Time is not flying for us, it is jetting away faster than we can keep up!

I couldn't believe how long it had been since I had posted, until I looked at a friend's blog and saw the link to us with a notation that it had been 1 month (+) since we had last added anything. And we really don't have that much of an excuse. We are busy with our mission, but not overwhelmed, at least not yet.

Our knee friend saw the orthopod and got 3 injections in his knee. He is loving life now with no pain.

We are currently working with a family that lives in a mobile home in Grantsville. They bought it "as is" and the "as is" is a collapsing roof. A contractor friend from our home ward looked at the roof and estimated it would cost about $2500 to repair the "dip" and resuface the roof. Max is going with a group of High Priests from the Branch on Thurs. to look at it again. One of the HP is also a contractor, so maybe we'll get a different approach to fixing the roof. We would really like to help this family. They have 7 children, 5 from her previous marriage, and 2 from this marriage. Shortly after we met them and started working with them, he got laid off. He can't apply for unemployment as he is undocumented. Also can't apply for job assistance at the State of Church employment offices. He has experience in landscaping and so is talking about trying to set up a business of his own doing that. They get no financial assistance from the prev. spouse.

We have a group of Branch members who are working on education issues, some doing ESL and some working on technical training or college. There are special programs and funds for Hispanic members and we are helping them access these funds.

We arranged dental care for 2 uninsured young men who want to serve missions. They are undocumented also, but the Mission Dept. tells us that they can still serve, they will just be sent to areas close by and will be sent out by bus.

We are getting ready to begin piano lessons in the Branch for members who are willing to learn so that they can play in church. We have a simplied Spanish hymn book as well as a lesson guide book. We were able to pick up 2 keyboards Sunday night when we were in SLC for a mission meeting. The keyboards are loaned to the students while they are taking the classes and then returned to us for the next group. I hope this is successful as I am kind of becoming the default RS pianist--mostly using 1 finger. I'm going to try to learn the songs from our simplified hymn book. I'm just waiting to get the songs for May so I can see what i can do.

We are gradually getting to know more members in the Branch and are feeling their friendship and caring for us. Our Branch President is excellent and we enjoy our association with him. We are grateful that we are able to serve this mission and pray every night that our health will hold up so that we can continue.

We have just realized that we can count on both hands the number of times that Logan (Melanie's youngest) will come to us on Wednesday and Friday mornings. During the summer she will stay home with her sisters, and in August she will go to Kindergarten. We will miss her. It has been so much fun watching her mature and grow up over the past few years.

When we look at our grandkids, we really realize how much older we are getting--they are all growing up so much. Pretty soon we won't have any little kids in the family. This Christmas I will make the last Raggedy Ann/Andy dolls for the grandkids we have now. WOW! Hope I can continue with that tradition for the gt grandkids.

Mission Updates

We are pleased with our mission work so far. We contacted our orthopedist (who did Dad's knee last year) and he was very agreeable to see our branch friend whose knee is "killing" him. The orthopod had previously seen this man for an industrial injury to his wrist or hand, and so was very pleased to see him again. Just talked to the wife. X-rays Friday confirmed arthritis as they expected. Dr. D injected his knee with the 1st of 3 inj and already Hector is feeling relief. Hurray! Hopefully the relief will be long lasting as they have no ins. since Gracie lost her job in Nov. when the company she worked for closed down.

We are working closely also with the family of the RS President. Her 2 boys want to serve missions, but are not documented. They can still serve but since they have no papers, they cannot fly and so will be assigned close by and will go to the mission by bus. Their immigration status will not be resolved as easily.

The lady who went to the shelter was "passed off" to Salt Lake missionaries since she is planning to stay in SLC.

The next family we need to track down, may be dealing with an ex-husband who is threatening to sue for custody (prob. to avoid paying child support). We are still trying to reach them to set up an appt.

Last Thursday night was the Spring concert for the TSP group. This is the Tooele Sign Pride club for the high school sign language students. This was Breanna's last sign concert and Emily's 2nd. Not being proficient in sign language, it is hard for us to judge their skill's, but they both did very well. Never seemed to hesitate or scramble for the next sign. Breanna and her friend Brianna do "Who's on First?" This is very fast paced as well as very hilarious. They keep up and do well. I keep suggesting to Bre that if she ends up having to go to SLCC next year, that she take all of the sign language classes there that she can so that she can certify as a SL interpreter. She could then, very likely, get a job at a 4 year college and work her way thru school.

