10/22/2018 Tomorrow

When a lot is going on we don't have time to write and when nothing is going on, there isn't anything to write about ..

                           Seriously, we will post tomorrow ..   Love ya'al

10/15/2018 St. Augustine -- more next week

Part 1 - The mission took all the Senior Couples to St. Augustine for the day.  It is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the United States. 

In the prison area and called The Bird Cage - a prisoner who misbehaved would be put in here and then with a heavy rope that went through a hook at the top, would be pulled up into the tree and left just hanging usually two or three days, not coming out for anything.  They had water a couple of times a day, food once, just enough to keep them alive and misearable.

 The largest hotel in town had a swimming pool, bowling alley, tennis court and more
 

Now it is the restaurant where we ate

 

 Another way to take care of misbehaving prisoners. 

 A cell like this would hold up to twelve men - the women's area on the main floor just had two beds, and up to four to a cell.  "Chamber pots" were the only bathroom facilities.

St. Augustine is supposedly where Ponce de Leon found the Fountain of Youth.  

 

At least we tried - without any luck

 and you can tell form Sister Schroeder that the water is quite nasty - sulphur and minerals.

 More next week --
       Crews from here went up to the area by Tallahassee and the other areas of the panhandle that were hit worst in the hurricane and spent Saturday and part of Sunday cutting and hauling the trees  and limbs that had fallen in yards  or fields and across the road..  There are tons of trees here.  The ground is so saturated that they don't break off, the wind just knocks them over, clear out of the ground, roots and all.   
           will finish up the blog next week -- the trip was a lot more exciting than I make it sound.  Lots of history ...    Love you all -
         I seem to get stopped in Section 59 when it talks about our Father making this world "to please the eye and gladden the heart."  Reading on a bit more slowly, I rediscovered verse 23, - But learn that he who doeth the works of righteousness shall receive his reward, even peace in this world and eternal life in the world to come.                                Love you all -   

10/8/2018 Hawk, Conference, Patriarchal Blessing

We have seen lots of birds in Florida -- this is the first hawk ..

 It is difficult to describe the feelings of the day

 as we sat with the young singles and watched conference

 
And then went with a young lady who was recently baptized to get her patriarchal blessing

It has been a blessing to be here - we are grateful to belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (per President Nelson) - grateful for family, grateful for those we know and work with here, grateful for testimonies that have been strengthened during our time here.

We have an O-zone (Old Zone) trip tomorrow with all the other Senior Missionaries, meeting in St. Augustine for the day .. so this is short.   love ya'all.

10/1/2018 - Clouds, BYU & UF, Some Pictures, Covenants

 It wouldn't be a blog without a cloud picture ..

 Kind of fun .. though certainly not the same as BYU, we have become UF fans.  One of our speakers for the devotional series has tickets given to him in his business.   He says he is through sitting in the hard seats when he can watch it from home and so he gave us very good tickets for the Homecoming Game on November 3rd.  We're excited about being in the "Swamp" for the game and also excited to watch the UF marching band.

Thought we better put in some pictures that showed us with the YSA instead of  just the places we visit so you would know we really were serving a mission.

Our current zone.  Only the elders on the left of Mike and the sisters by me are assigned to the UF and Santa Fe campuses.  The two on the right are in our zone but are in a family ward.

 Jeff we met the first month we were here at the inter-faith progressive dinner. He took the lessons for a while and all of the missionaries went with his Knights of Columbus (Catholic) group to a service project and he drops by when he can.   We enjoy him and he has become a good friend.  

 Elder Waite and Brother Cardim (pronounced Car-Zheem), substituting for Brother Janson.

 Bo, Josh Jones and Mike.  Josh is a returned missionary, headed to BYU-I in a month.  He is a great young man and fun to be around.  Good teacher and very fun personality.

 Connor Smith, also a good friend, went with us and a couple other YSA's to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat.  We were trying to get a picture of the big beautiful tree with no Spanish Moss, and the big open lawn it is in - but it didn't work.

 The Saturday of transfer calls, we have dinner at our apartment for the missionaries.  It is fun to hear them laugh and talk about some of their experiences.  We have them tell about something they have learned this transfer, or share a scripture - it is always a great evening.

For those of you from Snowflake area, the missionary on the right above and below is a new missionary, Elder Brimhall from Taylor, Arizona.  His parents are Kevin and Daphne Brimhall,  his grandparents Larry and Helen Brimhall.  His trainer, Elder Burt on the left was trained by Elder Whittle, grandson of Billy Jo and Rhonda Hancock.  Wonderfully small world.  

 Connor Smith (with us at Joseph) taught me how to do a power point and we finally got one of those "clickers" so Mike could move the pictures as he needs.  Mike organizes the lesson and gives me a list of pictures and quotes he needs. The internet provides us with good pictures and I'm sure Heaven provides us with lots of help.

 Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles shared how we gain power through keeping our covenants:  "Sometimes we are tempted to let our lives be governed more by convenience than by covenant.  It is not always convenient to live gospel standards and stand up for truth and testify of the Restoration .. But there is no spiritual power in living by convenience.  The power comes as we keep our covenant."  (May 1999 Conference Report) 

We are looking forward to conference this next week.   We are so very grateful for the restored gospel and what it has meant in our lives.  Love ya'all.