Tim has lost at least 15. He claims he is having a hard time keeping his pants up. Tonight we went to a salad bar for dinner. I was so proud of him. He didn't go back for any seconds. He said his stomach was saying he was full but his mind wanted more but he resisted. Way to go Tim!! I wished I had that much will power. I had to go and get about 4 bites of an apple cobbler. We'll be back at it on Monday! Tim used to say that he and Elder Dalling were going on a milk shake run when they had to take cars anywhere. Now he says, "We're going on a carrot run."

Wiped out from Zone Conference.....

This week we had 3 days of zone conference in which we were quite involved in picking up the food each day, helping to get the hamburgers BBQ'd, tables set up with food and helping with the games in the afternoon. The games were done to teach the missionaries about "team togetherness". They were very unique. I believe they are a lot like the games that are played at BYU Youth conferences. We were so tired each night. Janet found it difficult to even walk after the 1st day.

Elder Black got the veggie and fruit trays and

Tim got the hamburger.

Tim has become quite the shopper!

We had to form a 3-basket train to get everything

out to the car.

Both Elder Black and Tim are engineers so it

took us a while to get everything in "just right".

Besides this food we had to pick up a sheet cake

and ice cream. All that was left at the end of the

lunch was a few veggies.

Meetings...diets.....and Valentine love!

This has been an interesting week. We are getting caught up in the office and I am even getting ahead on some of the letters. Because it was Valentine's Day today, we had a LOT of packages come through the office. It wasn't as bad as Christmas though.
On Monday I went into the Presidency meeting with President Hale and his 2 counselors to take minutes. It lasted about 1 1/2 hours. We then had a staff meeting that lasted for 2 1/2 hours. When we were done it was time for lunch. By the time we got back from lunch it was 2:30 and I hadn't accomplished a thing.
We made it through our first week of our diet. We both feel a little difference in the way our clothes fit but nothing huge. It was hard on the days we had off to eat because we don't want to gain the weight back that we tried so hard to get rid of. Tim actually had hot dogs, broccoli and cottage cheese for his first "free" meal. I am really impressed with his attitude. I managed to make it to the exercise room and do the treadmill and bike for about 40 minutes 5 times this week. Hopefully that will help along with the dieting.
We went to the Hogge's for a Valentine get-to-gether with the other 4 couples Saturday night. During our dinner we were given a paper that listed a person on it. We were to take on the personality of that person. I was Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. We were also given about 3 facts about the state of Idaho because we were also celebrating the departure of the Dallings. Mine was something like 1) the world’s largest man-made geyser is in Soda Springs ID 2) the fruit belt of Idaho is near Lewiston, etc. We were supposed to incorporate those facts into our dinner conversation. It was pretty hilarious. Tim was Elvis Presley and he was soooo funny! Whenever someone would say something, he would say "Thank you. Thank you very much." When someone would ask a question I would say, "If you would come with me to see the wizard I know he could answer that...etc." We were to guess who everyone was.
We talked amongst the group about how our husbands could go all day long without noticing or talking to us. Sister Welch said they drove hundreds of miles coming here without saying a word to each other. Sister Black said she once experimented to see how long it would take Elder Black to notice she had some Minnie Mouse eyelashes on and it took him 3 days before he finally asked what she had on her eyes. Then Elder Welch said he had gotten in trouble before and wanted to know “How do you tell when your wife has had a haircut?” Tim told him to see if there was a charge on his credit card or if there was a missing check. We all laughed so hard. I am going to miss our association with the group.

Diet or slow death..................

Tim and I started a diet today that the Dallings told us about. You eat specific foods for 3 days and then eat sensibally what you want for the next 4. You are supposed to lose 10 lbs. each week for the 1st month and then taper off. Elder Dalling lost 60 lbs on it before coming on their mission. He is going to do it with us also. Sometimes we have dinner at the President’s home on Wednesday evenings so I asked Sister Dalling what they did on those weeks. She said they did it on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. I told Tim that and then said, “Or we could do it on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday and then we won’t feed the missionaries on those days.” He said, “Why wouldn’t we be missionaries? What has that got to do with the diet?” He had heard me to say “be” instead of “feed”. I laughed so hard my head hurt and then he started to laugh. We both started to choke on our pineapple and had to be careful so we didn’t choke to death. This morning we could have 2 T of peanut butter on a dry piece of toast and 2 slices of fresh pineapple. We can also eat all the bananas, apples, carrots and celery that we want.
For lunch today we could have 1 piece of dry toast with a small can of tuna (no mayo). It was VERY dry. As Tim was opening the can of tuna, he said, “Do we have to have this whole can? I said yes and he then said, “I think I will have some of the tuna in it too.” He is funny. I think I put the whole can in my mouth before I swallowed any. It just kept accumulating in my cheek. Finally I got some carrots and ½ an apple to try to force it down. I am NOT fond of tuna. I told Tim that I could feel the 2 lb. of fat falling off of my body already. He said, “I know. I almost tripped over it in the parking lot.” What an experience. It almost felt like we were eating fake food at a little tea party. We had a good laugh about it again.
Tonight we could have 2 3-oz pieces of meat, 1 cup of green beans and 1 cup of beets with 1 T of vinegar. Tim doesn’t like red beets so he is substituting pickles for the beets. I chose to get pickled red beets and forgo the vinegar as it is already in it. I took off to exercise while Tim was fixing his dinner. When I got home, I asked how his dinner was and he said, “I tried your beets and got all of them eaten before I realized I forgot to put the vinegar in so I drank the tablespoon of vinegar straight.” That gave me another great laugh. It was almost too much for me to eat. I was getting sick to my stomach. I can hardly wait to see what tomorrow brings.

