She'll be coming around the mountain when she comes

By Debi:

Okay everyone, this is our second to the last blog.  In just a few weeks we will be "coming around the mountain" and driving down Weber canyon into Weber County, and on into Hooper, Utah !!!!!!

We took Katie and kids on a mule wagon ride-glad we are not coming home on this!

We have had a great couple of weeks with the missionaries, the fourth of July,  a visit from Katie's family, and a visit from Wayne and Jan.  We are ending our mission with a bang.

Sam, Lizzie, Debi and Marley at the V.C.

We had a great 4th of July.  There was a concert in the Community of Christ (formerly RLDS) Auditorium the evening of the 4th.  It was co-sponsored by the LDS and Community of Christ Churches.  The George Dyer family came up from Branson and put on a great concert for the Independence community.

Inside the RLDS Auditorium

The auditorium is a huge, magnificent building that the Community of Christ uses for their conferences and they open it up for community uses also.  The Elders that are assigned to the Independence area were ushers for the concert.

We love these fantastic missionaries.  They are always teaching, serving, and showing Christ-like love to all those they meet.

These are the 3 Elders that we have mentioned in our last blog. They have the record of passing out the most Books of Mormon in a month.  They wanted a picture with Elder Haws.  They are showing the sign for 401. That is how many they passed out in one month.

Katie (our daughter) and Dan and their children have moved to Las Vegas.  They are relocating from Columbus, Ohio.  They stopped here for two nights on their way to Las Vegas.  We had a great visit and it was so fun to see them. We are so happy to have them in Las Vegas.  They will at least be close enough to Hooper to drive home for visits.  We are planning on spending a lot of time between St. George and Las Vegas.

Jan, Wayne, Sister Haws, Elder Haws

We have also had a great time with Wayne and Jan last weekend ( Greg's brother and wife from Hooper).
They flew in Thursday and we spent 5 days driving around to all of the Church sites and spending late nights visiting about anything and everything.

This is the mill stone from Haun's mill

During the day while we were at the office doing our missionary responsibilities Wayne and Jan went to several of the great museums here and seeing some of the sites around Kansas City on their own.

We also had a great time at a Royals game.  The Royals lost but the Detroit Tigers had a great game. We watched 16 runs come across the home plate for the Tigers.

Sister Haws and Jan are waiting for one of us to hitch up the horses

One of our best adventures was a tour of the Amish community at Jamesport.  We went with a tour guide and visited several homes, farms, and wonderful Amish Country stores.  We learned so much and appreciate these wonderful people.  We had a great lunch at an Amish Restaurant.

The Amish community is very industrious.  They do great wood work.  They make wonderful playground toys, wooden furniture and darling chicken coops. It almost made me want some chickens.

This is an Amish phone booth-they have a phone and voice mail-but in the yard

They don't want to bring the world into their homes.  They need to have telephones to run their businesses but they can't have it in their home so they have phone booths in their yards.  They go to the phone booth to make calls and send messages for their business.  We thought that was so interesting. I think if we could work harder at keeping the outside world out of our homes we would all be better off.

We have had a great couple of weeks.  We enjoyed so much our visitors.  Thanks for coming.

We are passing the baton as we speak!

Our replacement couple is here.  They are the Blacks.  They are from Panquitch, Utah. This is their second mission and they will serve for 18 months.  They are overwhelmed with all of their new responsibilities but I am confident that they will be great and ready to take the lead in a couple of weeks.
We appreciate them so much.

This part of our mission has been great.  We love that we have had really two missions.  We are trying to work hard and endure to the end.  We keep saying we aren't trunky but Greg has already started to load up some boxes!  Yep, I think we are a little trunky!



By Greg:

I feel like I have been here before.

41 years ago it was my birthday, August 20th.  I had two weeks left in the mission field. My mission president let me call home as a birthday present.  A local branch had a fish fry in my honor and so I got back to the office very late.  I was tired (but definitely not hungry) and so I called Debi.  It was the first time in almost two years that we had spoken. It was a bit of a tense phone call.  I tried to be casual, but I totally failed.  I told her that I was not coming right home.  I had agreed to accompany another missionary to Chicago as his traveling companion so that he could report to the ward he left from.  Then we would travel on to Utah where his family then lived.  I think my mother thought I should come right home as well.

When I was in Chicago for four days, I too wondered why I had not gone straight home. Then when I got home, I called her.  It was about 5:00 pm.  This was a great call, but very short.  I said, "Are you busy tonight?" "Can I come see you at 7:00?" Then I hung up and smacked myself.  Why didn't I go up right then?

Well, it all worked out and it is interesting that I arrived home on September 11, 1973. Exactly one year later, our first born son (and only son) was born on September 11, 1974.  So 9/11 has a happy meaning for us.

Debi and I are not coming right home from this mission either.  We are not doing what Columbus did, going east to go west (he went west to go east) but we are going to see Millie and family in West Virginia, then will arrive in Hooper about the second week of August.

Thank goodness Debi is coming with me so I don't have to go see the Stake President before I can kiss her!

Our adopted stake, the Liberty Missouri Stake just created a new ward in the Liberty area.  They called it the Doniphan Ward.  Now, that is not as cool as our home ward, the Muskrat Springs Ward, but it is pretty cool.  Alexander Doniphan was a great man and a good friend to Joseph Smith and the Mormons.  Our friend, BYU emeritus professor, Susan Easton Black Durant, loves Alexander Doniphan.  She once told her classes if she had had another son, she would have named him Doniphan.  She said the next year, in church buildings all over Provo, little baby boys were blessed and named, Doniphan.

This is General Doniphan's grave marker in Liberty Missouri

Well, as some go, others come.  We have welcomed the Blacks.

We are excited that these two sisters from the YSA branch are both leaving for missions.  One is in the MTC right now.  They are going to Chile and the Philippines.

We are starting to kick it in  for the finish line.  I hope we make it!