Wild Lights - Columbus Zoo with Melia and Cohen November 27, 2017

Monday and Tuesday of the week after Thanksgiving we had Melia and Cohen visit while Laurel and Bret went on a little business trip.  

We had a blast!  Monday we went to Columbus to the zoo and it was amazing!  We arrived at 2 pm and left at about 7 and had walked about 6 miles!  The animals were great and so were the lights, just like temple square, but times 100!  They call it wild lights! We went to Wendy’s for dinner and then came home sooooo tired but with great memories!

We love our grandchildren!

Happy Thanksgiving in North Carolina - 2017

We are so thankful for our family!

This Thanksgiving we were invited to celebrate the "Giving of Thanks" holiday with  our son Ryan and his girlfriend Lea and our granddaughters Katie and Elisabeth in North Carolina.

We drove to Virginia and picked up the girls in Christiansburg and then drove the 2.5 hours to Huntersville.

We had a delightful three days of cooking, eating, visiting, walking, reading, lounging and playing together.

Lea is from Germany and made a delicious German dumplings to go with our traditional turkey, potatoes, gravy, salad and pumpkin pie.

Ryan and the girls created a “turkey cake” which was adorable to accommodate Katie’s allergies.

Lea and the girls cut, measured, sewed and stuffed a new dog bed for Johnny.  The girls loved it, and Johnny was very happy with his new bed!!

On Friday after thanksgiving, we explored Charlotte a bit, had a yummy BBQ dinner at Lea’s home, some delicious French pastry and saw both company headquarters where Ryan and Lea’s jobs are headquartered.  And of course played with Johnny the dog.

Saturday, we packed up, loaded the girls and did the reverse trip.

Thanks again Ryan and Lea for hosting us so warmly!!

We had such a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!

 

Week of Learning and Teaching! November 19, 2017

 We are Learners, Teachers and Volunteers!

This week was a remarkable week of learning and teaching.

We had the opportunity of learning from one of the General Authorities, Elder Timothy J. Dykes and his wife and our Mission President, President Stratford and Sister Stratford.  

They taught us at an incredible zone conference and we came away spiritually fed.  

Sister Stratford taught us about the Light of Christ and not knowing beforehand what we should do, but act on first promptings. 

President Stratford taught us about  TREASURING UP AND BEING QUICK TO OBSERVE. Sister Dykes said that each meeting needs to be a revelatory experience for us! 

Elder Dykes taught for two hours and it was wonderful!  He asked us a powerful question: When people see you do they see the Savior? WOW! As missionaries and consecrated teachers  must become a new creation and to think and act differently. We stressed that we must use the power of  the Book of Mormon in all of our teachings! 

We need to simplify, clarify, verify and testify!  

It was wonderful!

We also have been teachers this week!

This week we:

Taught Priesthood

Taught Young Women

Taught Relief Society

Both spoke in church

Taught institute

Taught Personal Finance

Helped teach a lady to prepare to take the discussions

And we love all of it!

And in our volunteer work, we helped with the registration committee gathering the forms for the big Christmas event in town, called the Miracle on Main Street.  It is a fun Christmas celebration and parade that is held in the evening with lots of lights on the floats and trucks, and Mr. and Mrs. Santa coming last on the big fire engine! It was very festive! All of the singing groups, clubs, businesses, churches (not us) loaded their employees or families onto something that moved and rolled down the street handing out candy.  We estimated about 500 people were in the parade! For a town of 11,000 that is quite a big event. 

We love our mission!!

Manufacturing Day, Finances Group and a Fun Visit in North Carolina! First Week of November 2017

On Halloween day, we were invited to help with a student industry tour that was held for two local high schools and one career center, totaling 150 students to show and teach them about the careers in two manufacturing businesses. We had been invited because at the Job Fair the chamber of commerce president learned that  Sister Blanchard did these kinds of tours before she retired. She went to the preparation meeting where she got to meet many of the leaders in the business and academic community!

That morning they bussed in and then  gathered all of the students and taught them at the COTC (Central Ohio Technical College) some job skill prep and what options were there for training.  Then the kids loaded the buses and half went to McWayne Ductile and the other half went to AK Steel.  It was just like the olden days at GSD and it was a blast!  They did a great job and we were so happy to tag along.  They had plenty of chaperones, so they asked us to be the photographers for the event, so that was fun. 

We volunteer in  as many community events and places as we possibly can so that people in the community can learn that there are Latter-day Saints in the area, and that service is a very important part of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Plus we get to meet some wonderful people! This tour was a great opportunity to just  meet and visit with people about why we were in Coshocton.  

This was a fun service opportunity!

 On Wednesday of this week, we taught our New Testament Institute class and finished our discussion on miracles. 

Thursday we facilitated our Personal Finance Class and we are just over half done with the subject matter but have decided to kind of stretch it out a bit so that we can incorporate more of what we are learning into our daily lives!  It is a very spiritual program- fabulous!

We have been guided by the spirit so many times as we facilitate this group, it is amazing to see how the Lord's plan of finances is blessing the lives of our branch members. The economy in Coshocton is very depressed and many of our branch members live on a very limited budget, but want to learn and improve their circumstances, with the Lord's help!  We even have a lady who is a non member, but decided to pay tithing because she was wanting the promised blessings associated with that commandment!  And she has had blessings, what a wonderful experience to be able to see how this happens!

It was also Sister Welker's birthday so, of course, we had to have a little birthday treat, this time it was a cheesecake celebration! :)

She is the branch president's wife and is always so unselfish and giving, it is nice for a chance to be able to do something for her!

Immediately after the class was over, we jumped in our already loaded car and headed for North Carolina!  We drove to Charleston, West Virginia that night so we wouldn't have to drive so far the next day. We got a chance to sleep in and take a good walk around the capitol building and grounds which we found beautiful!

We picked up Katie and Elisabeth in Christiansburg about 5 pm and then drove to Huntersville where Ryan was waiting at his beautiful new home!  It was so fun to see him  reunite with the girls and see how excited they were to be with him! 

We spent Saturday just playing! They made pancakes together, assembled a big box city, complete with a zoo (Elisabeth) and library (Katie). We walked to the grocery store and bought some fun things. Ryan had invited one of his friends who owned a dog to let the dog come for the evening, which the girls loved.

And it was fun to see that the girls still use the quilts that I made for them before they were born!

We made cookies, walked the dog, went to the library and told goofy jokes.

It was a fun weekend, but on Sunday after a delicious gourmet salmon salad lunch prepared for us by Ryan, we loaded back into the car and did the return trip.

Such a fun weekend!

We are truly blessed!

Family, Teaching, New Friends and Missionary work!  

Such a great combination for our week!