Satan is at work.......

Tina called this afternoon to say that she had fallen last night after she went home from our discussion with her and dislocated her shoulder. She ended up being taken to the hospital in an ambulance. She is now back home though. She told Tim that she wants to make sure that we have some more talks with the missionaries because she wants to be baptized. She said it made her feel so good as were talking with her last night. She has even called her favorite grandson in Uruguay and told him. He told her that he coldn't be a Mormon but that he knows several and they are all really nice. It looks like good ole Satan is up to his tricks again!!

Lunch the Brazilian way......

The President decided to have the senior couples go out to lunch at a Brazilian restaurant. We ate until we hurt. Thanks President & Sister Hale.

Haiti Earthquake Victims and missionary opportunities......

We have been so saddened by the earthquake in Haiti. Last week at church we found out that one of the girls in our branch lost her cousin who was raised with her. We talked to the girl who checks us out every week at the grocery store and she said her husband's brother and his 2 little kids were also killed. The mission president in Haiti has a wife and 2 little kids. The wife was flown here to Fort Lauderdale this last week to give birth this Tuesday. The church wanted Pres and Sister Hale to put her up in their home but it is transfers this week and there is "no room at the inn" because of their 5 children. Arrangements were made for someone about 1/2 north of here to house them. Evidentally that didn't go so well and she found herself sitting at a McDonald's with her 2 little kids yesterday. She was kicked out and had no where to go. I'm not sure how it all came about but she is now staying at one of our missionary empty apartments and our housing director had to get her food and equipment to stay there. Fortunately the apartment was available. The President had pulled Elders out of that area last transfer and doesn't plan on putting anyone there until next transfer which is about 6 1/2 weeks away. It’s kind of a sad story.
Friday night Tina, our 88 year old friend, called and told Tim that she needed to ask us some questions about our church. She said she was thinking about joining it. She had one lesson with us about 5 months ago and decided that she couldn't change her religion because her parents were Catholic as well as her grandparents. We invited her to come to dinner today with the missionaries. She asked what I was cooking. I told her pork chops. She said, "Is that the only thing you know how to cook?" She doesn't like them and I have fed them to missionaries quite often and she has asked previously what I was feeding them. She declined the dinner invitation but said she needed to talk to us face to face so she came by night.
Tina asked if she could ask us some questions. She asked about the Godhead so Tim basically told her the Plan of Salvation, the war in heaven story and why we are here on this earth. We visited about 1 1/2 hours about the church and she asked if we could meet with her again. We told her we would get some missionaries to teach her and she thought that would be great. I called Sister Barros and Sister Miller and they want to come tomorrow night and Tina agreed. She has told us several times that she notices we are always happy. Obviously she hasn't seen us first thing in the morning or late at night.

Which desk am I at?............

I have been extremely busy the past 2 weeks, thus no posts. The Dallings who man the office as main secretary and automobiles are leaving in 5 weeks and we found out today that there is no one in sight to replace them. The President wanted us to switch positions 2 weeks ago so that I could learn Sister Dalling's secretary spot. I am working at her desk in the morning and at mine in the afternoon. We went in on Martin Luther's birthday on Monday and worked the whole day to help me get caught up with some things. We have put in a couple of 11 hour days on a couple of other days this week. I am so exhausted that I went to bed at 7:00 pm last night and only got up for a couple of pit stops through the night until 6:30 this morning. The sad thing is that I didn't feel any more rested.
The President has in mind to bring one of the other couples who do the Employment Office in to do the main secretary job when we leave. That means I will have to train her as well as anyone who takes over the office secretary job. And then to top it all off, I will have to go back home and find a job and be trained myself. Oh well, I can do my best and hope that will be enough.

I love the clouds here.......

Just thought I would share with you some awesome pictures I took of the clouds this morning as we arrived at the office. All 3 of these were in the same direction in the sky. Gotta love them!!

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr............but beautiful sunsets.....

Florida has some of the most beautiful clouds. Tonight as we walked out of the office we saw this spectacular sunset. Pictures never do it justice but just try to imagine. Unfortunately there was a soccer field with it's lights on right in our way.

Okay, I know what all of you are thinking as I let you know that the temperatures here are going to be 43 degrees for the high in 2 days! (Go ahead and say "Whaaaaaaaa!") It was in the low 50's today and with the chill factor, it is pretty chilly to say the least. We have had a couple of nights that they expected it to freeze. That is cold for Florida. They said they had the coldest Orange Bowl football game in history on Monday night. It is especially chilly when we didn't bring clothes for this kind of temperatures. Tim actually has the furnace running the last few days here at home. We didn't even think they had furnaces here. We learned something new.