Wow! You can teach old dogs new tricks.

I have thought for several months that Max and I should set up a blog since I enjoy the ones we read so much. We expected that our sweet daughter-in-law Linnae would have to do it for us. So I was very surprised when I got up this morning to find that Max had figured it out and built one for us. We think this will be a good way for us to keep our family, and perhaps friends, up to date on what we will be doing the next while.

We have just accepted a call from our Bishop to serve as service missionaries in the Salt Lake inner-city area. This will be an ideal arrangement for us as we get to come home every night and sleep in our own bed! An added plus is that it means that no significant arrangements have to be made for Cynthia, and this is a mission we can easily handle financially. Tonight we meet with the Stake President and then we will have a bit more info hopefully as to what will be involved. We do know that the mission is 24 months and that we will not be attending our home ward on Sundays during that time. We understand that we will be assigned to a specific ward/stake and will likely spend our entire mission in that ward. It appears that we will report to the local Bishop/Stake President rather than the Mission President, but expect to learn more during the training that will be provided.

We are excited to serve a mission and are pleased that our kids are excited for us also. We think that we can help however we are asked.

We have heard anecdotal reports from some of our kids who have known persons who have served this type of mission. Doug says that we likely will see things we had never seen before, esp poverty. But all other reports are that the missionaries really enjoyed their service.

Our main challenge at this time to get ready to serve, is to finish quilting the quilt we are doing for a local lady and fixing the floor in the hall bathroom. We may have to finish the quilt to finance the floor.

The quilt is beautiful, but much harder to quilt that we had anticipated. She gave us a cotton batt which is very thin (maybe 1/4") so we expected it to quilt like "butter". Not so. The fabrics she used are broadcloth but heavier in weight as is the backing. We are struggling to quilt it but it will be beautiful when finished. We are about half way through. Max quilted alone all thru Dec, but once the Christmas stuff was done, I started helping, so it is moving a bit faster.

The bathroom floor is something else. We had to pull up the carpet as Coco, our cat, kind of ruined it during her last few days. The linoleum underneath is a mess and the subflooring looks kind of iffy in a few places. Hopefully the boys will be able to come help once we figure out what needs to be done.

We have had Logan with us on Wed and Fri morning while Melanie works. She is such a delight and we hope that we will be able to continue this even after the mission call starts. We enjoy being in the same town as Melanie and Doug since we get to see their kids often. We only wish that we had the same contact with Sean, Josh, Steve and Kathy's kids. We had hoped to go to Florida again this year, but may not be able to do so--not sure yet how this type of mission works.

We have 3 granddaughters to be baptized this year. Hopefully, we can attend the baptisms since they will be 2 in the SLC area and 1 in Tooele. We are a bit concerned about whether we will be allowed to go to Mapleton to hear Ryan speak in Sacrament Mtg. before leaving on his mission this summer. We know that it will all work out for the best and if we have to miss a few of these events, it will be OK.