MARCH & APRIL 2017

We have had a whirlwind couple of months!  Lots going on and really, lots of interactions with APM friends!

We started March with the sealing of Caleb Leonhardt and his bride Elizabeth.  It was a beautiful day and so fun to meet his family!

Truly one of our favorite RM activities!!

We were able to meet up with Jason Hutchinson one evening for dinner.  Great to show an older RM where he ended up on the quilt that he never saw completed!

Great to spend time one on one!!

A few days later we were able to host a great RM dinner with some of our other RMs! L to R: Brad and Michelle Knabe,  behind them are Dahlin Lutz and girlfriend, Emily Walker Murry and Adam, Sarah Jenson Williams and Logan, Taylors, Amelia Johnson, Catie Swallow Paulsen and her little girl  Ava and hubby John, Brooke Zollinger Murphy and Mikey, Matt Hilton and Maddie.

Ava playing with our farm animal set!  She is ADORABLE!

President Taylor left a day early for our ITALY TRIP this month in order to cover the placing of the MORONI on the Italy temple!  Beautiful experience for him!

We were able to stay with our dear friends, Mike and Susan Pickerd in the Rome Mission Home!  We attended church with them and were surprised to greet about 10 of our former MTC missionaries, two of which we had just been in church with the previous Sunday in Provo!! What a blessing!

We enjoyed touring Rome, then Floerence, then Venice...

...then Milan where you can see we spend an interesting Sunday!
We started on the rook of the Duomo in our Sunday clothes for a walk!  It was incredible!

Then we took a couple trains and a bus to get to the MILAN MISSION HOME to meet the Allens.  We watched General Conference with them and their assistants, which we also had in our MTC branch when we first started in that branch!

Here we are after conference with 4 of the missionaries we had in our branch at Provo MTC currently serving in Italy Milan.

Then we spent about 5 days in the CInque Terre area of Italy for wonderful hiking each day and enjoying the sweet little city so peaceful when all the day tourists would leave at night!
We hiked about 13 miles a day and loved it!

We came home for a few days and then turned around and went back to Europe to FRANCE!
Scott got to cover the Open House for the new France Paris Temple.  It is stunning!









What made our trip the most meaningful was meeting up with former APM missionary CHristie Mejia!  We spent the day with her touring Paris including a boat tour of the Seine River and all the incredible sights along it!
We had a traditional AMAZING French dinner with her family and a wonderful evening just visiting!  Oh what a miracle to see one of our foreign missionaries again!




And of course, we spent time getting in some sights of our own including going up in the Eiffel Tower at night!

Back in Provo, we are in the season of weddings!

We were headed to Andy Marble's sealing when we heard s "Hey, President Taylor!"  We see Nick Egan and his wife Courtney also at the Payson temple.  We finally figured out that we were headed to the same sealing!  Andy married Courtney's cousin Rachel!



Beautiful couple coming out of the Payson Temple.

Us with Andy and Rachel.

Another reception the same day for Jessica Turner marrying Dillon Selee.  We also saw Emily and Adam Murry,  Corinne Coleman, Sarah and Logan Williams, Kadee and Caleb Arave.
SO FUN!


Our branch at the MTC this month!!

And another Sunday Dinner Group at the Taylors!  Girlfriend Ally with Kalen Gapinski, Joseph Cotton (his family was in WY), Us, Caleb Brown, Melissa Chord, Lance Cabral, Aryssa Hutchinson and fiance Ben, Camilla with Jake Goehring, Chris and Tiffany Stott, Jesica Scott, Tiffany and Kyle Bradfield with Camden.   WE LOVE YOU!  JOIN US BY SIGNING UP ON THE APM PAGE!

FEBRUARY 2017 APM

This was a sweet month for us seeing quite a few of you great RM's!  President Taylor had a last-minute assignment up at BYU-Idaho when they announced the new Pathway Worldwide and new BYU-I president.  He rushed up to the devotional and no one knew he was going to be there, but look who he ran into...                  Desirrae Barnett for one!

Shaun Hampton and his girlfriend...

Then Drew Parks and his girlfriend...

Then Roger Pollard...

And then  Ryan James afterwards!!

BYU-I is full of great APM returned missionaries.  He was so happy to see each of them!!

Early February we attended ROOTSTECH up in Salt Lake with our neighbors from Phoenix, the Janulis.

We always look for Brooke Zollinger Murphy when we go, since her hubby's business is in this arena...he has some really cool stuff going on!!

And she is SO CUTE with her baby belly!!

February Sunday Dinner Group: Rebecca Wooden, Landon Bangeter and girlfriend Kaitlyn, Conner Albrecht.  Back: Us with Shea Smith, girlfriend Makenna with Chad Alvey, Matt Bryson, Jihun Jeong, Crystal Turner and Shannon Magee and her boyfriend Daniel.  Super fun group!

