And should you think we forgot your other sweethearts. Here are you 2 wonderful little children. They are both delightful .

Happy Birthday Lynn

Happy Birthday to my baby.!!! Lynn you have always been a joy to me and your Dad. The smile on you face and your spontaneous personality. We are glad you came to our home .

Here you are with your Sweetheart.

I swear that every picture that we post has snow in it. We went out yesterday visited one family and turned around and came home. It was getting too slick. We have has some very interesting experiences. Some of them very depressing. So far we have had 2 people asked and give us a letter having their names removed from the church records. One man died and 2 of the letters we sent out came back so they are no longer in the area. by the time we finish there will be only a branch here. THe numbers will go down rather than up. jk

Sister Slade and the Sister Missionaries,
Sister Humphries, and Sister Mat
The Elders in our Ward: Elder Crouch and Elder Eames. the Lady in the blue shirt is 89, abeen less active all of her life but never denied that she was a member.


This house is a real red-neck house. and yard... I was praying that we were in the wrong place and these people were not members. Guess all prayers are not answered as I would wish.

Ok , We are back online today. So there is much to update. To Begin with on Sunday we were scheduled to talk, we got up to no "NO" water. We called the property manager and she said someone left the laundry door open and the pipes froze. Who knew we had a laundry, we certainly did not. We used a laundry mat last week. By the time we got home from church the water was back on. We had heated the water in the microwave to wash our hair, and faces. Good thing we had 2 gallons of water under the sink to work out with.
On Monday we arose to the fridge not working, so again the prop manager was called, then we realized that if he was coming he could fix the water pressure in the shower. We had water but it was more like a squirt gun fight, where you get wet but it takes awhile. Then I discovered that the disposal wouldn't even grind up an orange peel that I had put in there that morning. So Big Ed (tall but very Skinny) ( a typical Red Neck), came to work his magic. We got a new fridge, disposal and he made a lot of noise and banging in the bathroom, today we have what we are calling "soft" water in the shower. It is better than a squirt gun fight, now it is more like a very soft rain. We'll take it.
We made cinnamon rolls Monday also... to take to the district meeting today, so we could get to know the missionaries better. We have 2 sisters in our district. They are wonderful, one is from Los Angeles , and the other is from Utah, but is a professor at BYU I teaching Physics. Wow!!!!

We have been out meeting people. Driving about 100 miles per day. Finding few home, and approaching the doors with a little trepidation, because the people inside are labeled DNC. Overall, they have been very friendly and very pleasant. It will be nice to get past the preliminaries and down to the nitty gritty.

However we have been assigned a family that has more problems than you can to shake a stick at. The Dad is mentally handicapped, 3rd grade education, diabetes, going blind and did I say very handicapped. The child is autistic and has cerebral Palsy. 6 1/2 and very big for his age and strong.
they have an income of about 1200 a month, if they are lucky. and more bills coming in than money. The Dad has bought 2 cars so far gets tired of them and lets them go, then has to make the payoff payments anyway. His logic is very flawed. She is talking about having his declared incompetant , so she can control the $$$$$$$. The problem is she is a nurturer and wants to fix things, so if he asked shse would be weak and give inhe is almost as large as the Dad is.

Here are some pictures to show some of the area we have been in.
We went to Rochester yesterday to have our car looked out, the guy that worked on it (actually) looked at it told us it was clean , clean, clean. Was very reassuring

Here is our apt updated
we got some nice furniture from the mission and then
added some of our own touches. the dressers that are in the living room are really antique.
In nice shape.

The large orange(Rust ) living room
the always 70's - 80's kitchen (no dishwasher) but workable this is a view from the front door
front door and dining room . still working on furniture. table chairs etc

Street names--- we are going back to the one we saw that was Patricia... still looking for you all.

coming down the street

looking at the front of our apt , our door is to the side (L)

We had a very interesting day tuesday while getting to Indianapolis, Here are a few p ictures.


The semi pile up was about 30 minutes ahead of us. We know we were protected because we left 30 minutes later than planned. The people behind the accident we stuck on the road for the enitre day. There was no way to turn around.

