17 November 2014

Dear Family,

    Today is room check. I didn't know that apartments had room checks, but this complex does. We were to have things picked up, floors vacuumed, counters cleaned, garbage out.

Anyway mom had it all done.

    Glad to get your letters and emails. We just took a bunch of letters to the Post Office and sent them off. Mom sent some Thanksgiving Day Cards and I worked on a General Conference quiz for the kids. The first ones I made didn't have letters to match and you had to draw a line. I took the quiz myself and it was so messy I could not tell where the lines were going. Mom had already put the quizzes in with the cards and sealed them, so I made new quizzes with blank lines and alphabet letters. And I made them for all the older kids. Hope they have fun filling them out. There is a reward.

    We just got back from delivering birthday cookies. Mom is reheating the meatloaf and baked potatoes from yesterdays dinner. Mom went to choir practice while I fixed supper. She made me follow a recipe, because she knows how I fix meatloaf, I still crumbled up an apple muffin into the meatloaf, she says she can taste it. I can't, mainly because I smother my meatloaf with catsup. I only do catsup on meatloaf, taco's and hambugers.

    The branch had a baptism yesterday. A young teenage couple with twins were baptized. They had been bringing their neighbor to church because she didn't have a car. Their neighbor was baptized two weeks ago and now they are.

Mom here.  After I had knocked myself out to get this apartment very clean all she did was briefly look around and never checked the garbage disposal, or the hot water tank which she had made such a big deal about.  I guess she decided that those were items that she didn't need to check.

     Finally found a lady who has been cutting hair for 30 years.  After cutting my bangs and trimming my hair the way that Julie does I decided this is the lady for me.  Dad will still go to Lois but I will stay home so that she doesn't think that she is cutting my hair also.  We are not here to hurt peoples feelings.

     It has been cold here, with a cold wind that feels like it is coming off of an ice pack.  We had a little bit of snow not enough to close school .  I don't think that we will have a lot of snow but I do think that we will have a lot of cold temperatures.  We are suppose to have rain so it is going to have to get warmer then 31-36 degrees.  Last year at this time it was warm and lots of sun.  At least it wasn't an ice storm last night.

     We will be taking the Elders this time to Specialized Training in Searcy.  They asked Sunday after church, the Sisters waited to long to ask.  I knew that we would be taking some one I just wasn't sure which one  would ask first. 

     We are having a problem with the computer so I am getting  off while the getting off is good.

     We love you and hope that the Thanksgiving holidays will be fun. 

                                         Love Dad and Mom / Papa and Grammy  

27 October 2014

Dear Family,

    Wow, 14 seems quite big print. But 10 was way to small. It has been a busy week for us. Our Hawaiian Sister was leaving our area on Wednesday so we spent a lot of Tuesday taking her around saying goodbye to all her friends here. (The sisters were without a car this week) Sister Kalahiki was well liked, she taught grammy how to hula. Since all missionaries have bikes, and we were the ones to drive the sisters to Little Rock for transfers. We tried to buy a bike rack to fit our car, so we could take her bike. Bike racks come in three main types. One fastens to the luggage rack on top of your car (which we don't have). One fits into the bumper stinger on the back of your car (which we don't have). The other type fastens to your trunk with straps you tighten. They fit almost all cars, the only exception is cars that have raised spoilers on the trunk. Guess what? We have a raised spoiler. So Tuesday evening we went to the sisters and practiced getting all of Sister Kalahiki stuff in our car. Luckily by taking off both her wheels and putting them and the bike in the trunk with all her luggage, every thing fit. Wednesday morning we got up at 5:30, got ready and left at 6:30. Good thing we have a good GPS, the only time we had been to the mission office in North Little Rock was last year the day we entered the mission. The Mission Office is out of a Stake Chapel building. Over half the mission was there, because there are only two transfer sites in the mission. One in North Little Rock, the other in Memphis, Tennessee. Memphis is a lot closer for us but we are in the Little Rock Area and besides Sister Kalahiki was being transferred to that area. 11 new missionaries came into our mission that day. The thing that was unusual was that only one missionary was from Utah, and he was from St George. We got a brand new missionary assigned to Paragould, she is Sister Taylor from Ames, Iowa. We like her, but she doesn't hula. With a 3 hour drive down, 2 hours in meetings, and 3 hours back, I was pooped. I feel asleep when we got back and didn't wake up until it was time for meetings at the branch chapel at 7:00.

    Met a lady this week that lived in Alaska, she said when she gets her new Arkansas license plates I can have her Alaska ones. Hope that happens. We are visiting our local artist, I gave him some of my pictures. he is attempting to  paint Indain Head for me.

