April 21, 2024

What a fun week we have had! It has been exhausting but we have loved every minute of it! We started out the week having Tracey and her family over for dinner last Sunday. I can't believe I didn't get any pictures. We think having them drop in for Sunday dinner at our house was a first in over 20 years. Since they have not lived near us since they left for Dental school they have only been at our house for Sunday dinner because they have been visiting on vacation, never to just drop in for dinner and leave. We played a fun new game called Bank and it was nice to visit. We especially appreciate the girls coming because we know there are lots of things they would rather be doing then going to Grandma's house!

Monday is the missionaries "P" day and our District had such a fun activity I have to post about it. They all gathered together and made sushi!! I know, who would have thought to do that but this generation loves sushi. They had a variety of ingredients--Spam, Imitation Crab, cucumbers, cream cheese, vegetables, etc. No raw fish though! Everyone made their own the way they wanted and it looked like they were having a blast! They bought seaweed wraps and then used my bamboo place mats to roll them up evenly. This is one I need to remember the next time we have a family reunion. I think the grandkids would love it!!

We attended Zone Conferences this week and those are always spiritual, touching, fun, and exhausting!! Our theme this time was Faith in Jesus Christ and how our faith is strengthened through obedience to the commandments. Sister Phillips shared a powerful talk given by Elder Bednar called "The Blessed and Happy State". There was so much to learn in that talk I am going to be studying it for a long time to come.

Our faith is going to be put to the test soon because my brother-in-law Cary was just diagnosed with probable lung cancer. The doctors detected a mass when doing a routine chest xray and the subsequent catscan showed a pleural based mass with several enlarged lymph nodes. Cary was exposed to asbestos as a mechanic so that is a worry but we are trying not to get too far ahead of ourselves until the biopsy is done. It is so frustrating that it is not scheduled until May 8th. In the meantime we are sending love and prayers to Diana and Cary that they can find peace and comfort in trusting in the Lord.

Elder Rowan was super busy at zone conference with car inspections and trading out new cars for old ones. The Sr missionary couples each drove new cars to the zone conferences so that we could have them there to trade. Then Elder Rowan had to transfer over the OrbComm devices and keep straight who was getting what car. In the end we got it all done just in time to learn that we are getting (9) more new cars next week. With the weather getting nicer the missionaries are pulling out their bikes and between getting bikes to missionaries and the new cars Elder Rowan is about to lose his mind!

Each of the Office Missionaries plays a valuable role in keeping the mission running. Each of our jobs is important and necessary. President and Sister Phillips are nice to always tell us how much they appreciate us. At these zone conferences they had us stand up in front of the young missionaries and thanked us for our service and all that we do. Every day we feel loved and appreciated!

The Area Medical Advisors, Elder & Sister Germaine, joined us for these zone conferences. They work with the Mission Medical Advisors for 12 different missions. They are from Arizone and are serving for 18 months. They live in the Portland Mission area. They are fun and we enjoyed visiting with them at lunch, dinner, and our waterfall hike. We stopped at Sahalie & Koosah Falls on our way to Redmond. We have been to these falls before but it was fun to see them again. The falls were spectacular and it was a beautiful day!!

After Zone Conferences we were exhausted but several weeks earlier we had planned a road trip with the Sr Missionaries out to the coast so off we went. It turned out to be a great day visiting and seeing so many of our favorite sites. Our main objective was to vist the new MLS couple in Rockaway, the Olsens. The Bready's had never been to their location but little did they know that we would kidnap them for a 12 hour day. We started out at the Tillamook Forest Center learning about the fires and how the forest was rebuilt. It is truly an inspiring story.

Then we headed to Munson Falls which is a 1/4 mile hike in a beautiful forest just a few miles south of Tillamook.

No trip to the coast would be complete without a stop at Tillamook for some ice cream. We then headed to the Olsen's to visit and picked them up to continue on our way up the coast with us. We were hoping to walk the Big Tree Trail in Rockaway but we ran out of time and will have to do that another time. We stopped for a walk on Hug Point Beach and then headed to Mo's for a yummy dinner with a gorgeous view of Haystack Rock.

We finished the day off with a stop at Ecola State Park which has one of my favorite views. It was a beautiful way to watch the sun set!!