NOVEMBER VISITORS/PRESIDENT TAYLORS TRAINER!! 11/ 2013

 We have had a few visitors this far in November starting with the Doolhoff family!
We met them down in the West Maricopa area and were delighted to meet Sister Bethany, Mom, Matthew and of course, BENJAMIN!
It is so fun to meet the family of our missionaries, to see why they are as amazing as they are!  We could tell that this was a special family...remember how happy Elder Doolhoff was???  Well, now we know why!  He was raised that way!
THANKS DOOLHOFFS!!! We love you!

 Next we had the Steinfeldt family stop in...they humored us with a late night visit since our schedule was so hectic this week.
There is nothing like coming home to someone you know and love and have not seen for a while.  And even though it had only been about 4 months, it seemed like forever!

We had Trenton find his quilt block on the temple quilt to prove he was here and we had the best visit with his family.

They were in the area to support a friend in the Ironman.  I remember being in touch with them last year when they were here as well!
It was great to visit and catch up with Trenton and to see how well he is doing.  We love him and can tell the joy he has brought to his family and that he will go on to do more of the same!






That same night we also had Dani Robinson come visit!  Oh it was so good to see her again and to hear how Kanab is doing:)
She has great plans for her future which involve other of our Sister RMs and we are SO EXCITED for them to be in school together and know they will have a blast!

The universal things with our returned missionaries is that they learned how to be happy from serving their missions.  They know that obeying the commandments and serving others is how to be happy.
We love that they PRACTICE WHAT THEY PREACH!




The week of Thanksgiving we had a bunch more visitors and we were just thrilled!

Let me tell you why these two made us even more emotional than usual...Colter Johnson and Kelvin Hernandez were two of our missionaries who finished their missions in the Tempe Mission, and so our goodbyes to them were not really complete.

We showed them how big the quilt has gotten since they were there last...both were Zone Leaders and had been in the Mission Home many times.
But if we do not get to have them spend the night and have that departing experience with them, it is really hard.  So it made our night to hug them and see them in person again!  And we KNOW they were supposed to bless the other mission they finished up in because of who they are!

This week we had a surprise visit from Jacob Holmes and his Mom.  BEST SURPRISE EVER!  We were expecting another RM and opened the door to them!

How sweet to meet parents as well!  We love seeing a bit of why they are the great people that they are when we meet the families!

 That night we had a couple more guests.  Richard and Emma Mortensen stopped over so President could meet Emma.  I had met her when I was in Utah for Braden's graduation, so that was fun to see them both again.  They are doing GREAT!

And then after that, we were blessed to have the MARBLE family with Andy, his folks and his sister Olivia.
What a sweet family and here again, we knew why Andy is the incredible giant of a man in so many ways...and I mean humble when I say giant.

 Our last visit this month was from a missionary that President Taylor had not seen in OVER 30 YEARS!!
Obviously, this was a RM from his OWN MISSION!  We had looked forward to this for a long time!
The Crowthers came to visit when they were here for Thanksgiving with family.  Mack served with Scott in Houston as he was waiting for his visa to Venezuela and it was a blessing in both their lives!  The special thing was that as we began to get missionaries to our mission from southern Colorado, we would hear about a Stake leader that knew President Taylor...and it was President Crowther!  So fun to make that connection and now to see them together after all these years.  I think Pres. Crowther trained Pres. Taylor pretty darn well!
We know the special place that a missionary holds in their heart for their trainer.  Thank you President Crowther for loving President Taylor as he began his mission all those years ago!

THANK YOU FOR THE VISITS!  We love you so much and it means the world to us to be a part of your lives!