A visit to my missionary parents in Kentucky

Last August my parents headed out on their mission to Kentucky.  They have been doing a great work in Kentucky supporting over 200 young missionaries as they work in the Louisville Kentucky mission office.  But I have missed having them live just up the street.  For 7 years I have been spoiled to live by them.   After Christmas I booked a trip to visit them and my sweet husband agreed to tend the kids in my absence.  My flights were perfect and I met lots of  interesting people as I traveled to Kentucky.  My parents were waiting for me at the airport when I arrived.  It was a sweet reunion.

 I got to spend one day with them at the mission office.  Lots of young missionaries came in and it was so fun to meet them and see how much they loved and appreciated my parents.

 On Saturday we enjoyed some of the sights of Louisville and on Sunday I attended church with them in their small branch.  My parents drive several cars full of people to church each Sunday and it was fun to meet those people.

Upon returning from my trip I had my daughter Emily help me make a video of my trip.  It is not perfect and some things are misspelled but overall it is cute.  I hope you enjoy it.  Just click on the link below.
                                                           http://youtu.be/8RLCyIsWoco

March Mission Fun

Here are some highlights and pictures since we wrote last

Friday March 7- We had Senior Missionary birthday party.  It was recently Sister Hiatt's birthday and Elder Halvorsen's so we wanted to have a get together to celebrate.  We put a pot roast and carrots and potatoes in the crock pot before we left for work and invited both couples over to our house for dinner. 

We also fixed a salad and rolls and Sister Halvorsen made a 4 layer Birthday cake. We had a fun evening together. 

Saturday  We had a nice sunny day today, so we did our laundry and shopping and then went for a walk over at Riverview park with the Hiatt's. There is a levee that you can walk on for miles. We did about 3 miles. It was so nice to get out.

That evening we went with the Hiatt's to the Louisville 4th ward to a dinner theater put on by the young women. It was called
"Women at the Well" and we really enjoyed it. The Hiatt's serve with missionaries both in Shawnee and the 4th ward, so that is why they were invited. The 4 Sister missionaries also participated in it.

Sunday We had another pot luck after church at the Shawnee branch.

Tuesday The Hiatt's picked us up after work and we went to a temple session. It was the Shawnee Branch temple night. This picture was taken that evening at the temple.

Friday March 14-I made mint topped brownies with green frosting to celebrate St. Patrick's day. There was a zone meeting at the church next door, so we had missionaries coming into the office and they enjoyed the treats.

Saturday morning we picked up a car full of branch members and the Hiatt's brought another car of branch members to the temple to do temple baptisms. We had to be there before 9:00 a.m. The Branch President and his counselor met us at the temple and the Branch President did all of the baptizing.  It was a great experience.  Afterwards we took everyone to McDonalds for breakfast/lunch.

That evening we attended the baptism of a great young man.  His mother attends our branch and he came for a few weeks and then started attending the YSA branch.  He was baptized in the YSA branch, so it was held in the church near our office.  He asked Jason to baptize him.  The picture of him is with the Shawnee elders and also the assistants who are assigned to the YSA branch. It all went well. The font wasn't filled enough when we started, so we watched some Mormon.org videos and had both talks first. 

Luckily, that happened, because his mom came late with 2 grandchildren and she was able to see him be baptized.  I had made cookies for refreshments.

                                       
 Sunday We picked up lots of members and had a good day at church. This is a picture of the missionaries now serving in our branch waiting to eat the dinner that we brought.  I went with Jason to drive people home so the missionaries had it all set up for us when we got back to the church.

 It started snowing as we left the building, so we were happy to head home and enjoyed staying there for the evening. There was snow everywhere on Monday.  However, the roads were clear.  We are still having cold weather!

Monday after work we picked up a lady that I visit teach and took her and her daughter out to dinner in honor of her upcoming birthday. 

We are excited that Angela is coming on Thursday and staying for the weekend. It will be fun to see her and show her what we do in Louisville. There is a  promise of good weather this weekend.  We are hoping that will be true!  We are certainly ready for Spring.

We love and miss you all and love to hear from you.

A Visit to the Big 4 bridge

We do enjoy working in the Mission Office, but there is not much new to write about. We keep busy doing the same things over and over. I do the same paperwork, just for different missionaries and dad pays the same bills just with different dates. This week the Halvorsen's have been sick and stayed home for a couple of days.  Dad got to work (over the phone) with two sister missionaries to arrange a tow when they got their car stuck in the mud. He's happy he's not in charge of cars. With the icy roads it has  been a busy time for car mishaps. We continue to have cold weather. It's usually in the teens in the morning and hardly ever gets above freezing. Every once in a while we are surprised.  

Saturday morning we went to a baptism.  The previous "Elder Hicken" was back in town with his parents and they came to the baptism and visited with us.  We enjoyed seeing them. President and Sister Woodbury also attended the baptism.  Barbara gave  the talk on the Holy Ghost.
      

When we left the church, it was around 50 degrees, ( cloudy)  so we decided we wanted to get out and do something. We went home and changed clothes and took the Hiatt's and went downtown to walk across the Big 4 bridge.  We had seen the bridge from the freeway but getting to it was a challenge as they are constructing a new bridge very close to it.  Dad found the entrance road to the bridge.  We were surprised by how many people were out at the park and walking on the bridge. It used to be a railroad bridge and last year they reopened it as a walking bridge. It was a great outing and we loved seeing the views of the river, Louisville on one side and Indiana on the other side. 

After we left the park, we drove along the river and tried to find the locks. We found them and were able to watch the barge with the coal go through the locks.

After hiking the river and seeing the locks, we went to a restaurant called Franco's on Dixie Highway that we had wanted to try. It is very Southern and the food was great. Now we know places to take any of you who come to visit. There is even a skateboard park by the bridge.

Sunday we were supposed to get snow and an ice storm starting around 10 AM.  so the leaders decided to only hold sacrament meeting. We stayed and fed the missionaries after church.  It didn't start to storm until about 5:00 PM . 

Monday morning, we ended up with about 2" of snow, with ice underneath it. Of course, school was cancelled again and the Mission President called to tell us that we could come into the office late.  The last picture was taken on Tuesday. This is what happens when the sun comes out and melts snow, but then it freezes again at night into icicles. According to the locals this is a very unusual winter in Louisville. 

Tuesday night, we stayed late at work, then picked up elders and their investigator and took them to the Woodbury's to a FHE that the missionaries had planned. There were about 25 people there and we enjoyed being with them. 

Wednesday, the sun was up, it was 40 degrees, so we went on a short walk by the office to look for signs of spring that we hear are in Washington. We actually saw some crocus and daffodils starting to pop up through the frozen ground and snow.