IT'S SEPTEMBER AND FALL IS HERE IN FULL FORCE. WHERE HAS THE SUMMER GONE?

It can't be Fall already. I don't think we are ready for cold weather and shorter days.  This summer has been too delightful but one can't stop Mother Nature from moving on. September started with a blur and ended the same way with trips, visitors, and missionary work.

Prepared for the heat with a water spray fan

The first day of September, we left for a labor day weekend in St. George. Deon and Gary and Ed and Debbie met us there for a delightful weekend of family, temple, and 2 wonderful musicals at the Tuachan theater. The first night we saw the production of 'Newsies" which was incredible and the second night we saw 'Mama Mia' which never disappoints. On Saturday, we met Suzette, Dave's wife, at the temple for a session and then went out to lunch at Rumbi Island. Sunday, for church, we drove to Pine Valley to attend the little white church there. It is one of the longest used buildings in the church. It was packed as it was a holiday weekend. We were one of of the last ones to fit inside the main hall. Others had to sit downstairs or upstairs or outside to hear the testimonies. The sacrament took at least 30 minutes to pass to the whole congregation. They had to use 28 trays of bread and water and a dozen deacons, carrying two trays each, to successfully get the sacrament to everyone present. The meeting was very spiritual as was the Sunday School lesson for which we stayed after sacrament meeting. We then went back to the condo to cook dinner. We barbecued a tri tip and baked potatoes, cooked broccoli and made a strawberry spinach salad. It was delicious and we were glad Suzette could join us. The men watched a movie, the women talked and, then it was to bed. Everyone left the next morning.

It was very hot in the outdoor theater

At Rumbi Island for lunch after the temple

After church at the Pine Valley chapel

Oh! Such a hard day

Deon and Gary followed us to Heber so they could can peaches. We stopped at Allred's orchards in Provo on our way home to buy them. We spent the next couple of days canning peaches for both Deon and Gary and Mom and Dad. It brought back so many memories of when Dad and Mom would come to Provo with Deon and Gary and help peel peaches. It is too sad that they can't travel with us anymore. While Deon and Gary were here we decided to go to Park City to have Mod Pizza for a late dinner one night. On the way home, right on downtown Main Street in Heber, a deer ran out in front of our car. Paul was able to slow down enough to miss it but where's there one deer there is usually two. This was the case that night. A young fawn was following her mother and we hit it head on. Luckily, it didn't do any more damage than bend our license plate.

We also froze 9 bags of fruit cocktail and 12 bags of slush

What a relief -  No Damage after hitting a deer

Deon and Gary left on Friday morning and Don and Dana came to spend the weekend on Friday night. They had tickets to the BYU game and wanted to stay with us till Sunday afternoon. They also returned the next weekend as BYU was playing back to back home games. That's a lot of traveling to watch BYU lose both games. They are not a real good team this year. It's actually hard to watch them play but we continue to attend the games, too. 













Don and Dana left on Sunday afternoon and Tuesady morning Elder Bautista came to stay with us until Friday. He is an elder in our area who had to have surgery on his nose after being kicked in the face by a young calf. So that his companion didn't have to stay inside with him during his recovery time, we had him stay at our home while his companion paired up with the other set of elders who work in our area. He was a little out of it the first day but after that he was pretty much upstairs with us the whole time. He had planned on reading the Book of Mormon all the way through but, because of the surgery, his eye sight didn't allow him to read.  Instead he spent many hours solving all my mind game puzzles from when I taught school. He did amazingly well solving most of them. He is one smart and talented young man. It was fun to really get to know him. 

A very hard puzzle

He completed an almost impossible puzzle!

 

While he was staying with us, we invited the other elders in the area to hold their district meeting at our home so Elder Bautista could be in attendance. We offered to fix breakfast for them before the meeting. After breakfast of sourdough waffles with all the trimmings, they retired to the basement for their meeting. They sang an opening and closing song which made us feel like angels were in our home that day. It reminded us of the many district meetings held in our apartment in Moscow, Russia with the young elders and sisters. We loved it when they sang, too.

