WE'RE HERE!

The night before we left was both fun and difficult. It was so hard to say goodbye to them all. Jonathan hosted a fun family dinner for all of us at Squatter's. We really missed Matthew and Trisha's family.

So here are all of our bags dropped in our cute little apartment. We were expecting much smaller than we have. Our home has two bedrooms, two full baths, a kitchen and a living/dining room. There is a warehouse filled with household items left by previous missionaries and they fill up the apartments with what is at hand. It is kind of a mish mash of things that don't match, but we have been working to solve that. Wait until you see the finished product.

The photo below is the view we have from our living room window, which goes out to a balcony. We love the view. We back up to a large convention center that is very beautiful (in front). We are a few blocks from a gorgeous park that is 3 miles long. It has trails, gazebos, an art museum , bridges,

and many other things. We are also near a horse racing track and a polo field. There is a huge open market once a month that just happened to be going on our first weekend.It had so many wonderful things to eat! Everywhere we turn, there is dulce de leche, CARAMEL! It is my favorite flavor in the world, and I think I have died and gone to heaven. And all the pastries are amazing. Linda Hoffman told me about them, but I really had no idea. There are at least 2 bakeries on each block. And in between each bakery there is an ice cream shop. It's good we have to walk a lot.

GOOD FRIENDS

 A few weeks ago we found out that Terry and Linda Hale were going to be in the MTC at the same time as we were. Terry and Dean were best friends as little boys and teenagers, living just 7 houses apart on 30th St. in Ogden. Linda and Terry live in Idaho Falls and we see them occasionally for reunions, but keep close on Facebook. A few years ago they served a mission in Salt Lake City at the Family History Center. They loved it so much, they decided to do it again. We have had such a wonderful time together in the MTC. We were put in different Districts, but spend most of the rest of our time together, including eating and evenings. Linda

and I have always known about many of their boyhood adventures, but we are really getting an earful now! They should have been in a lot of trouble for all the pranks they pulled, but they seldom got caught.
    It is a great blessing to spend time with them here and learn more about their life and their beautiful family.

MISSION TRAINING CENTER

It's hard to believe we are finally here in the MTC in Provo, UT. What a wonderful place! There are 130 Senior Missionaries here this week, many more than the average 60. We are going to all parts of the world and it is so fun to talk to all of the others and hear about their mission. Everyone is just as excited about their mission as we are. Last evening we had an awesome Devotional. President Russell M. Nelson came to speak to us. It was the first time he has given a talk since he was set apart as the President of the Council of  The Twelve. Dean and I were privileged to sing in the choir with 1100 young people. We sang "Be Still My Soul", which was chosen as a song of comfort for the new President with so many burdens on his shoulders. It was a thrill to sing to him. He gave us an inspired talk full of great advice for missionaries at this time. Several things he said spoke to me. He said, "The doctrine of Christ should be engraved on our hearts." He also said, "If you have only one convert on your mission, I would hope it would be yourself."
     We are eating like we will never see food again!!! Tonight, as we stood in line for our dinner, (chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes and gravy, and tomato basil soup), there were two young elders in front of us heading to Tokyo, Japan. They were in line for the second time to get a full plate again. They said they had heard that the helpings of food in Japan were not as big and they needed to store it up. Watching how much many of the young Elders eat often makes me lose my appetite. But today is my birthday and it was also ice cream day. They had huge pots of hot caramel and hot fudge and many other toppings. I was pretty sure it was for my birthday, so I had a little ice cream with my caramel, which is my favorite flavor of anything! They sang happy birthday to me everywhere I went today, (5 times), but it was pretty awesome when they did it in the cafeteria. We all eat together, all 2400 of us!
     Our lessons and classes are amazing and we have great teachers with giant testimonies. We love them. We have 16 Seniors in our district and already love them all. We role play all day. We thought it would be uncomfortable, but it's not. It strengthens our testimonies as we have so many opportunities to testify of the truthfulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I will never tire of hearing the testimony of my dear companion. He has already grown so much and it's wonderful to see. We are so happy here!

