November Temple Trip

We did our temple trip before November Transfers the week before Thanksgiving. It was an amazingly beautiful day and fun to be at the temple with our Assistants, Elders Falconer and Henrie. Hard to believe that we have been here for 5 months now and hard to believe that it is truly November with weather like this!
We are looking forward to coming back in about three weeks for our Christmas Zone Conference and to see the temple Christmas lights!

Visit from Sister Overy's Family

We were so happy to have another family come visit us at the mission home over Thanksgiving. Sister Overy's sister Amy Oyler, Brother in law Lance and nephew Jerry, stopped to drop off a package for her and it was so fun to visit with them and to have a little one at the mission home for a while! Amy reminds me so much of Sister Overy! Same great smile. Amy served a mission before her marriage as well. We love our families that are so supportive of our missionaries! Thank you for taking the time to come meet us!

MEDICAL WONDER!

Recently our dear Sister Williams completed a HUGE project we had undertaken to update the Mission Medical Binder. We created a page to contain all the medical info on each missionary...insurance, allergies, immunizations, record of illnesses etc. all on one sheet instead of in several places in the office. It was a celebration when the book was completed and presented to Sister Taylor complete with a bow! THANK YOU SISTER WILLIAMS!

This information helps us daily as we try to meet the health needs of our missionaries.

Sedona Hike November 2011

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President and I finally made it up to the northernmost part of the mission for a zone activity! We met the Cottonwood zone up in Sedona to hike Bell Rock. You can see why it got its name when you see the shape. It was an absolutely beautiful November day!

We started at the trailhead and walked to the backside of the formation to start the hike.

Elders Martin, Pierson, Pres & Sis Taylor, Elders Malmberg, Jones, Geren, T. Johnson, Killian, Simcox, Beck, Hastings, Coakwell and Harline.

This was a "real hike" where we actually had to grab crevices and tree branches to haul ourselves up and slide down rocks to get back down!

Up on top of one of the high plateaus, Elders Martin, Johnson, President and Elder Simcox.

Sedona is infamous for spiritualism...vortexes and the such, so Elder Hastings was poking a little fun at some of these traditions.

Elders Malmberg, Hastings and Simcox up a steep rock side.

We were very high up at this point and the view was just amazing! You can see the nearby cliffs and rocks.

As we left Sedona, this is what we saw as we drove away...the most brilliant rainbow we had seen. It was a wonderful day with the Cottonwood Zone!

Fond Farewell to Elder Pope

CLICK ON THIS LINE FOR ALL PHOTOS AND A VIDEO OF POEM HONORING ELDER POPE BY HIS NEIGHBOR...SO CUTE!

We were invited to a "Community BBQ" honoring Elder Pope before he leaves the small community of Yarnell where he has served for over a year. When a community of non-lds people invite you to celebrate, you better believe you are honored to attend! They kept asking us if we were going to leave Elder Kelley there...they do not want to lose him either!

The event was hosted by Don & MaryAnn Sharp the who are landlords of the apartment complex the elders live in over in Yarnell. They throw a mean BBQ and are the NICEST people you would ever meet! Check out the link on top to see a poem recited by Celia,

one of their neighbors.

This was standard all around...we met wonderful people whose lives have been enriched by knowing the missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Our missionaries love and serve them, and it is evident in how they are loved in return.

In this whole group, other than missionaries, there is one recent convert and one investigator and a whole lot more potential members of Christ's Church! We had a wonderful time!

After the BBQ, we had a tour of the hosts home and loved their natural stone chairs out front...how cute are those!!

Then a tour of Elder Kelley and Popes apartment along with a trial of their cowboy hats, apron and lasso! We are grateful for the example these elders are in this area. The work will progress here because of the groundwork they have laid.

SISTERS WITH STYLE!!

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Finally...a day for us and our sisters! We have been looking forward to this for a month now...and planning and preparing for an entire day together! We spent the morning hearing from all the wives of the mission presidency, plus Sister Cherry from the Office and Sister Winchell, our temple missionary. It was a spiritual feast! Our theme was Sisters With STYLE: Spirit and Testimony, Yoked in Love and Empathy

After our morning session and testimonies from our three departing sisters, we went for a temporal feast...first of food, an amazing lunch...a fun "rap" by Sister Burton (see link) and celebration of Sister Alvarez birthday.

