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.  

Another Transfer Done

We had transfers last week, so it was a very busy week. The first picture is the 3 assistants, the middle one is leaving on Wed. and the one in front will take his place. We are enjoying our Monday lunch thanks to Sister H.

 The next 2 pictures are from transfers- taken out of our mission office window. It is hard to believe we still had that much snow on the grass last week. We had a huge rainstorm on Monday afternoon, right after the new missionaries arrived. We enjoyed going to dinner at the mission home Monday evening and meeting them. They are always so tired because they had to get up at 2:00 am to get to the airport. We got 6 elders and 3 sisters.

Warmer weather started on Tuesday, (transfer day). We were able to go to the temple on Tuesday afternoon with the missionaries who will depart on Wed. We always leave at 2:30 for the temple and drive some of the missionaries there. We love to be there in the sealing room and hear from the Mission President and his wife and the Temple president and his wife. Then we go on a special temple session just for us. That night the Temple Pres and his wife joined us on the session.

That evening, after we dropped off the missionaries at the mission home, we drove through Louisville to go to a visiting teaching appointment. There was a lot of traffic and tons of people walking and we couldn't figure out where they were going. We finally passed the YUM center and they were all heading to a basketball game.  This is a drive by photo. We have never seen so many people in town before.  When we got to our appointment, the Sister didn't answer the door.  We were a little early, so we went to get something to eat and then went back. Still no answer. The disappointment of Missionary work!

 Saturday was a warm day, 60 degrees.  We called the Hiatt's to see if they wanted to go with us on a hike at Iroquois Park nearby. Everyone was out enjoying the good weather.

Behind one picture, you will see families and children at the playground and in the background of the other picture, there is a group of people playing with pugil sticks. There is a 3.2 mile loop that we walked around. It was great to get outside. 

Sunday, was a good and busy day. We picked up lots of people - had great meetings and fixed lunch at the church for the elders plus 3 extra people and then took them home. It even  snowed again that day . We have two new elders in the Branch. One of our elders is brand new from Colorado. Sunday evening we picked everyone up again and went over to the new member fireside. It is always fun to hear conversion stories from the investigators and new converts. Our missionaries are busy teaching and baptizing people. We just need to work on retention. Another fun thing about the fireside is that people come from all around the area and we get to see many of the missionaries who we worked with and were transferred from the Louisville area. 

The last picture is Monday morning at the office.  The dirty blob is all that is left of the snow. We are back to 30 degree days and more snow predicted tonight.

We are finished with letters, reports, mail and crowds that come with transfers. This week has been quiet in the office and we are getting in profiles of our new missionaries who will be arriving in June and August!  It's weird to think that this President and his wife will not even meet these missionaries. The new President also arrives at the end of June.

Sister Moulton
Kentucky Louisville Mission

Valentines Week

We had a fun Valentine's week.  We had missionaries coming into the office for district meeting on Wed and Zone meeting on Thursday so I made cookies for them. 

Wednesday evening we attended the marriage of a young couple in our branch. The branch President married them in his office. I made red velvet cupcakes for a little celebration afterwards. 

Thursday, the Hiatt's came into the office for Zone meeting and we saw that the women were all wearing red, so we decided to take a picture. We let the men pose in the picture with us.

Friday we also had treats in the office for Valentine's day. President and Sister Woodbury came into the office and the new assistant joined the other 2 to plan the Transfer for next week.  We have all been busy getting ready for transfers.

Friday night, we left work and stopped at Panera bread for dinner. Then at 7:00 we met the Sister Missionaries at a young couple's home to teach them a lesson. It was a nice visit. They have a 3 year old son. The lesson was on the Proclamation for the Family and the sister seemed surprised about why our church teaches the importance of people being married before having children. This is not something that is taught in our society today. We also had another rain and snow storm tonight.

Saturday Elder Moulton and I attended the National farm machinery show that was held at the Kentucky Exhibition Center in Louisville.  It was on for 4 days and they said 300,000 people attended. Saturday was definitely crowded but Elder Moulton did get to see some tractors that he liked. Some of the machinery was huge! There were lots of families and little kids climbing around and sitting on the tractors. We wish we would have had the grandchildren with us. They would have loved it.

After the tractor show we went over to the church to an Eagle Court of Honor. This was only the 2nd person to receive the Eagle rank in our branch. He is an amazing young man. His mom had a buffet of refreshments for us afterward. The Stake Young Men's President, Brother Bednar, was there with his young son. 

That evening we went with the Elders to visit a sister in the hospital who had had pneumonia plus an infection and had been in a medically induced coma for a few weeks. She was finally able to sit up and talk, so although we have taken the missionaries there often, it was the first time we met her and visited with her.

Sunday was our branch pot luck, so we were busy on Saturday night and Sunday morning making food for it. We had a good attendance at church. We helped that out by bringing two car loads of people. The stake Patriarch talked about Patriarchal blessings and we see the need to try to help find a way for people in the branch to receive theirs . It can help us know who we are and make a plan and set goals for our life. He also talked about the importance of family. The thing that is the hardest for us to comprehend here is that a lot of people have no family to support and help them in their lives.

We hope you all had a Happy Valentine's Day and know how much you are loved and missed.

February in Kentucky

I (Angela) have a trip planned to visit my parents in March.  I hope the snow is gone by then.  It appears that Kentucky has snowy winters.

A winter picture of my parents outside the mission office. 

Barbara and Sister Halvorsen shoveling the snow.  This picture must be a total set up.  I can't imagine them really shoveling the snow, especially when their husbands love to shovel it.

The tree outside my dad's office window ice covered with two robins.  Can you find them?  I always wonder what birds eat when the ground is covered by snow.  Any ideas?

Sunday dinner today with the missionaries.  Elder Clarke with the red hair goes home next week. 

 Elder Dahle and Elder Beecroft have birthdays this week so we had peach cobbler and ice cream with candles.   (I wonder what is going on with the missionary with the suspenders?)

Our mantel with the family photos.  Some are missing. (I think this is a hint for my siblings to send my parents a current photo :)

 Barbara sitting on her Valentines present (antique chairs) on our deck.  

Celebrating my birthday on the mission

Here are some new photos with explanations of them from my dad.

Here is Mom in front of the mission office on a snowy day which happens about once or twice each week.  We just had another 4 inches of snow overnight. 

In this picture  Elder Halvorsen and I are pushing the snow.  It was freezing cold that day.

Here is a picture of the used mission cars that we just sold.   They were loaded on a transport truck and will be taken to a car dealer in Mississippi. 

These are the missionaries from the Shawnee Branch.  They are being lead by Elder Beecroft from Washington doing their impersonation of a Seahawk in honor of the Seahawks being in the super bowl.

Here is Sister Moulton and Elder Hiatt and the Elders with the lunch spread for my birthday.  We had this after church at our apartment.  We ate roast beef and mashed potatoes.

Finally here I am with my birthday cake.  Mom made a delicious german chocolate cake for me, my favorite.