Happy New Year!!

For New Year's we traveled back to our home to attend the sealing of our daughter Cristine and son-in-law Steve in the Payson temple.  What a wonderful time to be together with family. The following day we were at the sealing of our grand niece Lucia to our niece Camille and her husband Dylan in the Layton temple. Two wonderful temple days! On Sunday our grandson Ben was ordained a Deacon. It was wonderful to celebrate the birthdays of our grandchildren Ben, Ruby and Hazel who all turned 12.  Each day was packed with activity and so we skipped the blog for that week.  It was good to be back home  with family who we love so very much.

But now it is good to be back in the mission field and we are as busy as ever!

Since our last blog we cleared out an apartment in Fairfield, opened a new apartment in Vacaville, moved two sets of Elders to new apartments here in Santa Rosa, moved four Elders from a townhome in San Rafael to an apartment in Larkspur, signed three apartment renewals and planned for the moves of several senior couples.  Over the next three weeks we have three senior couples completing their mission, one senior couple moving down to Santa Rosa and one new couple coming to the mission.  The rest of January and into early February is just as busy.  Each day is filled.  We are tired but loving it.  

The moves themselves are time consuming and labor intensive, but we always have plenty of help from the missionaries.  They are great!  The greater time associated with the moves is spent cleaning up the old apartments and dealing with all the items that have accumulated over time.  Items that have been abandoned by previous missionaries or just built-up clutter.  We literally fill our truck and go to the local dump.  The apartment in San Rafael will take two trips to the dump!  

Sister Adams and Sister Risser helping to clean an old apartment.  We found out 

that we know Sister Risser's relatives from Santa Clarita

Trash from an Elder's apartment

Moving out of a Fairfield apartment with the help of 

Elders Arrington, Largey and Christensen

Excess items to take back to the mission housing garage - most 

of these items will end up going to Deseret Industries

Bowling in the New Year with the family back in Utah and celebrating 

the birthdays of grandchildren Ben and Ruby

Out to dinner with the family on New Years

Our beautiful daughter Cristine in front of the 

Payson temple after her sealing

Grand Niece Lucia sealed to her parents in front of the Layton temple

One load to the dump out of the San Rafael townhome

The Santa Rosa moving crew in the elevator - Sister Williams, Elders Shields and Sudweeks 

and Sister Moon.  This new apartment is located on the 7th floor.

The 7th floor apartment crew. Back - Elders Shields, Sudweeks, Bracken and Parrish;

Middle - Sisters Moon, Weller, Cawley and Williams; Front - Sisters Pilling, Brimhall and Dyreng

Sisters Brimhall and Dyreng showing off some skills

Taking the 7th floor moving crew out to lunch at Chick-fil-A