...and then a feast of knowledge with four mini classes. One about how to make

fresh salsa from Hermana Zayas.

How to accessorize with scarves.

How to make cute hair flowers.

and how to shop for clothes and wear amazing accessories with style! OK, so there were some OVER THE TOP things donated that we just had so much fun playing with!

You get a small idea of how much clothing there really was when you see Sister Morris here modeling a bag!

The stage was set for our own fashion show with the good, the bad and THE UGLY!

I will let you judge which side is which!

Lets just say that in reality, each sister went home with a bag of new, usable clothing and accessories...some really great things thanks to the generosity of members in the mission.

We wrapped up the day with a discussion on how to be linked in love and empathy...with some literal burdens of responsibility to bear alone...

or with a companion. And even more easily with the Lord to lift in the center!

We love being women with lives centered in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Sisters with Spirit and Testimony; Yoked in Love and Empathy!

Setting Up For Sisters!

A couple months ago, two sisters had the great idea to do a mission wide drive to update the wardrobes of our sister missionariess...the end result was an entire garage full of used clothing, shoes and accessories! Members were incredible! This also meant that it all had to be hauled to a stake center for our sister training...this is where the elders got involved......and our son Braden of course. Shall we say that the stage was set for some silliness with some of the clothing items that were on hand?
Elder Wood with Braden, hauling one of about 20 loads of clothing and accessories...

Elder Halligan with some purses and belts...

Elder Freeman with an entire wardrobe full of clothes...

Elder Giles with yet another basket of goods.

And Elder Condie with Braden and more puffy tops.

Yes, the elders are jealous of all the clothes that the sisters got...they keep asking me when we are going to collect ties for them :)

Good to see KEVIN Birch!

We had a wonderful visit from Kevin Birch, who went home earlier this summer. So strange to call him Kevin! But he looked great and we had a fun visit! He is working hard and still has the fire of missionary work.

He came down for a wedding and while he was here, was called by some former investigators who were getting baptized so he got to baptize one of them in a family of four! What a great reward. They did not know he was even in town!

Thank you Kevin for stopping to visit. You are remembered and loved in the great APM!

BUSY DEER VALLEY ZONE!

We spent the day going to baptisms today...President went to Buckeye/Goodyear in the morning for a family of four, and then we went as a family to two more baptisms in the Deer Valley Zone.

Above is Amy who has been taught for many months by several sets of our missionaries who were all so happy to be there for her big day...

...and then back to welcome Jason, who we all met a month ago when he was led to the evening stake conference meeting where President and I were speaking. He was invited to come back again the next morning, and he has been coming back ever since! We felt an immediate bond with Jason, not just as children of Heavenly Father, but as fellow Iowans!

We welcome our new sisters and brothers into Christ's Church! They have been prepared to receive the Gospel in their lives and are just amazing and beautiful people! It is an honor to know and love them! We look forward to growing with them in testimony as they continue to learn and progress.

MISSION TOUR WITH ELDER KEVIN R. DUNCAN

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We had the privilege this week of hosting Elder Kevin R. Duncan of the Seventy. We all learned the true meaning of a "Mission Tour." It is not a physical tour of the mission, but rather a chance for Elder Duncan to spiritually tour our missionaries. They came well prepared to learn and practice what they were learning with Elder Duncan.

Above, Elders Jones and Hastings help model what Elder Duncan is teaching.

Below, Elders Bartlett, Alvis, Allred and Turner practice a principle in teaching.

We had all day to learn with Elder Duncan and it was wonderful. The day went all too fast!

We held three days of conferences so that the entire mission could have a day with him.

Our days included wonderful lunches with the stakes that were hosting, singing the

Mission Fight Song...

Celebrating October and November birthdays...

And EATING of course! Wonderful meals by our hosting stakes!

We were fed both physically and spiritually these three days of Mission Tour. Elder Duncan is a very loving and humble man. We felt his great spirit each time we were together and have renewed desire to share the Doctrine of Christ with our brothers and sisters.

It was great to introduce Elder Duncan to our son Braden. Elder Duncan has a 17 year old daughter and 13 year old twin daughters, so he can relate to our wonderful situation of having a child on a mission with us...he has been there and done that in Chile.

We added Elder Duncan to our family of missionaries in the GREAT ARIZONA PHOENIX MISSION! We look forward to implementing the ideas he had for us in how to express the love we have for all children of God through sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ.