That's different...

 On the way home from Nauvoo we passed through Brookfield to see Scott and Vance and Jessica.  Vance smiles at us now and it is pretty stinkin' cute.

We had a chance to visit the Cirrus factory and see how these small planes are made.  It was really interesting.

Elder Winder and Elder Hurst

Braden, McKinnon, Ben, Ron, Josie and Sophia.

The Selfie stick was at it again.! We were all at Whitney's baptism.

This is Whitney and it was her baptism we were celebrating!

Then we got together with the other senior missionary couples of the Minneapolis, MN mission. We try to do this every few months.  We had 13 people attending.  The first thing we did was ride on the riverboat.

Then we ate at the Frostop in Taylor Falls, MN

We spent a few serious moments at the park.

 Ron finished his goal of 57 miles on the Mesabi Trail.








As far as missionary work goes, we held an Inservice last month in two places.  We had a north meeting with our seminary teacher from Thunder Bay, Canada on Facetime.  She felt she was almost with us.  I overheard a couple of whispered comments from her, "go find your dad." and "I am in a meeting so quit bothering me."  I don't think she meant us.  We had decided that we have more time to travel the stake and that we would bring the meetings to them.  It worked out really well.  We are preparing for another meeting coming up on Saturday.  We have also been to orient 3  new seminary teachers.



Last night when we met with the young single adults, Josie had us write down something that we felt was holding us back in some way.  Then she had us write on a paper and put it in a balloon.  She filled the balloons with helium and we all went outside to let the balloons go.  We watched them rise up into the sky and float over towards Lake Superior.







From the "How To Speak Minnesotan" book:  The second phrase you need is "that's different" with "that's" being high and "different" being low and stretched out. It means that this particular Minnesotan thinks you are downright looney but he doesn't want to offend you.
Stay tuned for more information about feed caps.

You bet, it's summer in Duluth!

This is Hazel.  She is one of our favorite little people.

This is what summer looks like in Duluth--peonies, and 4th of July picnics-two of them.

                                                             And fireworks!                                                


And a ride on the tour boat under the aerial life bridge.

                        And these two (crazy) brothers went on a 37 miles bike ride!! And then they went 47 miles another day!!                                Paul and Ron

 And we went berry picking!  They were so yummy!!!  Then we had strawberry everything.

 And we went on an adventure on the Brule River in northern Wisconsin.

Paul paddled a kayak.

Wade and Patti Newton

 This is really a beautiful river. It is not very swift or very deep for most of the route but there were a few  rapids...
There was this big rock just under the water that we couldn't see until our canoe stopped right on top of it. It tipped the canoe enough that things started floating away--my paddle, Ron's life vest.  I didn't actually float away because I found a rock to stand on.  Ron eventually freed our canoe with Wade's help. Meanwhile Paul was rescuing the things that had floated down the river.

These forget-me-nots were blooming all over.  All they needed to grow was a water source and a log to anchor them.

We went last week to Nauvoo with our stake youth conference.  We enjoyed being with the youth and talking about Nauvoo and Church History.  I helped in the kitchen and Ron became an instant success with his selfie stick.  Then he posted some of his photos and now he is Facebook friends with lots and lots and lots of youth in our stake.  And he thinks it's pretty fun.  I will not post his hundreds of photos but just a few.

making brownies

I have been reading a book called "How To Speak Minnesotan" and I have learned some things.  One is that you only need three phrases in Minnesota and the most useful one is "you bet" or "you betcha".  This phrase can be used for just about any thing. It can be used to say yes, no, I agree, or you're welcome.

For instance:

"Here is your suitcase.  It got stuck in the conveyor belt."  

" Oh. Well, thanks." 

"You bet."

"Warm enough for ya?"

" You bet."

"My mother is coming to stay with us for a few months."

" You bet."

"We also lost your dog"

"I am really gonna miss him."

"You bet."

( more useful phrases next time!)

13 months into it and I think we are getting it.

So we passed our year mark on June 9.  We are no longer surprised by things because we saw them last year.  For instance, it does not surprise us to see the fog billowing across the parking lot in June.  It doesn't surprise us to see a bear in a neighborhood.  It doesn't surprise us to have our high temperature 73 in July and hear people complain about the heat.  And we learned never to go anywhere without our bin of games, especially the cards and dice.  Also, we know the importance of "you betcha" in a conversation.  And we know all about feed caps.


 Zone Preparation Day.  We went to Enger Tower and took pictures of this wonderful view!   Then we went to Park Point and had a BBQ and volleyball.

 I helped these Elders, Elder Foggin and Elder Winder, order I pad covers that had keyboards included.  This is the day they arrived.

Transfer day!

Grandma's Marathon! The Elders and Ron handed out water and ice to the participants at mile 22.
And a photo of the finish line.

