August 20, 2023

What a week we have had! I don't even know where to start but I guess I will start at the beginning. Our week started out fun with a visit from Ryan and his family. They drove in Sunday night to stay with Tracey and her family for two days. We drove up to Traceys to be with them when they arrived. It was so good to see them after 5 months. To top things off Tracey was also enjoying a visit from her childhood friend Melody so that just added to the fun. We enjoyed a yummy dinner and visiting and then were visited by their friendly neighborhood bear! They have a small black bear that likes to visit their yard to eat the deer food so that was pretty exciting for everyone visiting. Welcome to the Pacific Northwest!

The next day we were able to take an extra day off from the office to hang out with everyone. We went and visited Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. It was a fun day and interesting to learn all about when the volcano errupted in 1980. It was amazing to us how much regrowth has occurred in the 43 years since it happened.

Ryan's family then took off to spend a few days out at the coast. They had a great time! Back at the office we were dealing with a few personal emergencies. A beloved family member was having a difficult time and it was hard to be so far away. We prayed for this person and asked for inspiration to know what to do. Heavenly Father answered our prayers and sent some angels to help this person when we couldn't. It was a sweet reminder that our Heavenly Father is mindful of all of us and that he often sends others to be there for us. How grateful we are for beloved friends who answered the call when we asked for help!

We were just barely getting past one emergency when another occurred. We received a notification from Sandy City that we had a possible water leak. Apparently at our home in Sandy we had been using 10 gal of water continuously every hour for the last 5 days. How grateful we are for modern technology that allowed Sandy City to detect this and then notify us. We quickly had people at the house go walk the yard to look for a possible leak. Nothing! They searched the inside of the house for a leak and again nothing! It was then that we remembered how many homes in our neighborhood had water main breaks in their front yards. But how do you figure out if that is the problem? We had no idea. So we started calling neighbors who had a water main break between the street and the house. Brian & Cheryl Stone told us their experience and offered to share the name of who did their repair. Kent England told us about turning off the water to the sprinklers and the house and then seeing if the water meter was still running. That sounded like a great idea but we weren't there and couldn't do that ourselves. Kent came to our rescue and agreed to go over and check that out for us. Sure enough that was the problem! We gave Brian & Cheryl's plumber a call, they came the next day, confirmed the diagnosis and scheduled a repair. It is not done yet but again how grateful we are to friends and neighbors who have come to our rescue. They are truly answers to our prayers!

Ryan and his family came back to stay in Newberg for another two days before heading home. It was great to just hang out with them, eating and playing games. We worked in a visit to the Evergreen Aviation Museum which is just 20 minutes from our apartment over in McMinnville. Who knew that it was a lifelong goal of Ryan's to see the Spruce Goose which just happens to be housed in that museum? We learned all sorts of interesting things about airplanes as well as the Spruce Goose. Do you know why they found beach balls inside the lining of the Spruce Goose when they took it apart and put it back together again? (If it broke apart on the test flight than the beach balls would keep the different parts of the plane afloat). How many flights did it make? (Only 2) How much did it cost to build? ($18 million).

We finished the week off with Ryan and his family with a short visit to Silver Falls. The water was not flowing as much as normal, probably because it is August. But the trees, the ferns, the walkways are all still beautiful so we enjoyed a nice little walk to the viewing area. We are so grateful that Ryan and his family made the trip up to visit us. We love them so much!!

It would be easy to get discouraged after a week like this one but instead we are just convinced that Satan is working hard on us. Last week we put in our official paperwork to ask to have our mission extended from 12 months to 18 months and on Monday the approval came through. Our new release date is September 6, 2024. Satan knows that we are doing good things and growing our testimonies and he doesn't want that so he is throwing challenges are way. Too bad for him! We've got this!!!