    As the missionaries in our mission we are all reading in the Book of Mormon at the same time. They started the end of September and read 9 pages a day, we will be done by the end of November. Kind of a neat thing to be at the same place altogether. I am still trying to finish from when I started at the beginning of summer. I start the Book of Moroni today, so I am almost finished with my own reading.

  Mom here. I have been writing to the Grandchildren that has written to us so anything that has been left out in this letter will be in theirs. 

     We have been called to be teachers to the adults this time around.  Dad is like a team teacher in the Gospel Doctrine class I hope it will be better then the last go around since they are again teaching from the Old Testament I am the 4th Sunday teacher in Relief Society.  Since we only have about 5 months left I will only teach 5 lessons.  It will be a big change for me since Primary seems to be where I have been for a while.  It will be a change for Dad also there is a lot of difference from 12 year olds to adults.

     We craved our pumpkin today with the help from our Sisters.  We could have done it ourselves but they wanted to help so they basically craved the pumpkin.  Dad cleaned it out and they craved.  I am pretty sure that craving pumpkins was not something that they had even thought about.  We used what the Laurel class had sent us.  That was such a surprise especially since no one from the Ward really even writes us or keeps in contact except for Brother Lewman our new home teacher.

     I feel tired all the time, I am really hoping that the change from daylight to regular time will help me not be so tired.  I think that part of my problem is that this apartment faces the parking lot and a busy road.  Late at night someone is outside honking their horn.

     I need to get my bed made and fold up some clothes.  Take care all Have a Happy Halloween going trick or treating.

                                  Love Mom and Dad or Grammy and Papa  

    

6 October 2014

Dear Family,

      I think that Dad has forgotten how to send one letter to everyone we may have to have everyone send us their e-mail addresses again.

   Thank you Annie and Evan for sending us e-mail letters already.  This will be your first letter from the mission field.  The Sisters are helping us fit in and getting us up to speed.  Dad invited both sets over for FHE but the Sisters had an appointment so we will see if the Elders will actually come or not.  The Sisters came to help Dad send our letter to the Mission President, they just happened to be here while I was making cookies, they were very happy to sample the cookies.  They thought that the recipe was delicious and wanted a copy.

     We arrived here Wed. evening, so with the help of the Sisters we put our bed together and brought up only the carry on bags and then we had to do a little bit of shopping so that we would have something to eat in the morning.  We unpacked the car the next morning again with the Sisters help.  I'm not really sure but there seems to be little bit of unwillingness to work together as missionaries with the Elders 

    We watched General Conference at the church.  The Sat. sessions it was mostly just the missionaries except for the Priesthood session and they had 12 men there.  But whenever there is food involved then more people come.  I went to the Priesthood session with Dad since I am his companion.  Sunday morning there was 25 but again we had a potluck between sessions.  We had been invited to a 90th birthday party so we went and spent a little time at the party.  Annie, who has adopted me as her daughter invited us to her husband's party.  I don't think that John even cared he has just accepted the fact that she thinks of us as part of her family and so treats us as such.  We still made it to the Sunday afternoon session on time when again it was mostly just the missionaries.    Elder Robbins talk was so powerful and direct as were so many of the talks.  I must admit sometimes I had fallen asleep before I even knew it.  I am having a hard time trying to get this keyboard to do what I am telling it to do.

    This time change has me feeling sleepy much of the time.  I know that it is only an hour different but it is enough.  One thing that I have noticed is that, there is a lot of hugging going on here.  It is like we have been gone for years instead of 6 months.  Everyone asks if the farming was good, did we make enough money to be here.  They are REALLY excited that we are back.   The missionaries were getting tired of people asking them when the Hansen's were getting back when they didn't even know who the Hansen's were.  The Sisters came out when everyone was making the big push.  So they are a part of the 45 missionaries that are leaving in Dec and Jan.  apparently we are getting 25 to replace the 45 or more that is out here now. We will have missionaries that will be brand new to this area.  I am thinking that the amount of  missionaries here will be decreased by one set.

     We had to buy pieces to have certain things in the apartment.  At first we had the wrong bedframe so that the bed was not set up.  We had a computer desk of sorts but only one shelf and no office furniture like a book shelf.  No missionary pamphlets or Book of Mormons.  So we bought chairs end tables which are actually plastic dressers, a bookshelf and a printer table.  We will donate the kettles and the furniture to the mission.  Elder Bowling told us that until more missionaries go home he doesn't have much to choose from so just go out and buy what we need.

     Well we need to go to Walmart and buy some clear goody bags for the cookies.  I have some at home and I was going to pack them but didn't get it done because I didn't do it when I first thought of it.

