Transfer Day

This was an exciting week. On Wednesday we got a call from the mission office saying they have found an apartment for us in South Jordan. We were excited. In the afternoon we were able to pass by the house owned by the Dishman family.

This is where we now live

 On Saturday we packed up all of our things and moved from the InTown Suites into our new apartment in South Jordan.

Our new bedroom

Our new kitchen - wow, an oven!

Our new office

Now back to the beginning of the week. We took another walk on Monday. This is cleaning day so we leave the room while a lady comes in to clean. We take a different section of the Jordan River Parkway each time we walk. We took our lunches and ate at a nice gazebo.

This is the section in Murray

Ducks along the river

Lunch site

 The Wheat family attended the Portuguese ward a few weeks ago. They are not actually in the ward, but we visited them anyway. Don't worry, we made sure they were gluten-free. She is from Brazil and he was a missionary in Brazil.

The Wheat family

Every so often we have a zone meeting. This week it lasted for about three hours (10:15 am - 1:15 pm). We were really hungry by the time we got something to eat in the afternoon. They are good meetings, however.

Setting up for zone meeting 

We also had our regular missionary coordination meeting on Tuesday evening and our MLS missionary training meeting on Thursday morning. The ward is planning a special Family Home Evening in a few weeks. A list of names were given for special invitations by ward missionaries. We were given three names. Two of them had moved. The ward members seem to know where they live (they can find the house), but have no clue to the address. We visited with one young man and gave the invitation.

While we were out hunting people down we talked to a Brazilian named Gus (Actually he was born in Germany, moved to Argentina, then moved to Brazil). We were talking about the experience working with Germans in Brazil so he brought out a book "Ipoméia" that recounted the history of the pioneers of the Church in Brazil. It was interesting reading (in Portuguese), especially since I had a chance to meet some of the pioneer families when I served as a missionary earlier.

The Blind family - German pioneers in Brazil (1966)

We had lessons with two investigator families this week. Laerte showed up at church one Sunday and wanted to learn more. We had a great 1st lesson with the elders at a member's home where he is currently living. We planned to meet him at Temple Square on Saturday evening for a 2nd lesson, but he didn't make it.

Laerte is on the right

We also had a 2nd lesson with Max and Tamiris on Sunday. The elders were sick so we gave the lesson ourselves. Val, the ward mission leader went with us. It was about 4:30 pm and we hadn't eaten since breakfast. Fortunately, they gave us some cheese and cake (for Diane) that kept us from fainting away.

We decided to go to the Jordan River Temple on Friday afternoon. It was crowded. We were pleasantly surprised to see Pres. & Sis Chambers there along with 19 missionaries who are returning home from their missions. We used to enjoy attending the temple in Toronto when the missionaries were leaving.

Well, the week has gone by and we have a new start in a new apartment. It is feeling more like home. As we left Midvale we decided to take a picture of an elk we found at the sport's store next to our motel.

The stuffed elk are inside the store