On to Canada

We stayed in South Bend, IN after leaving Tearsa’s and got to drive around Notre Dame campus.  Seeing different sport stadiums is always high on Rod’s list and this was no exception.  It is a beautiful campus, rich in history and tradition.
                                          
We drove all the way to Buffalo, NY the next day and crossed the border at Peace Bridge.  It took us a couple of hours to get across and get our Visa’s.  Everyone’s experience of getting Visas is a little bit different.  Our border person could not understand how we could be ministers without getting paid and without going to school to become one.  We finally told him we each attended four year of seminary and that seemed to appease him.
We stayed the night in Brampton in a Holiday Inn arranged by the mission office.  Since we had no phones we could use, we just drove to the mission office the next day and met the crew there.
                         
The out-going couples are the Caldwell’s from Lehi area and the Rees’s from Wayne County area.  Sister Caldwell was the mission secretary so she had three days to train me on that.  Elder and Sister Rees stayed for another week.  He was the fleet coordinator and she was the mission nurse.  They had about 10 days to teach us all they knew.  They are all wonderful people and we grew to love them in the short time we had to get to know them.  We wish we could have served with them longer.
              
We got here following a 3 day ice storm.  Every tree, limb and bush were covered in a thick layer of crystal ice.  The poor trees couldn’t take the weight and thousands of trees had branches that were broken off onto the ground.  We were able to stay the next night in our apartment at 6 Silver Maple Court, but we had to go to Wal Mart on Christmas Eve and buy bedding, dishes, pots, pans, etc. etc.  Then a main water pipe broke and we were without water for the next 4 days.  We ended up staying one night back at the motel so we could shower and wash our hair.  We were grateful we had electricity and were warm because thousands of people were without electricity for several days.  We live on the 10th floor and can look out our window and see the spire of the temple in the distance.  .

Peoria, IL

After slow, icy roads we made it to Peoria IL where Tearsa, Ben and kids are living.  We had hoped to spend Christmas with them, but the hurry-and-get-to-the-mission call from President Scott moved things up a bit, but Tearsa gave us a special early Christmas Eve with their family.  She made a wonderful dinner and then we watched the kids open up presents which were supposedly from Grandpa and GG.  We just enjoyed spending time with their family and loving the kids.  We stayed there for 2 days and then said goodbye and off to Canada.
          
                                            

Canada Toronto Mission

We started our newest adventure on December 9, 2013.  We entered the MTC for a week of Preach My Gospel Training with 23 other couples who will be serving around the world.  There were over 2,000 young missionaries at the MTC with a total of 83,000 missionaries in the field.  It is a great time to be serving.

Our District included Elder and Sister Malmrose from So. Jordan UT who will be serving in Nagoya Japan as MLS,  Elder and Sister Pyles from Lehi UT who will be serving in the Philippines as Public Relations and Elder and Sister Roberts from Weiser ID who will be serving in Colorado Springs as MLS.
                                         
We had wonderful young return-missionaries who taught and encouraged us as we did a lot of role-playing and teaching.  Elder Quintin L.Cook was the devotional speaker on Tuesday night.  What a treat to sit at the feet of an Apostle of God and be taught.
While at the MTC we received a call from our mission president, President Scott, asking if we could skip the medical training the next week and come to the mission sooner. He wants me to be the mission secretary as well as the mission nurse.  After talking with the Mission Medical people in Salt Lake, he decided that we would go to two days of training on Monday and Tuesday and then leave Wednesday.  We really had to speed up the preparing and packing to leave that soon.  We made it on the road about 3:00 p.m. Wednesday which turned out to be a blessing because Utah had a major snow storm hit Wednesday night.  We stayed in Cheyenne WY that night and in Des Moines IA the second night with dry roads and good weather all the way.  We are excited to be on our way again.