Update from the mission field

On May 23, we went on a Historic Home tour in Old Louisville. It was at St. James Court. It was fun to see ladies riding old time bicycles around the court. 

We wanted to find the house that served as the Mission Home around 1940. Luckily it was on the tour and this is Barbara standing in front of it. Now it is owned by a lady who is making it into a Bed and Breakfast. 

   

 On May 26, we had transfers and we went to the temple with the group of missionaries going home. 

                                              
The two office sister missionaries posing with the departing sisters.

 President Brough with the departing missionaries. Sister Brough was really sick that day and wasn't able to attend.

Thursday, May 28 we went to an 8th grade Cotillion with Ingrid and her mom. They are in our branch and Ingrid asked Elder Moulton to be her escort. It was held at the Memorial Auditorium and the girls had to be escorted up on to the stage to be introduced.  This is a picture of the girls from her school outside the Auditorium.

Saturday the 30th, in the morning, we went to a baptism in New Albany, Indiana and then in the evening we went to a graduation party for some young people in our branch who were graduating 8th grade. 

Today, June 6 we went to an area of town called Butchertown to an art fair and to look around. Then we headed over to the Frazier Museum where they had a medieval exhibit and an exhibit on the history of firearms. 

           

They also had an excellent exhibit on the Lewis and Clark expedition. 

We also went to Churchill Downs to watch some live horse races, followed by watching, via the big screen, American Pharaoh win the Triple Crown at Belmont. 

We have heard that another couple may be coming earlier in July than we thought, so we are busy trying to get through our "bucket list" of places we wanted to see before we leave Kentucky.

Work in the mission office is going well- but it is like working in an office-kind of the same every day.

We were asked to speak in church on June 14th!

Elder and Sister Moulton

April Update and Some Special Visitors

April 9th we went to the temple for the sealing of the Roy family.  It was a great evening and afterwards we went to our Branch Presidents home in Prospect, KY for refreshments. 

April 11th was our branch fund raiser for girls camp. It was a chili feed and dessert auction. 

April 14th was transfer day. We went with this great group of departing missionaries to the temple.  

April 18th we spent the day with the Hiatts who were visiting.  We went to Fort Duffield with them and took this picture from Lovers Leap.  

 April 18th we attended Tony's baptism at our branch building. 

April 22nd we picked Bryce, Angelita, and Heidi up at the Louisville Airport just in time for the start of the Kentucky Derby Season. 

We had dinner at our apartment the evening they arrived.  We loved spending time with Heidi and her parents.  She is a cutie like all the rest of our grand kids.    

February in Review

Barbara at the office with her Valentine flowers.

Jason by a tractor at the farm machinery show.

Sunday, Feb 15, Sunday dinner at our house and Elder Ott's Birthday party.

Monday, February 16, was our 1st snow storm of the Season. It snowed 8 inches. Luckily It was President's day (and no mail is delivered) so we didn't need to go to the office.

Sat. Feb 21, Shawnee branch temple trip- to take Sister Marcum to get her endowments. Left to right-The new Relief society president. The Russell's - (they were replaced as branch Pres and wife on Feb. 15th) and Sister Brown who got her endowments a few months ago.  We will try to get a pic of our new branch Pres. President Partridge. He was at the temple, but had to leave in a hurry for training. Afterward we all went to Olive Garden to eat.

Sunday, March 1- Dinner at the Moulton's again. The Elders are always this excited to see food! Two of our elders went home yesterday and will not be replaced. We will be left with only 1 set of missionaries in our branch.

Monday, March 2, lunch at the office with the 3 assistants. One was getting ready to end his mission and then there will just be two.

Tuesday March 3, Transfer day and the group of 26 that we took to the temple before they departed the mission. We got to go to the mission home to dinner on Monday the 2nd to meet the 10 new missionaries coming in and then again after the temple on Tues. to say goodbye to 26 of our favorites. These Hermanas were the 1st sisters we met and greeted when they joined us in Oct. 2013- and now they are already going home. We love these missionaries and will miss them.  This has been a landmark transfer, losing 16 more missionaries than we had come in!

