12/3/2017 - 12/18/2017 Part II and to 12/22/2017

12/25/2017 - Good Christmas - we were able to Facetime with all children/grandchildren.  Grateful for technology. 

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So, on with the story..  First, some fun facts on Gainesville:

Basically our week is at the Institute from 10-4, except Tuesday and Wednesday when there is a night class and then we are there until about 9 because we fix a light meal before class for the Institute students.  We have a Tuesday-Thursday day class - 45 minutes each, and a Wednesday night class that is an hour and a half.  President Janson teaches the Monday-Wednesday day and Tuesday night class.  Also we prepare a light meal for the Institute students before the Tuesday and Wednesday evening classes.  Mike does most of the teaching and Lynnette does most of the cooking.  We also attend and, when needed, help with the YSA activities.  We do enjoy the young people that are here.

Aaron sent us a Nevada cutting board and we got a wooden Florida.  Mike has set up this bulletin board in our office with Nevada/Family pictures and Florida/Missionaries we serve with pictures. It can change - and did with this last transfer. 

One of the things we were able to do before the last transfer was go with the district to get the rolled ice cream they are always talking about.  

You order base, mix-ins and toppings.  They pour the base on what has to be a very, very cold metal plate and then chop in the mix-ins. 

When it is frozen, and it doesn't take very long, they scrape it up in sections which roll up 

and then serve it with the toppings. 

  It is definitely a college hangout. The wall is covered with sticky notes that people have left notes on.  Sister Armstrong left a missionary note.

Because we don't have students over the Christmas break, we volunteered at the Ronald McDonald House.  They put us over the toy room.  Stores, organizations and individuals contribute good toys and gifts for all ages.  We helped organize them and then were there a couple of hours each day to help the families staying there choose gifts.  The parents usually come in and are able to choose three gifts for each patient, usually in the hospital,  and two for each sibling staying at the house with the family.  Then the parents or grandparents don't have to go out shopping - which they usually don't have time to do anyway.  It was a fun experience.  We will probably do it again next year.  

They even have a Santa come in -- and his suit is blue and orange - the University of Florida colors.

One afternoon a family came in that was at the RMcHouse last year .. they called them the quad squad.  Quadruplets born a couple months early, 3 girls and a boy, from a natural pregnancy.  The father was from Tanzania, Africa and the mother from Florida.  They were living in Africa but came here to have the babies because of the hospital.  The mother's father still lives here.  They live in Africa.  Cute, cute kids.

Just pictures of some buildings across from the RonMcD House - interesting architecture.

Sunday, the 17th, the YSA branch was assigned to help with a Christmas program at Tacachale,   (pronounced Talk-a-chal-e), an adult development disability facility.  On the way back we saw people in medieval armor, looked like they were practicing for something.  They were just finishing up so we stopped.  Apparently there are groups throughout all the states that do this.  

  The mail/armor is made out of titanium so it is lighter, although the full suit he said was still about 40 pounds.  The helmet is 10 pounds, but he said most of that weight is on your shoulders, not on your head.  It was fairly cool outside, but the thick cloth coverings on his arms were soaked through with sweat.  Probably a pretty good workout.  (I tried to intersperse this exciting dialog throughout the pictures, but it didn't work - so you get to read this all and then look at the pictures.)  He designed the crest on the back of his suit.   We did get to explain that we were missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  As a fun sidenote - he looked and talked a bit like our Jonathan Leavitt, although not as handsome.  

They posed this for us - normally they would both be in the armor.

My Christmas gift from Mike for quite a few years has been a shopping trip for a new outfit.  He doesn't take a book or stay in the car and nap.  We can go into as many stores as I want and try on as many things as I want even if we end up coming back to what we looked at first.  It is always fun, even for him, at least he says it is and says that like he means it.  He most always made good choices when he did it by himself, but this is more fun and the sizes are always right.

We will close this blog with one of our "tender mercies."  Taken from Mike's writing:    Lynnette and I took the Christmas boxes to Emmanuels (he is one of our Institute students).  He lives with his family, grandfather, uncle, cousins in a mobile home park quite a ways out of town - just beyond the airport.  We talked of taking it tomorrow, knowing that he worked at Walmart until 11:00 and thinking he would be home in the morning.  But we thought, even if we leave it with his mom, we would take a chance and go tonight.  We found the place about dusk.  Standing in front of the single wide home was a strong looking black man, who responded as soon as we asked about Emmanuel. They call him "Manny." 

