Guayllabamba

Yep... the title of this post is spelled correctly 😉😎 That is where Elder Simms is now. He and his companion are "finding" missionaries. Looking for people for the other elders to teach. Here is something from his latest email.

"As finder missionaries we have to help the areas that struggle with finding people. Of course that means the tiny, rural town of Guayllabamba.  So this week we were there. Because there's not that much we have to knock doors all day. It's such a hard and funny experience at the same time. For example, we saw a neighborhood on the map that looked like it had quite a few houses. It was an hour walk there, but we had a lot of time. So we walk there, but when we get to it, it's a gated community with security guards! So we couldn't go in and we had to walk the hour back as well. The lord provided miracles though. We found a less-active member in the street while we were contacting. So we visit her and her 3 sons aren't baptized! They all expressed interest and we were able to pass them to the Elders in Guayllabamba! We have definitely seen the hand of the lord this week."

We are so proud of him and his willingness to serve. We pray for him each day. We love getting his weekly email updates.

Mission Accomplished

 Early in the year, we set a goal to be able to put the car in the garage by July 4. After I saw the trash in our yard and on our car from the New Years Eve fireworks, I decided I didn't want fireworks being shot at our car again 😏😠This was a multi-level goal. First to sort through the boxes of family history stuff and take the important parts in the house to be scanned. Second to get a storage shed in the back yard for items that couldn't stay in the garage. Third, move those items out of the garage. Fourth, have Jaden paint the walls and epoxy the floor. We made our goal! I posted pics of the storage shed in March... but I will post one of those again here and then the progress on the garage. (I didn't actually get a photo of it at it's worst, with all of the boxes stacked in the center.) But I did get one with some of the boxes moved toward one side after some larger items went to the shed. Our garage looks so much better and it's great to be able to get the car in there when we want. 

Father's Day 2023- Not Ron ;)

 Happy Father's Day to Mike, Alex, Sam, Micah, Daniel, John, Cris, Aaron (and his dad), and Todd. Our family and our extended family have been blessed by these good men and fathers. 

Fathers Day 2023- Ron

 I am going to do two posts for Father's Day... One just for Ron and a second one for everyone else. (I gathered up some pics from Ron's side of the family this year, for another post) We had Father's Day dinner at our house with Petes and Andersons. I made a strawberry rhubarb pie and a strawberry cheese pie. Ron received several gifts this year 😉😆Jaden made a giant snickerdoodle cookie and a cute box to put it in. The Petes also made several cute cards for him. I got him a "sun hat", a new belt, and a new yard hose. Andersons performed a song for him. The last picture, I just posted on Facebook... saying here is the man that I have been married to for 47 years and his new girlfriend." lol 😍😎

School is Done for this Year

 Here are some end-of-the-school year pics that I gathered up from Simms and Andersons. A couple of actual "ceremonies" to celebrate the last day of school. And Weston got his ball signed from his friends.