We are closing many apartments, closing many areas and redoing our zones. At the transfer we brought in lots of cars to exchange for ones with higher miles and then to sell. The Roderick's will stay until the end of the month to go clean out the apartments and bring back extra furniture and items. The new office couple, The Bailey's, will arrive on March 31st to take over. They are from Manti, Utah.

January Update

Sunday January 18th we had dinner at the Roderick's.  This was our last dinner together prior to transfers.  One Elder went to Shelbyville and one was released and went home.  

Tuesday the 20th we went with the Elders and Sisters to the temple prior to their departure on Wednesday.  

Sunday, January 25th, was dinner at our house with our two new Elders.  

Monday, the 26th, we had lunch at the office and celebrated Elder Rasmussen's 21st birthday.  President Brough joined us for lunch.  

Thursday, January 29th, were district meetings near the office.  The Sisters were celebrating two birthdays.

Saturday, January 31st, Dillion and Brianna were baptized at the Shawnee Branch.  

The next picture is Amber, their friend who introduced them to the gospel. 

The Elders at our social after the baptism.  

We continue to keep busy.  The mission has dropped from 250 young missionaries to 226 and will drop further in March.  We are busy closing apartments.  The President decides which ones to close.  Elder Moulton works on getting out of the leases.  The Rodericks clean and bring back the furniture.  We are all working on what to do with the items being returned to the mission.   We are having a mild winter and are seeing some bulbs already popping up through the leaves. We see no promise of getting a new Senior couple when the Rodericks leave in March, so we are getting a little nervous about that! We love you all.   

A Busy December

December started with mission transfers,  Here Sister Moulton is posing with some of the great sister missionaries in our mission.

                                   

We had a very busy preparation day on Saturday, December 20th.  Us and the Rodericks (the other senior couple from our branch) got up at 6:00 am and left at 7:30 to pick young people up to go to Crestwood to the temple to do baptisms for the dead. We were excited to pick up a girl who just turned 12 so she could go to the temple for the first time. When we got to her home, her mom came out and said that she couldn’t go because she couldn’t find her temple recommend. We picked up two more girls and got to the temple about 8:30. One of those girls realized that she had left her recommend home on the table. They called our branch president who was visiting his family in Oregon, so it was 5:30 am for him.  He was happy to verify her recommend. We are always so excited for these young people to go to the temple and set their sights on being married there. Elder Moulton was able to do the baptizing.

We finished up about 11:00 and headed off to Costco in Crestwood. Because the branch President and his wife are out of town, we two couples are in charge of the branch Christmas party tonight. So we bought all the food for it at Costco: Ham, potatoes, beans, salad, rolls and cakes. We dropped the girls off at home and went to our apartments to prepare the food. At 3:00, we gathered everything up and headed to the church. We picked up one mother and her daughter to help us. We warmed all the food there and the men left about 5:00 to go and pick up everyone for the party.  The party started at 6:00. It was in our chapel/cultural hall. It was well attended with some tables even in the hall and YM/YW classroom. We served the food in Relief Society room and ate a bite in there as we served the desserts.   This is a picture of the branch members enjoying the meal in the chapel/cultural hall.

After the dinner Elder Moulton and Elder Roderick took everyone home while Sister Roderick and Sister Moulton cleaned up and did dishes.  Then we went home and fell into bed exhausted! 

On Monday the 22nd we helped with and attended the Mission Christmas party.  This is a picture of the missionaries enjoying their lunch.

On Christmas Eve we enjoyed a fun dinner with the missionaries serving in our branch at the Santos' house.

On Christmas day we flew to Utah to attend the funeral of Elder Moulton's mother. She lived a great life of 94 years and we will miss her.  Her funeral was like a family reunion.  Here we are posing with Elder Moulton's siblings and their spouses. 

It was wonderful to see 6 of our children again and their families.  This picture was taken at the funeral lunch in Heber City, Utah.