Crestwood Stake RS conference

We have had a good week.  The leaves are falling quickly off of the trees.  Here are some pictures of the trees outside the mission office.  The houses across the street are pretty neat too. 

 

We  had time to do a few things in our apartment this week which was nice. We brought a picture with us from WA hoping to hang it at our apartment and this week we found a frame to put it in and then hung it in the living room.

We also bought a microwave stand to go in the corner by the kitchen to give us extra space.

*Note from Angela: we sent them a letter and it is in the cubby of the new stand which made me smile*

We had some tender mercies at the office recently.  One was that missionaries showed up right when we had 8 mattress sets to move into the basement at the office. Another happened when 2 elders came in one day right when Jason got a call to go give someone a blessing and he needed someone to go with him.  The other couple in the office was gone all week to Zone conferences.  We were hoping to go to part of zone conference, but didn't feel like we could leave the office when there are always people and deliveries coming in.

Luckily I got to go to a Stake Women's conference in Crestwood.  I passed a sign-up at church to see who wanted to go since no one has a car.  6 sisters signed up, so I asked the new Sr. couple, the Hiatt's if they would be willing to drive also. We planned to meet at the church and then drive to Crestwood.  After many phones calls and plan changes, only 1 sister showed up. So we all went together in one car. The men dropped us off and then they went to the temple and out to lunch. We heard some wonderful speakers who talked about challenges in our lives and how the Lord knows and loves us.  The sister from our branch who went with us taught Relief Society today and told of how what she heard at the conference had changed her heart to solve a family problem. She was able to have the spirit with her to teach. Two other sisters came later to the conference and we all ate together at the lunch afterwards.

This picture outside of the church is us with Lisa (Perry) Holt. She grew up in our ward in Sammamish. She is the one with red hair. Her friend is on her left. It was fun to see her. She lives here and has 4 children. The Crestwood building reminded me of the Bellevue South Stake Center very new and big. It reminded me of being back in Washington.

We cooked Pumpkin French toast from my friend Nan's blog for the missionaries for lunch today  after church and they loved it. 

Transfers are coming up again the week right before Thanksgiving. We are still trying to decide what we will do for Thanksgiving. We would like to feed some missionaries and are trying to figure out who still needs a meal and where the best place to serve it is.

Another fun fall week in Kentucky

Here is a picture of the fall leaves at our Kentucky church building.

The Zone leaders and Sister training leaders had Leadership Council on Tuesday.  They came into the office first and then headed over to the mission home for training.   We prepared a brunch for the 28 of them. We picked up pumpkin and cinnamon crisp bagels from Panera Bread.  We also had oranges, chocolate milk and apple cider. As you can see they ate everything up.   They were yummy!

 This is the sister training leaders in the backroom of the mission office eating. 

This is Elder Earl and Elder Blauer visiting with Elder Anderson, the Assistant, while he is trying to get his reports done. The zone leaders all come into the office to prepare materials for their zones.  They take over the office and use all the computers and printers.
This month, we are having 7 zone conferences. Two were last week, 4 next week, then one the week after that.

 I (Barbara) am in charge of making sure that lunches are prepared at the stake centers they meet in. The Halvorsens (the other senior couple serving in the mission office) go to all of the zone conferences to inspect the cars.  It is pretty quiet with only us in the office. So we are happy to see the missionaries come in for their district meetings. We are still very busy.  I think we stayed late every night last week.  A couple of nights dad went to pick up more cars.

We got a new Senior couple in our branch this week. They are the Hiatt's from North Carolina and are great people.  We had a temple trip planned for our branch last Saturday. Both the Hiatt's and us were planning to drive people there, but in the end, after lots of plans and calls, no one else made it. The Hiatt's didn't want to stay late and do a session, because they didn't want to drive home in the dark. So we took them to Costco and bought things for our Branch Pot Luck on Sunday.

Today,  Dad spoke in church and I taught the Gospel Principles lesson.  We had our pot luck dinner after church which is a branch favorite: Thanksgiving foods.

Both Saturday and Sunday evening, we went with the elders to visit a lady in the branch who is in the hospital.  She is the one we drive to church. She is newly baptized and hated to miss the temple trip and the pot luck. She has many health problems, but hopefully will be back home soon.

We love it here - the weather is sunny! We have started getting up earlier and walking each morning. We are amazed how we have come to  love these people that we have not know for very long.

We were able to skype with our Sammamish 2nd family home evening group last Monday night. It was so fun to see our friends.

We love and miss you all. 
Sister Moulton and Elder Moulton

Halloween and a visit to Lexington

Monday after work we met up with some sister missionaries to go with them on an appointment to visit a family they have been teaching. The couple love reading the Book of Mormon and are fascinated with all there is to learn about the Gospel. We really enjoyed being there.  The sister's were on bikes and headed home about 8:45 p.m. They said it would take them 45 minutes to get home. I worry about them out in the dark and wish we could take them home. We need to get a bike rack on our car. Plus we were going home the other way. Tuesday, about noon, the same sisters came into the office. They had walked here and were very upset. When they went to their apt basement that morning, one of their bikes had been stolen.  It was a nice, expensive bike and the basement was supposed to be locked. We drove them to an appointment and told them to make a police report.  Everyone tried to help find another bike to use. We never expected to see that bike again.  Then on Thursday the police called us and said they thought they had her bike.  We picked them up again and went to the police property warehouse and she picked up her bike, as good as new.  We call these our TENDER MERCIES!

Because it was Halloween week, we wanted to do something special for the missionaries that come into the office.  The missionaries in our area have district meetings at the church next door to the mission office on Wed and Friday. They always come into the office before and after meetings. So we made pumpkin face sugar cookies and got little oranges and apple cider. Sis. H brought chocolate chip cookies.  They were all surprised and happy to have a treat.

Serving the treats at the mission office.

Making more cookies for the missionaries. 

Thursday night there was a big rain and wind storm, so they kind of canceled Halloween. We only had a few kids come to our apt.  We went out for a walk later that night and enjoyed the blustery Washington -type weather.  I think lots of kids went to parties at the school or church or the Mall that night instead. We didn't see anyone out walking.

The leaves are finally changing colors here. On Saturday we decided to drive to Lexington about 1 1/2 hours away.  We found out that they had more wind than we did and most of the big trees were already bare.  Can you see the horses in the distance?

On the way home we drove through Frankfort and Shelbyville. This picture was taken in Shelbyville. They already have all their town's Christmas decorations up and they were playing Christmas music in the stores.  Crazy. Christmas trees and Autumn leaves together.

                                                      The State Capital in Frankfort