This week we had a visit from one of our mission babies!  Arwyn is SO CUTE!!










Well, that is because her Mommy Nicole is so cute!  Nicole Okeson Elkins does a good job staying in touch.

Oh, and this little baby does sign language (her daddy served ASL) in learning Spanish thanks to Mom's mission and is potty trained at 10 months...asian style.  Ask Nicole for details...it's pretty amazing!

And...here's to SPRING!  We have HOPE in things that we cannot see, like those bulbs beneath the snow that bloom even when it seems unlikely.
We are so grateful for our faith in our Savior and in the Gospel that brings us all good things in our lives!
Thank you for who you are and who you continue to become!

PS...please go to the FB page and sign up for a Sunday dinner for the next 6 months!

DECEMBER 2016 /JANUARY 2017

December and January have flown by and we have had a few APM related interactions!

We met up with Conner Dickson at Blendtec getting  a couple blenders!!

December Dinner Group: Dani Robinson, Jenny Greenwood, Prescott Jackson, K'Loni and Scott Weston, Holy and Paul Wilson, Jordan & Sonya Hastings.

December was a busy month in hospitals for President Taylor...

...but he was a good boy and got lots of stickers!!

He has had to take it easy a bit for a while, but is doing really well now!  The first surgery uncovered an underlying problem that really needed attention immediately, so he went back in for a second surgery within the month!

For Christmas our daughter-in-law found this very cool pillow cover that fit exactly for our APM Family Room!

Elder Bednar's injunction to "STAY WEIRD" is not lost on us...we are as weird as ever!! And we hope you are too!!

Christmas Day found us in the MTC with our missionaries making their phone calls home.  This has been our tradition for the past 3 Christmases now!

We hope that your mission memories are close to the surface and that your mission is a part of who you have become.

In early January we  had a couple of RM wedding Open Houses or Receptions to participate in.  First was Nate Handy out in Eagle Mountain...so good to meet his wife Mariah and spend some time talking.

Next was Heather Belnap and her new husband Tanner.  We have enjoyed getting to know him at one of our APM dinners last fall.

HAPPY NEW YEAR from the Taylors!

We still love serving at the MTC with missionaries several times a week.  This group is going to Romania!  (Well, all but me!)

And here are our Sisters headed to Italy!  I love Sister Manning's family tie...with a pin for each family member that has served a mission...she is taking it to Italy to find a pin and add to the tie then send it home!




Our JANUARY DINNER GROUP:
Alex Whipple, Andy Marble and fiance Rachel, Calvin Madsen, Collin and Alyssa Christensen, Zach Jensen, Daniel Shurtleff, Natalie Dayton, Tyber Parsons and Tanner Gardner.

And when President Taylor gets up on campus for any work related things he is always keeping his eyes open for our RM's.  Today he was lucky enough to run into Shea Smith and that made his day!!


So...HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM THE TAYLORS!
Please message us to join in a dinner group sometime this year!  WE LOVE YOU!

November 2016 APM

NOVEMBER 2016 was a slow month in our APM lives, but an incredibly busy one in our MTC lives.

Lucky for us, we started off our month with a big APM group at the house for dinner!

We had Parley and Heather Scott, Joseph Barley, Melissa Chord and her friend, Arianne Holmes, Aubree and Tyman Weiler, Maria Garcia, fiance Tanner with Heather Belnap, Sarah Neary, Valu and Amanda Vallejo M. (I cannot spell it let alone pronounce it!!)
We loved visiting with all of these great RMs and their friends/family!  They are all involved in doing great things!!



Later this month we met up with our blender dealer, Conner Dickson to get some Christmas presents for family that have been very good this year!

Great to see him as always!









I spent most of November VERY BUSY with the Thanksgiving Program for missionaries in the MTC over Thanksgiving.
I was in charge of writing up the program, so you can imagine it turned into a SKIT which we then added in all the video clips and musical numbers and such to make a wonderful evening for the missionaries.

We involved many missionaries by taking their photos all over the MTC and then President Taylor put together a couple of great videos set to Nashville Tribute songs..."I Was Born" and "My Call To Serve"  They were AWESOME, just like our old transfer videos!


I was blessed to find just the right District of missionaries to serve as my actors for the program.
This District were learning Portuguese and going to Mozambique!

We spent a lot of time together practicing and it came together beautfully!

I know that Heavenly Father provided all the people we needed for this program!  We had just the group of Korean Sisters that could dance...just the incredible group of Polynesians to sing an upbeat song with ukelele...just the talented musicians we needed for all the musical numbers we had planned.

It was a very cool experience to be involved in something so much like being out in the mission field!  His hand is in the details of our very lives and He desires our happiness and JOY!
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!  Message me to join a dinner group and know we love you!