Dear fellow missionaries,
June ran away. July disappeared in the midst of family, boxes from storage, and church. We are finally breathing? in August.
It was so hard to leave the mission, as you all understand, but we did on June 30th crossing the border at 11:30 pm. I know, I know we were up too late. We were bringing back the wonderful red Buick and didn't want a hassle the next morning with the traffic of Canada Day. We were suppose to leave sooner but the Archibald's were held up at the border coming up.
The Sunday before we left our assistants (Elders Wagstaff and Meacham) and the Lamberts (office couple) had arranged (unknown to us) a farewell meeting with all the missionaries in Calgary at the Willow Park Chapel. There they presented us with a book with all the missionaries pictures and testimonies and a plaque with the names of all the converts while we were serving (1024). It was an amazing night and very emotional!!!! It reminded us of our first meeting with the missionaries - powerful!!!!!
Thanks to all for your attendance at our meeting. We have had several comments about the spirit you brought with you and the spiritual manifestations they felt as you all recited mission scriptures and sang our song. Thank you for the spirit you do have with you. Again powerful!!! Don't ever underestimate your power and influence. We miss our daily association with you. It was great to visit with many of you after at our home, but there were so many and so little time we didn't have time to really visit so please come by whenever.
Our phone is 801-225-8386; if you have Verizon you may call on our cell phone, 801-857-0573. Our address for any who have lost it: 163 N 300 E Orem, UT 84057. We love hearing from you.
President is back to work at BYU, he is no longer the registrar and is learning a new position therefore he won't be in a permanent office until the middle of September but is in the ASB. Call me at home and I can let you know where to find him.
The day after our talks in church. President was called to be Bishop of our home ward. I don't know if he will ever be called Gene!! We told the Stake President that we do have an extended family to look after (nearly 500 of you) and we would need to be there for your special occasions and he said that is the beauty of being the Bishop - you can delegate.
We also live in a ward with lots of 2 bedroom apartments so any of you who would like to serve under President again, give us a call and we can help find you an apartment. His counselors are another recently returned mission president and a 28 year old young man who just moved into the ward with his wife and 3 children (one set of 3yr old twins).
We are still unpacking boxes. The stuff from Canada didn't arrive until the end of July (it was suppose to arrive the 2nd of July). We have not been able to find the folder with wedding announcements so we apologize for any we missed in July. We have received August wedding announcements for Elder David Brown (August 15), Elder Joseph Post (August 18) and Elder Ben Davis (August 26).