We took Elder Bautista to district meeting with us on Friday so he could finish his recovery time with the Gordon's, the senior couple serving in the Midway Stake. He couldn't stay at our home as we were flying that evening to California to attend the celebration for Wanda Richards, my brother Darrell's wife. She passed away at the beginning of the month from cancer of which she had been battling for a couple of years. There was a memorial service held in Arizona where she was buried earlier in the month. The celebration was held in Livermore, California where they lived and worked. It was a sweet tribute to a great lady. Sam brought Dad up from Bakersfield so he could speak at the celebration. He called Darrell up to the stand and had him kneel beside his wheelchair while he spoke about Wanda and to Darrell. It was an amazing talk - sweet, to the point, and very touching. We all listened in awe as he spoke. We are grateful that, at 100, Dad can still speak in front of a group as well as he used to. Don flew in from Washington and Deon and Gary drove up from down south. Dave had been there for a couple of days to help Darrell get everything set up. We were glad that we had made the effort to be in attendance.  It meant a lot to Darrell that we would come all that way for him. 

Such a good looking group 

We only stayed in Livermore 24 hours, flying home on Saturday evening. We wanted to give ourselves time to pack for a 4 day stay in Branson, Missouri. Yes, we flew out to Kansas City, MIssouri early Monday morning where we met Andrea and Casey and three of their daughters, Charlotte, Jillian, and Maggie. We rented our cars and then drove to Branson. Along the way, we stopped at Lambert's Cafe or the 'Home of the Throwed Roll.' We had to have the Westovers experience this place where they actually throw the rolls at you from halfway across the room. The food is very down home Southern style cooking complete with fried okra, black eyed peas and fried potatoes. It's a fun place to eat even if the food isn't our favorite.

Branson was incredible. We went to lots of shows, strolled along the river at Branson Landing, watched the dancing waters, and shopped. The Westover's even took in the Silver Dollar amusement park there and had a great time. 

Outside this magnificent theater where we saw 
the musical production of Moses

Our favorite all time show had to be the production of Moses. It was in a theater with stages four stories high that extended down both sides of the theater. The production was amazing, complete with live camels, horses and goats running across the stage and down the aisles. They even parted the Red Sea. The ending left us speechless as they brought in Christ as our Savior saying that even at Moses delivered his people from Egypt, Christ can deliver us from our sins. Only in Branson could you get away with making a statement like that in a public theater. 

Some random felt he needed to
Photo Bomb our picture

Inside the theater by the Moses statue

Every show we saw had a spiritual and patriotic side to it. We, especially, loved the Brett family production that combined, so beautifully, family, county and Christ. Their patriotic number was incredible, especially the poem about a veteran written and read by Sister Brett. Their ending was singing Amazing Grace while showing pictures of Christ and his ministry. Again....only in Branson. Andrea kept saying that her faith in the American people had been restored if these kinds of productions could be so well received by so many. (Oregon is very liberal so this was a great change for them).

Brother Brett (They are members of the church from Spokane, WA) called us 'Mormonaires'

Casey got called up
onstage for one of
the tricks

With Rick Thomas, the Illusionist

We went to an illusionists show where he magically made a motorcycle and helicopter appear. He was very good. 

The Dixie Stampede is an experience one has to have once while in Branson. It's a dinner which you eat with your fingers and a show featuring trick horseback riding and a competition between the North and South. The show hadn't changed much since we were there several year ago but still enjoyable, especially for first time goers. 

The show

Our forkless dinner of soup, a whole chicken,
corn on the cob, potato fingers and
an apple turnover

All too soon it was time to say good bye to Branson and the Westovers. They got up real early Friday morning to drive to Nauvoo to stay there for a couple of days. We left around 9 a.m. to drive back to Kansas City and fly home. With this mission call we felt that 4 days away was long enough.

