7/8/2018 - Fourth of July in Florida, Computer Problems

     This will be a quick post because there is something wrong with my computer - Best Buy Geek Squad has gone through everything, and now the determination is that it is a hardware problem in the screen -- something about pixelization ..
    Fourth of July in High Springs, Florida -- out in the forest where the Browns, Keith is our Branch first  counselor, have their home on ten acres surrounded by forest.  The pictures cannot do it justice, but maybe will give you a feel for what it is like.  You all would have loved it and we would have loved to have ya'all there with us. 

Not sure if the video will work, but you can see the rain - the trees were swaying back & forth.  It rained about an hour and then stopped, typical for this season in Florida.

 













They have a tree they put targets on - it was nice to shoot again, and I got two out of two.  Thought it wise to stop there.  Josh Jones used the hand gun and did a lot of rapid firing.

They do a lot of the Slacklining here,  but this is the first time we had seen it.  All you need is the wider webbing and a couple of trees and there are plenty of those in Florida.  It isn't strung as tight as a tightrope so it moves a little.  It looks easy until you try it.  In some of the areas at UF where kids gather to study or eat or just hang out, they set them up.   And you always see hammocks.

 Horseshoes -- the ground is so spongy at this time of year that wherever the horseshoe hits, it usually stays. Mike hasn't lost his touch.  Most had not played horseshoes before, but they caught on very quickly and enjoyed it.   The kids were wondering who ever invented the game.

Brother Brown really enjoys fireworks, in fact, he really enjoys life and brings a fun spirit.  He is a lot like Art Shaner and everyone loves him.  The fireworks are an annual event for his children and grandchildren and whoever else comes.  They turn one of those big water tanks over and set them off from there.  They have fun stories to tell about incidents over the years.  We almost had one when his son-in-law put the firework upside down in the canister, it shot off and down and then across the ground, right through where I had been sitting before I moved to the other side of Mike and up over the head of our Branch President.  

For a YSA service project we helped serve dinner at the Hope Lodge where cancer patients that are receiving their treatment at Shands (the UF Cancer Hospital) stay.  If we didn't have a station for serving, they sent us out to visit with the residents and we met these two fun sisters.  The one in the middle had come to be with her sister during treatments who has leukemia.  She is three years older than I am, her sister a year younger.  One of the newer treatments is taking bone marrow from the cancer patient, basically curing it and then putting it back.  It was fun to listen to them and to watch them together.  They say they will come to Nevada to see us after all the treatments are over.   

Finally this is from several months ago but I don't think we posted it.  All of the senior missionaries in the Florida Jacksonville Mission were having dinner at one of those restaurants that has the look of a barn, and doesn't have to advertise because the food is so good.  This is where we tried fried green tomatoes for the first time - at least I tried them.   President and Sister Lee are at the front. 

Robert D. Hales in 2010 talked about our amazing gift of agency - "Our agency- our ability to choose and act for ourselves - was an essential element of the plan.  Without agency we would be unable to make right choices and progress.  Yet with agency we could make wrong choices, commit sin, and lose the opportunity to be with Heavenly Father again.  For this reason a Savior would be provided to suffer for our sins and redeem us if we would repent.  By His infinite Atonement, He brought about "the plan of mercy, to appease the demands of justice." 
      How grateful we are for the atonement and grateful for our opportunity to serve another mission.  Our Father has blessed us so very many ways, among those, all of you.  Grateful for ya'all.