As it turned out, today was a day off.  He works the rest of the week.  It was his grandfather who brought him out so we got to meet the very kind grandfather who now has twenty grandchildren that live close or with them.  Some of them were playing baseball on a tennis court across the street that was set up for every sport.  We also met Emmanuel's uncle, who said the kids played all the sports from young.  "Keeps them out of trouble," he added.  (So the grandfather and uncle and I talked about children and grandchildren while Mike talked with Emmanuel.  They had Christmas lights strung around a small spot at the front of the mobile home and turned them on for us .. just warm tender feelings being there.)

Emmanuel came out and gratefully took the two boxes of food.  I wondered how he got to the institute, living as far away as he did.  Ben, the Elder's Quorum President takes him, but he said he would be getting a bike so he would be able to ride.  He had a bike but someone stole it when he was at work.  He said he saw it today and recognized it, but thought that the boy probably needed it more than he did, which tells you what kind of a young man he is, because they don't have much.  Today was a blessed meeting and a tender mercy.

12/3/2017 to 12/18/2017 (part 1)

That exciting title should attract a lot of interested readers.  Our mission is the Florida Jacksonville mission which, excluding the panhandle, is northern Florida and part of southern Georgia. 

Jacksonville is indicated by the red dot.  Our specific assignment is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Institute in the city of Gainesville, which is right under the word "Florida" on the map.  The Institute includes University of Florida and Santa Fe College which are both in Gainesville plus any young adults ages 18-30  that live within a very wide radius.  We are located right across from University of Florida (go Gators) .

Here is your history lesson for the day.  The picture below is why the northwestern part of Florida is called "The Panhandle."  It looks like one - but we didn't realize it until we were driving across that part on our way here.

We take these on our morning walks - they are not casual strolls but good exercise as I try to keep up with Mike.  It is interesting because we are not used to many of the things we see.  The air this day was very thick with a misty fog, nice to always see the sun coming through - true of life too.

the moss on the trees has its own beauty, but it isn't liked by the people, it is a parasite like mistletoe.

We like this neighbor's fun tree with natural unibrow and mouth.

Coming back from somewhere - we saw something else we aren't used to seeing except at the NFR - a field of Brahmas.  Then today we saw 5 or 6 lined up feeding, but passed before we could get a picture.

 

We have been to Bostwick, FLwhich is about an hour and a half east, to see Ben and Darlene (Ramsey) Wilkinson.  Darlene is a lifelong more than good friend.  We grew up together in Snowflake, Arizona and went to school together from first grade through a couple of years at ASU and a semester at BYU.  She went back to ASU to finish and I graduated from BYU.  (not sure why you needed all that extra information.. but oh well, you know I'm a rambler.) They have lived there almost forever and when they retired some years ago they bought the little ranch across the road from their home and now have Lone Branch Ranch where they raise Black Angus.  Their children and grandchildren are involved in the work - a magical place to learn how to do a great variety of things.

 On our way we stopped at Salvation Army to see if we could find some ornaments for our tree - guess what Mike walked to first ..

 But we did find this cool red bear that reminded us of the bears Debbra Lee used to give us for Christmas -  

 and a box of the red and white Christmas balls for $2.00.  That combined with the ornaments that the Laurel class from home (Bunkerville) sent us makes a tree that makes you happy just to look at it.

But not quite as happy as this picture makes us>

This was the beautiful sunset as we drove from Darlene's.  We love our beautiful world.  How true is D&C 59:18-20 - Yea, all things which come of the earth, in the season thereof, are made for the benefit and the use of man, both to please the eye and to gladden the heart...for food and for rainment, for taste and for smell, to strengthen the body and to enliven the soul...And it pleaseth God that he hath given all these things unto man.

Josh was one of the first people we met at the Institute - he served his mission in California.  Funny how that sounds close to us but sounds like a foreign country to Floridians.  He is great - friendly to all and very well liked, teaches Sunday School

This is Josh at the YSA Christmas party with three of our Elders- from l to r - Elder Masino from one of the areas in California where the wildfires have been - but their home is OK.  Elder Jheng from Taiwan (and who has learned quite good English in the 15 months he has been here) and Elder Kautai (pronounced Cow-tie).  We loved him from the first because he reminded us of our Fisos from home.  He is actually from Texas.  

Now a great story about Elder Masino's sister Camille (below with her husband) "was born with Goldenhar Syndrome. She had fused vertebrae in the neck making it difficult to turn her head, as well as deformation of the outer and middle ear which caused her to suffer from severe hearing loss in her right ear. Her childhood was filled with constant trips in and out of surgery. To complicate matters further, Camille also had sensitive allergies and chronic sinus problems and has struggled with the many other problems that come with that and the hearing loss.  She has cochlear implants and is an accomplished ballet dancer, starting at age 3.  You can read about it on this link:  https://thebahablog.com/2013/11/04/camille-always-danced-now-its-to-music/ 

but one of the best stories comes from her sign-language mission (she speaks as well as signs) to St. Louis Missouri.  They were in a rural area and she and her companion were tracting.  They saw across a field a family that was out skeet shooting.  They walked across the field and started talking to them.  The family wanted to know what they were doing, so the sister missionaries explained and then asked them if they would like to learn more about the church.  One of the young men told them that if Sister Masino could shoot a "skeet" he would listen to them.  With no hesitation she took the gun and aimed as she had seen them do.  They pulled.. she shot and hit it.  He listened and was baptized and eventually 11 other family members were baptized.  The best part of the story - she had never in her whole life even held a gun.  She and her husband went back to her mission later and visited the family.  Many repeated tries - but she couldn't hit anything.