Ron and Bryan Pugh (from Naperville) went on a LONG bike ride.  I kind of suspected that it might be long and hilly and muddy.  Sure enough.                            

This was a better choice!

Things we have done but don't have a photo of:

Zone conference

Dentist

Graduate open house

Seminary and Institute reports

Church--I did 2 hours of Primary by myself! The highlight was finding a caterpillar on Othan's shirt! He sorta freaked out!

Young Single Adult activities

Institute class
Inspected 2 missionary apartments

Pancakes at our apartment for missionaries on Saturday mornings

Potluck Sunday
Foodbank service

We almost went to the Rhubarb Festival.  Who knew it would be over at 4:00 in the afternoon??

This pic is taken at Mineview in the Sky. You can look out over a huge iron ore, open pit mine.  And this truck holds over 400 tons of ore.  

Then we went to inspect the elders apartment and took them to lunch.  And the portions were so big we took a picture! Both these missionaries cleaned their plates.

Their moms would have been so proud.

A lesson about ticks

Well, you just can't beat the scenery here when the sun comes out!  We took Scott and Jessica to see Split Rock Lighthouse and this photo is sooo good because of Ron's new selfie stick.  (A gift from Annie.) We also took them to Gooseberry Falls and Betty's Pie Shop. (the water in the creeks is brownish because of the iron in it.)

                                                                                              

This is a new thing for Vance.  He recognizes Scott's voice and looks for him.

On Memorial Day we were invited to the Faerbers for crepes. All of us!  Look at all these toppings.  They thought of everything!!

                                
We went down to Minneapolis for a conference of our entire mission.  Minneapolis Minnesota Mission  MMM  We completely filled the chapel.  This picture is just the sisters.

We were invited up to Lake Vermilion to a cabin right on the lake.  It is really is a beautiful lake and huge.  We took a boat ride and saw only half the lake in 1 1/2 hours.  We needed to make sure we had time for Hand and Foot.  (We didn't stay over so don't be thinking that all we do is vacation.)

  We went to a wedding held on the top of a hill overlooking the bay.  Beautiful setting for a wedding!  And it didn't even rain. (there was much discussion of this)  Amanda Bush and Nolan Hauta.

 The young women in the branch held a fundraiser to earn money for camp.  Ron purchased the chance to throw a pie in Haylie's face.  This is the event.

  The elders got I pads!  They are pretty excited.  We will all see how technology will further missionary work.  We get to learn together. So far they have downloaded the scriptures and a calendar and they were working on getting an app that keeps track of their contacts and teaching progress.  They were excited that they have access now to church videos and talks from conference.

We joined with the branch in cleaning up litter along a highway.  Here we are ready to pick up Marlboro wrappers, Budweiser cans and a few pop cans.  It is tick season here and I counted 16 on me!! I had on my wool socks pulled up over the bottom of my pants and I now think that made it easy to cling on.  Ron used duct tape around the bottom of his pants and he didn't find any....so far.  So that's my lesson about ticks for today.
So I found partly buried in the dirt, a glove.  And then another glove and a man's slipper.  I started thinking about Bones where someone finds a partially decomposed corpse at the beginning of every episode. . .
I did eventually find the other slipper but no skeleton.  Lucky for me!!

Sunday was our seminary graduation.  We expected about 80 people and we got about 140.   We are proud to have 23 graduates who finished 4 years of seminary.  I took charge of the program where we had three speakers and some singers and then handed out the diplomas.  Ron took charge of the Scripture Fair.  We asked them to bring something they created that was based on one of the 25 scripture mastery passages.  I have a few photos here.  They were so creative!  The Kahoot! is a game to review some of the things they learned and it works on the phones of the students.  Someone recreated the golden plates.  Ron took photos of his Marathon T-shirts and restated the health advice.There were many more creative activities. Carol was in charge of food and for this many people, she had sandwich fixings and ice cream sundaes that they decorated themselves. I am always so impressed when church members drive 2 or 3 hours to come to meetings. We had 85 students that finished seminary this year.

This past Monday the elders and sisters rode bikes in Lester Park.  It was quite an adventure and involed a lot of mud on clothes and bikes.  They had a wonderful time.  Ron was the only one with blood but he did not have the most mud on him.

Here is a good story about the Book of Mormon: A carpet layer came home from work, ordered a pizza and asked his neighbors if they had anything he could read while he ate his pizza. His neighbors happened to be a couple of missionaries from the church.  They were HAPPY to give him a book to read while eating pizza.  After the pizza he came back to the missionaries to return the book, which he said wasn't all that interesting. 

They asked him, "Did you read it?" 

"Yes" 

 "Did you pray about it before you read?"

"No."  

"Do that"  

He began to read the Book of Mormon on Friday night and was finished by Sunday afternoon with only short breaks for food or sleep.  When he reached the end of the book,  he went back over to talk some more to the missionaries.  A much longer talk.

.