Last Fri. night we went to Mapleton. Lindsey was playing in the orchestra for the school's production of Midsummer's Night Dream. The orchestra was quite good and we enjoyed the play. This was the first time we had been able to see/hear Lindsey perform in a smaller group--I think we may have been to one of her orchestra concerts, but I'm not sure. When you have so many g'kids performing, sometimes it's hard to keep track.

This past weekend was stake conference for our branch. So, Sunday, we went to conference. I am quite impressed with our Stake President there. He is a convert of about 30 years and now works for the Church architectural department--apparently working on temples.

After conference we went to our home ward block. We miss seeing our friends. Cynthia and Max left after the sacrament (he had to drive her home) as she felt pretty punk--sore throat. But I stayed for the whole meeting. The speakers were Br. and Sis Ursenbach who are long time temple workers and who have just been home for a year from serving as the Hawaii Temple President and Matron. Sis. Ursenbach knew my high school friend Yvonne Curnow. Maureen Ursenbach Beecher is part of their extended family and they know her well. My cousin, Dale Beecher, is in their stake and they see him periodically.

Today we plan to go to the local LDS Employment Office for a tour and orientation. Then we will arrange to take Gracie in tmo. or Wed. This mission for us feels like when Max was Bishop and I was RS President--except that we have a lot more to do than I did as RS President.

Overall, we have to say that we are enjoying our mission. It makes us feel good to be able to be a positive force in the lives of the people we work with.

The Ladle's are coming! Hurrah, Hurrah!

How could I forget the thing that has our whole family buzzing? This summer (August) is the 50th Wedding anniversary of Devin's parents, so they are coming to Utah! We are so excited. Devin will only be here for a short time, and his focus will be with his family, but we are hoping to be able to "steal" him for at least one evening so we can have a Newell family something or other also.

Kathy and the girls are planning to come in late July and spend 3 weeks here with us. The girl cousins especially are all excited to see Lauren, Lisee and Aunt Kathy again. We have moved our family camp out 1 week later in July so Kath and the girls can go with us. The timing was just right--it was about the only week in July that every family had open and McKenna and Peyton start school the following Monday since they attend a year-round school.

I looked and looked and finally found a group camp site still available. It is labeled as a Tent camping area. Since it is fairly close to Steve's, he tried to drive up earlier this week to see if the parking area will accomodate Mel and Curt's RV, Doug and Brynn's tent trailer, and Josh and Jamie's trailer/RV. However, when he went up, he could only go part way up the road and then got stopped by 12 inches of snow on the road. So, he'll try again in a few weeks and see if the road is open. We are so excited that they are coming. (We'll be more excited when they have their plane reservations!)

When we applied for a Mission Call, we felt like we wouldn't be able to go to Florida this year. (I wanted to go in August when Lauren turns 12.) After we got our call, we found that, as we hoped, rules are looser for our type of mission. So we won't have any problems with baptisms, missions "farewells"; baby blessings; birthdays, etc. So we could have gone in Florida, but the economy is dissolving my IRA and making us nervous. So we were ELATED with the Florida Ladle's plan to come for the Sr. Ladle's festivities. We are hoping, hoping, hoping that we get to see Mike and Annette also, as they are as dear to us as the rest of our kids.

Another quilt and mission updates

We hadn't gotten any assignments during February from our mission branch, so we put on another quilt. This one is for us. Max pieced it a year or so ago. We ordered extra wide backing fabric from one of my catalogs and didn't like it when we got it. But we finally decided that it would do--don't expect it to ever be put on the bed with that side up. We are about 3/4 done. It is looking great and we can't wait to get it off.

I meant to keep the posting more current. So here is a sort of update of our mission activity which I wrote on Feb 25th in an email to my sibs.

We have been to 2 sunday's of block meetings. 1st sunday, "sender" part of the translation machinery wasn't connected right, so no translation in Sac. Mtg. Last Sunday, everything was set up right and we enjoyed Sac. Mtg. 3 youth speakers all spoke about prayer--excellent talks. Actually I thought they were some better than the high counselor who followed them.

Sunday School and RS/Priesthood are hard for us because we don't know what they are saying. We can catch occasional words, but not really enough to know where they are in the lesson and exactly what they are saying. I told Max on the way home, that the hardest part for me, was not being able to make comments in class. Maybe eventually, I'll feel comfortable about just raising my hand and saying what I'm thinking. We try to be sure that we read the lessons ahead of time and have our scriptures/lesson guide/lesson manuals open with us, but it is still hard to know where they are.

