We will miss the beautiful Ohio countryside! Every single time we drive through the
backroads we say that we never tire of the beautiful rolling hills with the
beautiful farms, the wonderful Amish people, the lush trees and grass and the
wonderful people!
We will miss it all
and it is hard to bid farewell!
We will miss our sweet Coshocton Branch! We had a very sweet and teary farewell Sunday in the
branch. We both got to bear our testimonies
and we talked about personal revelation and how important that
has been to us on our mission. We love
these people and have learned so much from them. Sister Little and Trey Gores were just a few photos
taken with branch members. It has been such a joy to serve as a missionary, it
is hard to think that our mission is over after planning for years and preparing
for so long to come! So many emotions, bitter and sweet! We have loved serving in Coshocton!
We know that going home is the Lord’s plan for
us, even though we do not understand everything about His timing!
Monday we drove to Utica to pick up Phil’s trailer (we
thought we would need it for transfers) and enroute happened upon the Velvet
Ice Cream factory and of course had to stop and take pictures! Paul bought some
ice cream, and I bought a t-shirt.
We got to say goodbye to many of the missionaries on
Tuesday at transfers! Sister Humpheries, Sister Hall, President and Sister
Stratford, Elder Cox, Elder Jones, Elder Robison. We bid our dear Sister
Humpherys farewell and brought Sister Wolf back, she is darling and will be a
blessing to our branch and blend well with Sister Pead.
Bitter sweet time!
That night, Tuesday, we invited Susan, the sisters and Rain
for dinner at Bob Evans for Susan’s birthday celebration. We think that Susan
enjoyed the attention and party!
Then we went to the store, grabbed goodies for Chip, and
went to visit them, Chip was having knee surgery in the morning and he and Terri
really appreciated the visit and chips and salsa we brought to him. (he is
diabetic) (surgery went well!)
The biggest goodbye was with Dustin and Amanda and the kids. When we stopped at the store, we bought ice cream
and toppings and bananas for an ice cream bar and they told us to come after
everyone got home from dancing and work, which was about 8 p.m. We had a
delightful visit with hugs and tears and promises of us coming back to Ohio and
them all coming to Utah. We love them beyond
description and it was so fun to spend the evening with them. We will be back on Mother’s Day so it was not
really a final goodbye and they also are wanting to come to Utah and visit this
summer so that would be incredible!! We have such a soft spot in our hearts for
each of these incredible people and know that their progress is in the Lord’s hands,
not ours! Perhaps we will continue to be
able to reach out to them even from our home in Utah. It was a tender evening with them! We
absolutely know that they are the reason that we were called to Coshocton, and
we don’t know the reason for leaving now, but Heavenly father is in charge and
we are so grateful for His vision and plan for each of us!
Wednesday we continued to pack and clean and found it hard
to take down my “grandma wall”, which included all of the notes, pictures drawn
by and letters sent from grandchildren while we were serving as
missionaries. And we also had to take
down the calendars that our families had made for us.
We leave out little
apartment sparkling clean, well-stocked and ready for Elder and Sister Mecham
when they move in in a few weeks.
Wednesday we also had the sisters for lunch as a goodbye (goofy
clean out the refrigerator leftovers) and then gave them a bunch of our food.
That evening we had a fun dinner party with the Jacobs and
the Pearce’s in Utica. Boy is it hard to
say goodbye to these people! We had borrowed Phil’s trailer because we thought
that two sisters were coming into Coshocton for a threesome, but it turned out
that only one came, Sister Wolf, so we needed to return the trailer, so we had
dinner at Watts. We finally got a photo
of the presidency! Note this was after we were released last Sunday! It was fun
to spend such a relaxing and warm evening with these special friends! They have been such a big part of our branch
service in Coshocton. President Jacobs
and Phil and Paul have become life time friends, as well as Missy, Becky and
Kim. We love them! What wonderful people
they are!
Thursday, we finished
up our apartment, picked up our Coshocton brick from Roger Webb and then headed
out!
Wow, it is hard to believe that this is really happening!
