May 12, 2015 Good, better, best

Happy belated Mother's Day!  It was great to hear from my children and my missionary children.  I received three special cards this year:  one from my mother-in-law, one from P1 and P2 and one from Elder Sousa.  I loved the fact that Elder Sousa drew one of him and his companion!

It is wonderful that, as a Senior Missionary, we are able to call our families and they can call us, throughout the year.  But the regular missionaries can only talk to family twice a year.  It is so important to them to be able to make those calls.  We were happy to be able to have Elder Sousa and Elder Higginbotham Skype from our home.  It was great to see Elder Sousa's family.  I can't express enough appreciation for the missionaries and their families.  They are making a difference in a world that might otherwise be lost.




This new assignment will be a test of my ability to discern good, better and best.  There are so many good things I can do, so many I need to do.  Setting priorities will be critical.

Last week was packed full.  We are making progress on things.  It is amazing the things that are needed in setting up a new apartment for a Senior Couple and in moving ourselves at the same time.  We even had to figure out what spices we could send them!

We have begun to get our own home in order.  Elder Sousa was here and said that it felt different.  I said, "I know, I am sorry" (because I knew how much he loved the Jessens.  He said "It feels like your apartment, only bigger."  And that was before he saw that we had our furniture from the apartment!

It is beginning to feel like home.  For a while, I really missed the apartment.  Life was so much simpler there.   This is much larger.

I do love having the Assistants here, though.  I wasn't sure how it would feel to share this house with them.  It is great.  They come home at night and we share experiences and then end our day with prayer.  What a wonderful blessing!

The Branch had a terrific activity on Saturday.  Almost a year ago, one of our Brazilian members married a raised-in-the-south man.  At their reception, I started talking to his family about having a cook-off with them doing Southern Barbecue and the Brazilians doing churrasco (Brazilian barbecue).  It took a long time to put it together, and a few miracles to pay for it, but it was a wonderful event.  Our judge wouldn't judge, so we declared it a lot of fun.

 I gave the Golden Tongs to the Southerners with an invitation to do it again.  It was just a wonderful event of fellowship and fun.  I think we had between 25 and 45 (we didn't count and are estimating) people who were not members of our church there.





 A little shout-out to Titan, who just had his tonsils out.  Love you, little man!