We attended a Gainesville traditional tree lighting - they even had a couple of snow machines (like the bubbles when you wash dishes)  The kids loved it.   It is a college town and has that feel.  We are grateful to have been called to serve here. 

11/21/2017 to 12/2/2017 In Florida

This is mostly a catch-up in our travels to now:
Just for fun, we thought we would go back a bit, this is from our non-farewell 10.15.2017 

 The Whole Crew

John-Evan, David Stratton, Krishelle, Stephen Douglas, Aaron Michael, Taylor Lorum
                                                        Mike & Lynnette

 
         While we were at the MTC spent any time we could with family that lived close - Aaron & family in Lehi, Krishelle & fmaily in Mapleton and John-Evan and family in Cottonwood Heights, and Hannah Leavitt in Orem - Dixie's granddaughter, who we served with in Russia.

The Senior Couples are allowed a bit more freedom at the MTC than the young missionaries. When our classes are over about 4:30, we have until the next morning.  One day Aaron came over and took us to play pool at the Wilkinson Center.  We also went out shooting skeet.  Mike and I didn't win any prizes, but it was fun.  There will be a skeet shooting missionary story from one of our Elders in the next post.

 As we got into Colorado, we accidentally passed all the pit-stop towns, so pulled into Palisade, Colorado.  There were no gas stations, no fast-food places (that we could find) but we did find this - and it was kind of cool.

We are posting the next two pictures for any of our Russian missionaries and friends who see this.   At the BYU Bookstore, we ran into Skyler Farmer, one of our Samara Russia Elders - the one who climbed under the gate to get the wooden boxes we had bought to bring back to our grandsons.  Long fun story for another time.

 And we stopped to see another of our elders, Jeff Buck and his beautiful fiance Emmy - he did the same thing Aaron's Michael is doing - boot camp, then mission, and now back to the Marines.  Fun to see them move into this new phase of their lives.

And now back to the Florida story .. Back on the road - It is strange to see places you have only read about.  We saw the Gulf of Mexico

Crossed the Suwanee River (not Swanee like my old piano book said), saw a couple of fields of the big oil pumps

our first toll road

Most of the cities have huge water towers with the city name on them

 Couldn't resist a picture of the sign to "Niceville" - sounds like a Dr. Suess story.

 And we drove through lots and lots of trees that border both sides of the freeways.   We saw more trees and water in the last few days than we've seen for a very long time.  There aren't many mountains, but if there are, we couldn't have seen them for the trees.

We arrived in Gainesville, Florida Tuesday, Nov. 21, stopped by the Institute to meet the CES Coordinator, President Janson and Elaine, the secretary, and met a few of the missionaries.

We had Thanksgiving dinner in Live Oak with Brent and Dana (Worthen) Wainright and their family. It was a true southern dinner, reminded me of getting together at Uncle Evan's and Aunt Zella's years ago in Snowflake.  They have real long horn cattle.

 Brent & Dana

 Brent's Dad and a grandson

 With Brent's parents - southern hospitality at it's best.

They use regular stalks of cotton to make wreaths and to decorate, looks good.  This is Dana's boy Jace, age 12 (who drives a truck like a pro.)

 

President Lee has the missionaries go to the Orlando Temple twice on their missions, half way and at the end.  We are privileged to drive the ones from Gainesville, so the day after Thanksgiving we rented a 15 passenger van and headed to the temple with us, another senior couple, the Schroeders and 6 missionaries.  The temple is beautiful and the trip was great.

One of our missionaries is Elder Flake, whose grandfather, Stanley Flake (Vincent and Phobe) is a good friend of mine.  We grew up together in Snowflake, Arizona.  

We like our apartment.  It has lots of windows, even a skylight, so plenty of light.

We walk in the mornings - look at the size these trees must have been.

The rocks were probably white once, but the humidity makes them blackish.

Lots of trees and lots of moss

And we'll close this week from a thought Aaron Michael as a boy when he had to do a FHE lesson -- and still applies .. "The church is true -- there's work to do."

Our best to you all as you go into this fun Christmas season!!