F
This is what our day looked like today. We had to stay in North Platte, NE last night and then left about 7am today. It was a slow go , we probably saw 50 semi's and at least 50 cars off the side of the road . It was slow, and the snow was glaring. I think I may have burned my corneas as both of my eyes burn like crazy.



I have other pictures on my phone but have to figure out how to get it into by blog. We will be so tired by the time we get to Indianapolis we may never function again.

Driving up the canyon and on to Ft. Collins

Time with family before we left"""

We were in the MTC with some very neat people. This is a picture of our district. \
L-R Elder and Sister Johnson (South Dakota, Elder and Sister Slade(Indiania) , Elder and Sister Peterson(Alabama_) , Elder & Sister Nichols ( SLC South) .

We left the MTC on Friday. Spent the night with Mom and Dad. On Saturday Morning we left early to get to Ft. Collins, Colorado to have a little time with LeGrand's brother Brent and his wife Gay.
We had a nice visit with them, a delicious dinner and some time for a few games. I learned a new one called "Word Thief" and then we played Rummy kub. It was fun and a good visit.

We left today (Sunday) dressed to go to church on our way. It had snowed during the night , so our drive to Sterling, Colorado was slower than we had planned. Which made it so we missed church. Then it began to snow and the road began to be covered with snow. by the time we got to North Platte, NE. the roads were getting worse and the gas station said that the "covenant " trucking company was pulling all of their trucks off the road. So we got a room at the "La Quinta",
and moved in for night.

Soon after we got in we saw on the TV that there had been a 50 car pile up 50 miles down the road from where we are. Had we gone on we would have probably been involved.

So for now we rest and don't plan to get to the mission until tuesday.

• We left home on Friday and took the weekend to rest and recover. On Monday AM about 10:30 we went down to the MTC and checked in. We were not able to find the medical vaccination cards so we had to sign a waiver.
  
• Monday was a long day of discussion (mostly them discussing) preach my gospel. We were given some time to work on our preparation for a discussion we had to give.
  
• Tuesday we more of the same (sitting) *my tail bone is soooooo tired. We prepared some more to give our 1st discussion to a member that comes to the MTC and pretends to be investigators.
  
• So it is WEdnesday and we gave our discussion today in the AM., Now today we are planning to present another discussion tomorrow. I am really tired. Poor LeGrand spends most of the day being sure that I don't fall off my chair or sleep soundly enough that I slug or hit someone or yell out. My medicine makes me have crazy dreams. They were having a discussion and I was dreaming that someone said the closing prayer. Well , I was surprised when I jerked awake and no one was leaving.
  
• LeGrand has a hard knot on the back of his Right leg. He has vericoise veins and these are different than eever before. So we may have him checked out before we leave .
  
• We talked to the President and have now been assigned to Kokomo , Indiana. 45 miles north of Indianapolis.
  
• We found an apt . on line for 1 bedroom, $389. for a 1 year lease. If is is in a good area and we like it we will rent it. We will be able to keep t he cost down , even if we have to buy some 2nd hand furniture.
  
• We are seeing if we can leave on Friday to allow us a more restful less hurried trip to the mission home. It will take us 3 days to get to our goal, barring any weather.
  
• SEE YA:LL
  

We spent the last 2 weeks getting our home ready and our car fixed. LeGrand kept saying there was something wrong with the car , he thought it was the muffler. I was in the area of our car repair guy so I took it in and had them run a diagnostic on it. Not the muffler but a leak in the coolant. The next morning Wednesday , before we left, he took it in to see what needed done.
By the time they got thru it was going to cost more than the car was worth to repair. It was becoming a money pit.
So off to the car store to locate something we could drive and depend on. It was hard for both of us because we had been without a car payment for a year and we didn't want to pick up another.
But I choices were taken from us so to speak . We bought a 2006 Equinox, which we like. It is easier to get into and out of and has more room in it. It looks like the picture only the color is sandy gold.

We are renting our house to a young couple while we are gone. We trust them and hope they enjoy it as much as we do when we are home. However the morning we left, we had a hard time. The house was ours,,,yet we were turning it over to some one else. Such funny feelings we had. Our setting apart was nice. We drove away from the church after that.

We already miss our kids, but are anxious to get started. It has been a month of emotional ups and downs. see you all tomorrow