August 2015

       The first week of August was fair week so we actually walked through the booths and watched the Jackson kids show their goats.  The Jerome fair hasn't grown in the 4 years we have been gone so we haven't been missing anything.
    Between George Orr and Blain Hope's generosity, we have frozen about 54 quarts of corn so far.  It is nice to get something into our empty freezer.  We also picked black berries and put them in the freezer.  We have zucchini frozen ready for bread or bars. Lon made some choke cherry jam from some syrup that I had processed 5 years ago.  It was still very tasty.  We are enjoying the corn, carrots, squash, and cucumbers from our friends gardens.  The tomatoes are not quite ready but we will get to can some salsa when they are ready.  We are so thankful for friends who are so willing to share the proceeds of their hard work with us. 
  On August 14th the Wall's came to visit.  They met us at the temple and we did a session together then they came to our house for the night.  The Hall's came over and the 6 of us spent the evening reliving memories of El Salvador and hearing of the Hall's new calling as counselor and assistant to the matron in the Sacramento Temple.

We are so excited for them.  They will be so great at this new calling and the temple district will be blessed to get to know them.

  Saturday morning, the 15th, we headed to the Gibbon's for strawberries and biscuits.

This photo is from El Salvador where Dave treated us to his mouth watering biscuits for the first time.  They are amazing!!!

  We had the first mission reunion for El Salvador.

  The Wall's, Gibbon's, Thompson's, Hall's. Kitley's, and President Petersen, Hermana Petersen taking photo.  We had so much fun.  It was like we had never been apart.

The Hall's brought us each a pecan pie, their specialty while in El Salvador

Nancy, Diane, Marilyn wearing Salvadorenian

  Los Kitleys, now living in Twin Falls to remodel their home and get it sold

 Los Gibbons, temple workers in Twin and counselor in Twin Falls Mission Presidency

Los Petersens, trying to stay healthy and enjoying their family

  Los Wall's, temple workers in the new Payson Temple in Salem, Utah

 Los Thompson's, temple workers in the Twin Falls Temple and trying to adjust to being home.
    It was so great to be together, we felt the joy that Alma felt when he met his brethren and knew that they were still his brethren in the Lord, see Alma 17:2.  What a great day!
     We have been looking for a camper to put on our pick-up so on the way home we drove to Filer to look at one.  We were so impressed by this one that we gave them a down payment and came home to figure out how to pay for it.  We ordered the tie downs for it and have to wait for them to come before we can load it on the truck and bring it home.
     Lon and I are golfing together, we call it exercise cause I am not very good, but we go Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings.  It is fun to spend time together.  We try to get our walk in on Tuesday and Thursdays and Saturdays.  It was so much easier to have a set schedule on our missions.  Life seems to get in the way now.
     On Wednesday the 19th of August we were asked to come to the temple and meet with President Hobbs again.  He had received a letter from President Monson reinstating the Sealing Powers to Lon for the Twin Falls Temple.  What a blessing for us.  He is a sealer again.  We had to change our days in the temple though.  We will now be on the Tuesday AM shift, starting at 6:00am and the Wednesday PM shift.
     Ken and Bonnie came to town and we all got together for dinner at the Sizzler.  Poor AnnaVee had some kind of a bug and spent the time lying down in the car.

                                                 Farrell, Lon, Lynn, Larry, Ken, Kurt, Craig
      The boys enjoyed golfing together and we sisters enjoyed visiting and catching up on the family news of each other. 
     We picked up the new camper on the 25th and are making plans for a trip to try it out.

      On the 29th, Saturday, we took the camper to Rogerson with Tracy and his family to cut fire wood.  George came with Shauna and his truck and trailer.  George has lots of dead trees to cut here and he gave the kids a trailer full of wood for nothing.  We took the camper so that we had a bathroom and a kitchen to feed the kids and adults during the day.  It was a good thing that we had the camper.  The kids did so good.  It is a lot of work loading the logs, then unloading them so that they could be split, then reloading them to take to Tracy's house and stacking the wood finally.  We were so proud of the kids and the way they worked.  Sarah made us taco's for supper and we came home around 5 to shower and crash.  We were totaled!!
     And suddenly August has come to an end.  It is so amazing how fast time flies.  We have no jobs and yet we are so busy that we don't seem to get anything done.  We have been home 2 1/2 months now and the house and yard are starting to look great and we are starting to feel like we are supposed to be home.  Lon is enjoying his Primary class and he is a home teacher.  I am not serving in the Ward yet, but the temple is a joy and a blessing in our lives.