The Dancing Water at Branson Landing

Our snacks for the week - yummy caramel M & M's

We had to take this picture of an old
man in white tennis shoes. So typical
of  Dad and most of the men we saw
in Branson. Obviously an old man thing.

At almost every show the veterans were 
asked to stand and be recognized.

As for the mission, we continue to have several teaching appointments during the week. We especially love teaching Brett Tandy and his son, Josh, in our home each Monday night. Brett had been disfellowshipped  a while ago and had been trying to work himself back since April. The Stake President asked him to meet with us each week and we have been so grateful for those meetings....so spiritual. On the Sunday before we left for Branson, we got a text from Brett telling us that he had taken the sacrament that day for the first time in a long time. He had attended a reinstatement hearing that morning and was, once again, a member in full fellowship. We both got tears in our eyes when we read his text as we knew how hard he had worked and how much this meant to him. We look forward to being in the temple with him soon.




We also continue to feed the missionaries every Tuesday for lunch. We think they love coming to our home and love the food we fix. This is a typical look after one of our lunches.




On the second Saturday of the month, the stake took part in an incredible service project in a trailer park in our stake. Several trailer homes were identified as being in need of paint, skirting, porches, stairs and railings. Over one hundred workmen (and women) from the stake descended on the trailer park with tools and painting equipment and went to work. It was quite an undertaking and the people in the development were so appreciative. At least 17 trailers were worked on. When we went back a few days later, we were amazed at the beautiful work that had been done. Many families were not even members of the church but were recipients of this service, at no cost to them. At least one promising investigator has resulted from that project.

The Stocks (Randy and Andy) were in
charge of a set of stairs for this family

Sandra Verbino helping the workers
at her trailer

One of the many trailers being painted 

One of our regular visit each week is with Sandra Verbino, a recent convert. She has been having her kitchen in her trailer remodeled for several weeks. This month the project was complete and she now has an oven which her former kitchen did not have. Since she can now bake, I agreed to show her how to make a pie. She and Misty came to our home, one Tuesday, and I showed her how to make a pie crust. We made a two crusted peach pie which she took home to bake and eat. She said it was delicious.

 

A couple of other happening this month included locking our keys in our truck while at the dump. We don't know exactly how this happened but both our sets of keys were inside the truck cab as we got out and closed the doors. One of us must have accidentally pushed the lock button as we got out. Not knowing exactly what to do, we asked one of the workers at the dump if they had some way of unlocking our door.  He didn't but he called the police dispatch and soon we had a nice police officer come and unlocked our door quite easily with his special kit. 

September always brings thoughts of the terrible attack in New York on the world trade center and in Washington DC on the Pentagon. On the anniversary of the day, 9-11, Heber flew an American flag across Main street in remembrance of the thousands who died and the brave first responders who risked their lives to help on that day. We were proud of our little Heber City.




September brings fall colors on the trees and this year they are beautiful. In our neighborhood, the Autumn Blaze trees are brilliant red. If you look closely at the mountains, you can see the colors like a patchwork quilt laid out on the mountain side. The canyon is amazing in its brilliant color displays too. 

But.....we have already had a snow storm. The Sunday before we left for Branson, we woke up to the largest snowflakes we have ever seen. They resulted in about 3 inches of snow. It was beautiful but way too early to have to worry about traveling in the snow covered canyons. We were so concerned about getting to the airport on time, early Monday morning, that we drove down to Todd and Kailee's for dinner Sunday afternoon and to spend the night. It is much easier to get to the airport from their home in Lehi than from Heber City in the snow. 

AND THEN THERE'S ARIA.......

Her cousins are big into SLIME which Kailee makes for them. Aria is not quite sure if she likes it or not.

She not only counts with Todd but also likes to get on the computer and do her letters and numbers.  She know most of her letters already too.

The cutest picture yet is this one - Kailee had told her she could pick out one candy from the candy section, meaning one lollipop, but she comes down the aisle with the whole bag.