Our Missionaries

After two months in the MTC Sister Emily Thomas will be leaving for Portugal on Tuesday. Here is what she wrote, "Jan 3, 2012 - We leave Salt Lake at 8:35 am. Then at 2:20 pm we arrive in Atlanta. In Atlanta we have a 4 hour lay-over so that is where we will hopefully be calling! Our plane leaves at 6:05pm from Atlanta to Paris. SO be expecting a call hopefully between 12-4 your time on Jan.3. We then have an overnight flight and will get into Paris at around 8:35 in the morning on the 4th. Well we have a 5 hour layover in Paris and then leave at 1:25pm and are supposed to get to Lisboa at 2:55pm their time. So I will then be about 7-8 hours ahead of you! That's crazy to think about. We have 15 missionaries in our traveling group. Our district and then another district who came same day." 
We are going to stay close to the phone on January 3rd! The address of the mission home in Portugal is: 

Portugal Lisbon Mission
Apartado 40054
1500 Lisbon Portugal
351-217-620-832
When she finds out where she is going to be she will let us know her new address.

On Christmas Day Elder Bednar and his wife came to speak to the missionaries in the MTC. I wish I could of been there: "One really neat thing that happened yesterday was during Elder Bednar's talk. He talked a lot of characteristics of Christ and how He would always turn outward when the rest of us would turn inward. He likened the "natural man" to the cookie monster... and even did impersonations of the "missionary cookie monster" saying, "I want baptisms now! I want investigators now!" It was really funny and interesting to see an apostle doing cookie monster impersonations... he was really good!


Then she had a great experience of cleaning the Provo Temple on Boxing Day.
"Today, of course, is p-day and we got to go clean the temple. I didn't know this but I guess once a year they renovate some part of this temple because it is the busiest so they are repainting and doing different things in it but since it's Boxing Day (did you know America doesn't call it Boxing Day!? Sometimes I don't get this country) all the people weren't working and so they had the Elders scrub the grout with toothbrushes to make it all nice and white and us 3 sisters got to help this lady named Sharon clean the temple presidency offices. Talk about intimidating! Apparently, if even the slightest thing is moved the Temple President will notice and then Sharon will get reassigned to a different area of the temple. So we were scared about touching anything but she does this every single night and has been doing it for 2 years! She was a great lady. Not only is she on the custodial staff for the temple, she is also a cook here at the MTC. She told us some really great stories about her conversion and what would happen when she didn't listen to the counsel of the Lord. What else was really interesting was that she knows, it seems, almost everything about the paintings in that area. So she had us stand in front of them and asked us different questions about what we noticed or what the faces looked like. There is this one where Jesus is confirming one of His disciples and the guy is kneeling. She had us look at all the faces of this painting until we realized that if you take off all the facial hair of every person. They all look the exact same. She said she thought that this was the way that the artist intended it to be. To be all in God's image. It was really neat."


It is exciting to see her learning and growing. I know that she will be a great missionary in Portugal.

We also got to talk with Elder Casey Thomas on Christmas Day as he is serving in Las Vegas. The fun thing was that we got to talk through Skype. It took me awhile to figure how to run Skype but wow is it worth it. We could see and talk to him and he could see us. He looks good and he is doing well. I can't believe that he has only five months left on his mission. He doesn't write the great letters that Sister Thomas does but then he's a boy. What a great blessing it is to have two missionaries serving the Lord.

When we took her to the MTC I didn't start to cry until we were leaving Provo. That's very brave for a Mom. We were met at the sidewalk by a bunch of Elders. I don't think Emily has been greeted by so many young men at one time. Two Elders took her and her luggage to the building where she would be spending the next two months. We watched her walk away and part of me walked away too. I know that this is the best thing for Emily and that she and our family will be so blessed by her and Elder Casey serving a mission. Two missionaries out at once WOW!!

Here she is Sister Emily Thomas. It is so different sending a daughter out on a mission. With your sons you are so glad that they are going. When it is your daughter it is liking she is taking a piece of your heart with you. She will be in the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah until January and then will head to Lisbon, Portugal

Lethbridge Fires

Well I'm back. Fires have been raging around Lethbridge tonight and my first concern was the safety of my children. We could actually see the glow of the fires from our house. It is a little scary to look out your window and see the ridge glowing with fire. Julie was frightened, but as we knelt in prayer as a family and asked the Lord to bless Share and the girls in Lethbridge and to bless those who were fighting the fires, a peace came into our home. Our children were safe and I hope that not many homes were lost. I am so grateful for those men and women who work in emergency services that keep us safe. I was actually listening to an emergency radio on the Internet (and enjoying it) and heard the conversation between the police and fire departments. (Kelly says that is the first sign of becoming a red neck :-). These people put their lives on the line to fight fires and keep people and property safe. I don't think that they get many thanks. When was the last time you thanked a police officer for giving you a ticket? I think that they need our thanks more often.

The fires also made me wonder just how prepared my family is. Would we be able to evacuate within minutes in the case of a wild fire? I think that will be a good topic for a family home evening lesson.

New Windows

We are getting our 30-year-old windows changed. The seal on the old windows was broken and so when you looked through them your vision would be cloudy. This morning when I looked through the new windows I couldn’t believe how clear my site was. It got me thinking on how I need to have a new vision to start a new year. Sometimes we are stuck in a rut and our vision of the future is clouded. That’s how I think that I am, I am stuck in a rut and I need to have a new vision. So today is the day to reorganize and start something new and exciting.