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.

New Year's Eve celebration.....

The couples celebrated the end of the old and beginning of the New Year at the apartment of the Welch's. We had a wonderful dinner and spent the next 4 1/2 hours playing charades and pictionary. We laughed and laughed. Sister Welch even had noise makers for us. We were a wild bunch for a few hours.

This is Tim trying to get us to guess his song. I'll have to admit he was pretty good. Everyone else scribbled their pictures but Tim took time to draw them very nice. I'm not sure why they didn't turn the board so we didn't have to get down on our knees to draw the picture.

We wanted a picture of all of us together so Elder Hogge and Black had cameras that had a 10-sec delay. I think they did a pretty good job.

The Blacks, Hogges, Welchs, Holdstocks, Dallings

This is a picture of us in the office by the Christmas tree. We will have to take it down on Monday. When we didn't have any missionaries in the office, we would turn off all of the lights except those on the tree. It was a beautiful sight.

Christmas with the couples......

The night before our missionaries go home, the senior couples meet at the Mission Home for their "last supper". We have a testimony meeting afterwards where they each bear their testimonies and tell what they have learned on the mission. We then leave and the President and Sister Hale talk with them for about 1 hour about what to expect when they arrive home.
Sisters Black, Welch, Hale, Dalling, Holdstock



Blacks (Salt Lake), Hogges (Anchorage Alaska), Hales (North Salt Lake), Holdstocks, Dallings
(Rexburg Idaho)