Tonight we had a formal meeting with Pres. Gonzalez and our lead couple (kind of like district leaders, I think, for you former missionaries), Good meeting, but still no specific assignments other than a strong interest expressed by Pres. Gonzalez in the music program developed to teach hispanic members to play well enough to play simplified arrangments of hymns. Currently our branch sac mtg organist is a sister from somewhere in the stake who was called to be the branch organist. In Priesthood, they sing acappella; RS uses a CD; and the Primary President plays the piano for Primary.

We went to Branch council the 1st week after our training and almost the first thing that was mentioned was a need for us--a 13 yr old girl had had foot surgery the previous week and needed a wheelchair. That was easy--we had one in our garage and her dad came and got it after the block. I saw her tonight at the church (Mutual) and she said she uses it all the time at home. We were pleased that we could help right off the bat.

After our meeting, we were standing in one of the foyers talking with the new Elder's Quorum President. He is Puerto Rican, born in NYC (and that accent comes thru quite often in his English). When he first came to Utah in 1997, he attended Granger 10th Ward. So I asked him if he knew Christine and Mario Gonzalez (my sister). He said he did, but that he hadn't seen them for a long time. Hno. Santiago says that when he came to SLC in 97, there were 15 hispanic units. Now in the Salt Lake Innercity Project, there are 64 units--2 are Portuguese and the rest are Spanish. (And did I ever mention the newly formed Swahili Branch?)

We have high hopes for our mission. Pres. Gonzalez is a great man and a good branch president. He expresses his appreciation to have us in the branch, but as I said, no assignments yet. If they are not forthcoming, then our supervisor-people may pull us out of this branch and assign us somewhere in the SLC Valley. So, we are hoping that this official meeting with him tonight will start something.

We are working some on our Spanish, but haven't yet gotten to a set study schedule, so I know that we won't make much progress unless we do. Tonight, Pres. Gonzales gave us an MTC style book. We have Jamie's but this one looks a little different. The first pronunciation lessons went fairly well, but I'm stuck on the rolling r's--can't quite get it. Max has no trouble with that sound, but struggles to remember the vowels. I think I can remember the vowels easily because they pretty much sound like the Hawaiian vowels. Anyway, we're moving slowly, but with optimism. Nearly every week we go into SLC for some kind of training meeting--all aimed at hispanic needs and all very helpful.

Now, as of tda, March 6th--we have 3 pages of assignments/notes! I missed last Sunday (sick) but Max went to Branch Sac Mtg. The Branch Clerk gave him a 2nd hand assignment, so Max scheduled an appt with Pres. G for Wed. Night. He clarified that assignment and then went thru the branch list, giving us assignments for about 6 or 7 families. One is a sister who has left her husband and gone to a women's shelter in SLC. She doesn't speak much English and the Pres. is not sure exactly why she left--only guesses because of past history. We are meeting with one family tda at 5pm. So, it looks like we are finally "starting" our mission.

Max only went to Branch Sac Mtg. last Sunday so he could go to Priesthood Mtg in our home ward. He was being released Sunday as an asst. to the HP Group Leader and wanted to be there again. The Stake President was there and thanked him for our willingness to serve. Pres. Rockwell asked how the language was going and Max told him about some of our struggles, but then said that Pres. G had told us that apx 85% of the branch spoke English, so hope that overall we will be able to work well in the Branch. Pres. R was surprised that there were that many English speaking members of the Branch.

The quilt--how could I forget it?

If we knew how to include photos, and had a working digital camera, we'd show the quilt we just finished for Kathy's friend Tedra. Tedra was scheduled for a c-section yesterday, but apparently went into labor Sunday night and ended up with a 3 am section. Kathy reports that all went well. All is going well with the quilt also. Max finished the quilting yesterday (I was sick and couldn't help with the last borders). The machine side of the binding is on and it is sitting in my chair waiting for me to come do the the hand sewing side. We're waiting for confirmation from Kathy of the baby's name so we can do the label. Then it will be in the mail to Florida! The quilt is navy blue, dark red and white on white. The quilt is 4 large blocks-apx 15 in squares--2 are red paisley and white and 2 are navy and white. Borders are dark red and navy and binding is dark red. We think it looks pretty and hope that Tedra will enjoy it.

No, we haven't dropped off the edge of the world. We're still here!

Well, we managed to be set apart on Thurs, Feb 5th. Melanie, Josh, Doug and Cynthia were able to be there as well as some close friends from our Ward. Our Bishop gave us each beautiful blessings. This is one of those times when I wish that blessings could be recorded, like a patriarchal blessing, so you would have a hard copy to refer to often. I have comfort in the fact that my spirit also heard my blessing and will bring it to my conscious (or maybe even subconscious) mind when I need it.

