Our trip to Denver (Parker) Colorado

We had just ten days to finish packing for Paraguay before we had to leave Minnesota...first to Denver for two weeks and then on to California for Allison and Paul's wedding. We drove to Colorado so we could leave our Toyota Camry with Meredith while we are away.

We had a great time visiting in Parker, Colorado with Meredith and Zachary and visit friends and relatives there. We stayed with our grandkids, Mason and Peyton, for a week while Meredith and Zach went to Hawaii with his family. We went to the park, to the pool and had fun with the kids.

Meredith and her two friends ran a 10K race in Colorado Spring on the day after we arrived. I got to be their driver and biggest fan. It was amazing to see how well they all did. I was really proud of them!

The first weekend we were there we had dinner with Zachary's parents, Jeannie and Kevin Leak and his siblings. It was a houseful and we enjoyed the time together.

We also got to visit my cousin, Linda Hubert and her daughter Allison. They live just a short drive from Meredith and Zach. We had a wonderful dinner at their house before Allison went off on a pre-college vacation. She is now gone to Baylor University.

We had dinner with Nancy Venkatapathy and her daughter Sarita. They are friends from Minnesota. They are both great cooks and we had a great time. Sarita is also off to college this year. Fortunately, Nancy's nephew is living with them now so Nancy won't be entirely alone.

And we were also able to have dinner and family night with our friends, Kim and Calvin Williams and their children. Mason especially loved playing with their kids. Kim was a missionary in Minnesota when we first moved there. It was terrific to see her again and to see her beautiful family.

We packed alot into two weeks! We also send our suitcases , via UPA, packed with missionary attire on to Utah (thanks to our friends George and Michele Easter) so we wouldn't have to haul them from Denver to LA and from LA to Salt Lake City. We just took the clothes we needed for the wedding and missionary clothes to wear on the plane to the Missionary Training Center.

Surprise, Surprise!

There is a saying in Spanish that goes as follows: El hombre propone, y Dios dispone. It means that while men think they're in charge, it is really God that is in control. We were surprised, after months of working with the Family History Library on assignments as camera operaters in Spain, to receive our call to the Asuncion Paraguay Temple to work at the direction of the temple president for a period of 23 months.

Thankfully, along with the call came the sweet and quiet assurance that this call was inspired, and exactly right for us. We really love the temple, and know that we will love working with the simple, humble people of Paraguay. We trust that the Lord has a purpose for us to fulfill in Paraguay. We enter the MTC on September 8th. We are so excited and happy that we can hardly wait.

As you can see, the Asuncion Paraguay temple is a small temple (about 11,000 square feet), just like our temple in Minnesota where we have worked for several years. So everything will be somewhat familiar to us, except that everyone will be speaking Spanish, and in January it will get down to 66 degrees instead of minus 20 degrees. As I said, we are very happy.

No news is good news, right?

Well, it's been almost two weeks and we have not heard anything about our mission. Our friends, Vern and Ann Heiden, told us yesterday at church that it took a month for their mission call to arrive. Others told us more horror stories about their folks' call getting lost in the mail! Yikes...what will we do if the date of our going away party arrives and we dont' have a call yet? Que sera, sera! (sorry all you language purists, I don't know how to put accents in. )

We are joining the Blogging World!

Hello family and friends,

We are preparing to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Since we don't yet know where we will be sent or how we will communicate with you, we decided to set up a blog so you can see pictures of us and learn about our experiences. We don't want our grandchildren to forget us!!