IT BEGAN IN DECEMBER

Around the middle of December 2014, Dean and I were both inspired to commit to go on a mission. For the last few years, we had planned on going, but only after we sold the house, bought another house, remodeled the new house, put in our garden railroad in the back yard, etc. etc. etc. We were both brought to the realizations that we needed to re-arrange our priorities and just GO. We decided that we would plan the mission and let everything else fall where it might. It would all work out. We told the Bishop we were ready to go. He told us that day that our entire countenances had changed and that we radiated the Spirit of The Lord. I don't know how we looked, but we felt really good and we knew we were making the right decision.

We requested a Spanish speaking mission outside the U. S.   We waited six and a half weeks for our call. Several week into the wait, we were contacted by the Communications Dept. at Church Headquarters and asked if we would be interested in serving in an area office, either Buenos Aires, Guatamala City, or Santo Domingo. We were excited to say yes, and we picked Buenos Aires. Elder Lassatter said they would ask for us and that it would have to be acceptable to Elders Holland and Bednar because they were over the Communications Dept. It happened to be around conference time, so they were very busy and it took awhile. But finally, we were called to the South America South Area to serve as International Digital Communications Specialists. WHAT? It sounded pretty fancy, but as we started to train, we found out that we would be dealing with social media, (kind of a funny calling for old people).

We learned that The Church has an awesome social media program. They are one of the easiest to search in the world. There are many Facebook and Twitter accounts. Most of the General Authorities have a Facebook page and many are on Twitter. Each country has a web page and the middle 8 pages of the Liahona are specific to each area. Most of the feeds for these sites comes from Salt Lake. The Brethren have realized that there is not a big country presence on these sites for all the countries outside the US. So they have asked to have a couple called to each area outside the US to help facilitate putting a better local look to these social websites. That's us. We will be the 2nd couple to go out, so we are pioneers. They told us that our Area President, President Walter Gonzales, is very on board with this new program.

So now we have our call and we are to report to the MTC in Provo on August 3, 2015 and fly to Buenos Aires on August 13, 2015. Suddenly everything fell into place. We found wonderful buyers for our home, taking possession on July 20th. We sold a lot of furniture, sent a lot of things to Deseret Industries, took many trips to the dump, and it all worked out. We put our car and truck up for sale on KSL.com and after a few weeks, when we started to worry a little, we got a call from Larry H. Miller Dealership in Bountiful. They wanted to see our vehicles. We took them in and they offered us what we had been asking for them. They gave us our license plates and a big check and we were without a ride! I called my brother, Brian, and he came and picked us up and generously gave us the use of his truck until we leave.

We had 2 1/2 weeks between moving and going to the MTC. We were approached by our ward members down the street, the Hafen's about "house sitting" for them. They were taking their entire family of 9 to China for 3 weeks, the very same weeks we were going to be homeless. What a blessing! We have been in their home for a week and a half now and we are so comfortable and rested from our move. We take care of their cat, Maow, 2 rabbits, 1 guinea pig, a goldfish, a beta fish, two large aquariums and various plants. They, in turn, have provided us a beautiful home with a pool we can use and a beautiful setting in which to prepare our farewell talks and study for our big adventure.

We have been blessed in so many ways. It has all worked out so well! All we had to do was make our mission the first priority and The Lord took care of the rest. We have sold everything or stored it in a warehouse. We don't have any debt or any obligations. The hardest part, so far, was saying goodbye to our dear doggie, Humphrey. He has been adopted by a very loving family who have another Shi Tsu the same age and coloring as Humphrey. They loved each other right away, and he seems very happy with his new family. It almost broke our hearts. We still need to say goodbye to our family, our kids and beloved grandchildren. That will be hard. But we have been promised that if we serve a mission, our families will be blessed. We are counting on it.

Tomorrow we are speaking in Church and then only 1 week to go. We are so excited and ready!