We went to our training on Sat and Sun, 2/7 & 8. The Director of the Salt Lake Innercity Project is a very congenial man, Bro. Hodson, as is his wife. He has about 5 or 6 Asst. Directors who each supervise specific Stakes/Wards/Branches and certain area of support, such as employment, medical, website, etc. Each set of Asst Directors gave a presentation introducing their area of specialty. The presentations were well done and interesting. However, by the end of Saturday's session, we were all feeling like we were in an "information overload".

Wow! There is so much to learn and remember. They frequently reiterated their position that we didn't have to remember it all now, just remember that we had heard about it and knew where to find more info and who to call if we needed specialized information. We had a closing session Sunday with our Asst. Director, Bro. Ballstaedt and his wife, who are over the Spanish units. They also are very charming, congenial, and eager to help each of us be successful. We have another training session on Thurs. that is just for Spanish missionaries. They tell us that our needs, and, therefore, our resources are different from a lot of the ones that we learned about in our training.

Jamie gave us her Spanish textbook from the MTC and some other Spanish church books. Altho we are not required to learn Spanish, we are going to try to learn at least some.

I went to the library last week and got some Spanish children's books and also some phonics books for Logan. She wants to learn to read so badly. She is in a good pre-school program and is learning letter sounds and can read some words. Unfortunately, she hasn't been here since I got the books, so we haven't had a chance to try them. Maybe tomorrow.

Love to all. We enjoy reading your comments. it keeps us somewhat connected. Marcia

Mission Call and othe stuff

This last week we finally got our "call" letter from the Salt Lake Inner City Project. The letter pretty much confirmed what we already knew and included some suggestions for being successful missionaries. However, the letter stated that our application forms had been sent to the Church Service Missionary Office for processing and that shortly our Stake President would be notified that the call had been approved. At that point, our Bishop can be assigned to set us apart. So we're still a bit up in the air as to when this will happen. It is supposed to be before we go for our training, which begins next Saturday, Feb. 7th.

We FINALLY finished the quilt. It is beautiful and Cynthia took a few pictures. Unfortunately at this time, the only working camera we seen to have in the family is her 35mm, so cannot easily download a picture of the finished project. The owner and her husband were both home when we delivered it and Max says they were both very impressed by the workmanship. She plans to enter it in the Delta Quilt show,with Max's name as "quilted by". We hope to know when that quilt show is and see if we can go. Won't be sure of that type of restriction until we go to our missionary training.

Curt and Melanie took Breanna to check out CEU in Price Thursday and Friday. Haven't talked directly to Bre yet, but Curt says that she is thinking seriously about CEU, but also wants to go to SUU in Cedar. A lot will depend on financing I thing. We had the other kids Thurs nite. All went well until about 2:45 am Fri when Cynth and Kami came upstairs to tell us that Logan was crying for her mom. She wouldn't come up to us until Dad went down to get her. She snuggled in bed with us for about 30 min; stopped crying; but continued to fidget. Finally told us she needed Kami, so I took her back downstairs and she crawled back into bed between Kami and Hailey. Kami woke up enough I could tell her that Logan needed her, so she rolled over and put her arm around her and apparently they went back to sleep. At breakfast, all seemed well, but before it was time to go to school, Kami complained to her mom on the phone that she had a tummy ache. Melly says this has been a daily occurance and prob. is related to her ENT appt next week to talk about a tonsillectomy. I woke up with still some headache, so i fell asleep while the girls watched pre=school time cartoons. I gues Logan felt abandoned--I was asleep upstairs and Grandpa was finishing the quilting. By the time i woke up an hour or so later, she was very down and lonesome for her mommie. She was pretty droop all morning, didn't even want to play on the toy stuff at Carls Jr when we went for lunch. She ate good tho, and seemed a bit perkier. But when we got home and heard a message that Kami called an hr earlier to be picked up from school, she was much better. Grandpa picked up Kami and when they got together at home, both perked up considerably. Mel, Curt and Bre got home about 7 and all were happy to be together, except Emily who was still a bit cross from having to wake up when they got there.

Dad, I think, is downstairs putting on a baby quilt that we will do for a friend of Kathy's who is having another baby (one of those surprise! ones). This is should go quickly--we hope to have it done by next weekend--probably have a better chance of doing so if I go down and help. Love to all.