Dad, here. We also forgot our temple clothes so we are going to have to have Angela send them to us. The old Relief Society president is getting sealed to her husband next month and we have been invited to attend. Branch Conference is coming up this month. Rumor is is that a new Branch President will be put in place. They really need one since the old Branch president has moved out of the Branch boundries, plus his wife is the new Stake Young Womens President, plus he has been the Branch President over six years. We will have to wait and see what happens. None of the current branch presidency are high priests, they are all elders. They were about the only ones in the branch that are married, with families. Not much to choose from. We have been very rewelcomed into the branch. Like mom says there are a lot of hugs, from the people we have known.  Love Mom and dad

November 10, 2014

Dear Family,

      Well Evan, we loved your funny letter.  I know that the whole incident was embarrassing but when you look back at it a few years from now you will laugh.  Does everyone remember Hannah swimming on the floor at your reception?

      The best news for this week is that Dad is feeling much much better.  He has a little cough usually in the morning but other then that he is back to be his old self.  After spending a week mainly stuck in the apartment it is good that we can get out and do our job.  Sat. Dad and two other Priesthood Brothers finished the skirting on a single ladies trailer house.  They finished what had been started a few months ago.  I stayed home cleaned the apartment and made bread and wrote letters to some of my very favorite people which is of course the family.  Brother Lewman our home teacher and Linda Walker my visiting teacher keeps in contact with us.  But Linda and Bruce will soon be leaving on their mission so that might be the end of getting letters from my visiting teacher.

     I am going have to stop and pick this up later this afternoon 

Dad here. It's now 3:00 PM. We are now suppose to go out and do missionary work. During the month of November our whole mission is on a special mission. The mission has been building up to this for months. The Mission has set the goal of 100 baptism, 100 confirmations, and 100 reactivations during the month of November. They have never had that many baptisms in a month before. Part of the working towards this goal, all of the missionaries are cutting their p-days short and will be out to work by 2:00 PM. Well we have be out all day already, volunteering at the seniors, meeting with a lady who was baptized in July, so we could meet her husband over lunch, taking birthday cookies to the new Branch Presidents Family. We just got back in. so I think we will do our laundry and clean the apartment and write our letters. Besides we have never kept the regular missionaries time schedule.

    By the way yesterday at sacrament meeting, a member of our branch, who is a member of the Stake Presidency, got up and released our branch presidency. I was shocked, not that they were released, but because it should have happened long before. The Branch President moved our of the Branch boundries earlier this summer. But he wasn't released. We had branch conference last week and he wasn't released. There has been a lot of oppurtunities to do it. It just never happened. Then Sunday without any warning, they released the Branch Presidency. The first counselor was made the new branch president, the 2nd counselor was made the 1st counselor, and brother Van Anturp was made the 2nd Couselor.(His job changes in the spring and his new job is in Little Rock and him and his wife were moving down there.) I guess it will all work out. Brother Jack Cook who was sealed to his wife last Saturday was made the Branch Executive Secretary. It was a very emotional time for me. I wasn't expecting it and then I am really going to miss President LaVetter. He has been the most missionary minded church leader I have ever worked with. Well, things will go on.  

    There is a young married couple that has been attending church this past month. They were neighbors to Amanda, who was baptized last week. Since she didn't have a car, so they would bring her to church on Sundays. They also are taking the lessons from the Sister Missionaries. They are young, like 18 years old, and they have the cutest little twin girls(about 6 months old.) Yesterday their auto insurance had lapsed and they needed a ride to church. The Sisters asked us if we could help out, so we ended up driving the husband and the twin girls to church, the wife rode with other members. And we took them back home after church.

    Thank all you guys for sending us letters and things, we so enjoy hearing from all of you. It makes our day to get a letter or e-mail or picture or note from you and the grandkids.  We enjoy the funny stories and the not so funny.

    Mom here.  In some ways it is harder to serve this time.  The last time we were all working together and helped each other.  This time the Elders and Sisters don't work together and don't seem to want to and they don't want our help.  So we just go and do our own things, it is a little awkward at times.  I finally asked Elder Wahl if he would remember to tell us about District meetings and other meetings.  Coming in the middle like we have, I think that it is easy to forget about us.  I spent a lot of time while Dad was sick making birthday cards for all the members in this Branch and I just right on making cookies.

     We need to close, Dad just brought up a retro lamp that member found for us.  We really don't need it but he was so excited that he had found one, so we will use it.

      All of you have a good Thanksgiving and we will also.   Love to you all

                                                                                   Dad&Mom, Papa&Grammy