Alpine Loop: Fall is here

First of all I don't want anyone to think that all we do is sightsee in Utah as we wait for our visas!!!
Believe me when I say by the end of each day during the week that my head is ready to explode!!
We have not only tutors in Swedish but also volunteers from the area who are from Sweden who come in to help us with the language.
We really enjoy each person who helps us.  Neal is coming along really good in getting his Swedish back. My tutor says that I am doing good too!  I think he has to say that so he won't have to see me cry!  ha ha I will say that I have learned alot. I know how to count, I know all the colors, I can say prayers and bear my Testimony all in Swedish. Plus I can give directions in a city. We practice here at the MTC I will tell Neal to "Go Venstar" (left) or Go Hogar (right) or Go rack from (straight) or Go upp trappor (go up the stairs) and don't think for a minute that you can say these words as they look!!! They all have an accent or a roll on the r. Our tutor wants me to conduct a meeting for him and also welcome in the young single adults at the center so I have my work cut out for me.  I will say that even though I have a hard time holding a conversation I can understand when Neal and the tutor are having a conversation!! So I am coming along slowly but surely. So I am glad we have had time here to learn Swedish before going there.

Now for the nice trip to see the fall foliage. 
 We took 2 cars and drove a couple of hours through just beautiful fall foilage.

This was one of many canyons we drove through.

Steve's kids me and Neal and Carol

Some people saw a deer in the woods but we missed it.

I don't think you can get a picture to show the intense colors. But they really were breathtaking.

Steve and Jaime and us with the grandkids.They sure have a nice family. They are a pleasure to travel with.
Gracie likes to take pictures, I gave her my old camera, as I bought a new one for our Mission.  She really gets good shots. Ethan and his dad are Ute fans to the max, they sure have fun going to the games. Elsa is adorable, she melts your heart. She has such cute expressions with her hands when she talks. Anna she is happy go lucky and tries to keep up with everyone. She loves finding shoes and puts them on and tries to walk in them what a crack up. We will sure miss the family when we leave for Sweden.

October Events



Carol got a new cute little kitty. Steve and Jaime's kids just loved it.
Ethan, Carol, Gracie
Elsa, Kitty, Anna



We all went to Pioneer Point in Salt Lake here I am by the cute little lambs. They made me homesick for Lilly!!!




We took a hay ride through the park.



There were all kinds of activities because of Halloween. Here Steve's family made cutouts

 At each historic house the kids could trick or treat. they sure had fun.

Well I can't belive this but I had a picture of This is the Place Monument
and I went to fix a spelling a nd POOF it is gone.
So just pretend it is here. It was a monument where Brigham Young looked over the valley and said
"This is the Place"
and so became Salt Lake City.

Neal auditioned to sing at the MTC.
Their are so many talented people here that Neal said he was just happy to try out.  Well after he auditioned the person in charge went crazy over Neal and fit him in to sing at the opening meeting for the new Sr couples. the room was full and he did a great job. For the next few days people would come up and tell him what a great job he did.  He sang "The Lord's Prayer"
Kathy Lund was his accompanist. That was a real special day for Neal.

Here we are with a group of New Swedish Missionaries. We all sang in the Missionary Choir at a

Devotional. Our good friend, Doug Brenchley was our director.  It was fun to sing with him. There were probably 150 choir members.

Even though I didn't go to the game it was fun to be here during BYU's Homecoming.

there were a lot of festivities going on. BYU won the game so everyone was happy.

 We have been at the MTC so long now that I have made friends with the head of the salad department. I asked if we could have a tour of the kitchen and she had pull so told us a time to come. WOW the kitchen is amazing. They feed about 2,500 missionaries 3 meals a day!! This is a huge pot that they were making scalloped potatoes in for dinner. Each person has a task and each area has their own walk in refrigerators and supplies.

 This is the laundry room. The missionaries are in districts and are assigned a time to go to the laundry. This is only 1/2 of the room. Missionaries study where ever they are. there are some tables but most will sit on the floor or on the washers to the right!!! There is a dry cleaners in here also. To get to the laundry you go down a cement tunnel!!!

 Brother and Sister Buchanen are the couple over all the Sr couples. They are the best.  They are the ones that arranged for Neal's Dr's appointments and also drove us to his appointments.

 Michael's business is growing and he was able to purchase another machine for his Rapid Prototyping.
The company will be coming to set it up and get it running. He still has a job with Flex Pak as the head IT man.

We had dinner at Carol's on Sunday. we had gone to Steve's to see the grand kids be in the Primary program.  there Primary is huge. the kids did a great job. Carol made a fall dinner of soup and then Carmel
apples.  She cut up the apples and melted the carmels in a fondue pot and had cruhed up candy bars. So we dipped the apples in the carmel and then in the candy bars.  Much easier to eat then a whole apple!!!

Our Swedish Elders's Farewell



The Swedish Elder's wanted us to come and say good bye to them. Our Tutor Zak Jenson asked us to come to their farewell testimonial.  They were real excited to see us and it was so fun to be with them. I wished them well in a little speech I gave in Swedish! This was on Saturday and they all left on Monday. They have been in the MTC for 9 weeks. They had language lessons everyday most of the day so they really have the language mastered.

Front Row: Elder Nelson, Elder Overstreet, Sister Dabb, Sister Kisser, Me
Back row: Elder Bruun, Neal, Elder Grigg,  Elder Lampihen, Elder Chipman, Elder Youd, Elder Lopp and Elder Nelson
Elder Jenkins was sick so his companion Elder Monson stayed with him so they are not in the photo.

These Elders are the best, they are so helpful and fun to be with. They were sure excited to get to Sweden and see what city they would be serving in.  They will all be in the Mission home in Stockholm for 3 days then off to their areas.





 

While Neal was in a music store, Carol took me to this really cute Chocolate Cafe.

We sat and ate cupcakes and laughed so hard our sides hurt.

 I guess you know that we are still waiting for our

Visa's. So they give us lot of freedom to visit and shop. That will help explain the next photos with our friends. Trust me we still get plenty of time to study our Swedish. In fact sometimes I think my head is going to burst! My Tutor says I am doing real good.



This is my girlfriend from my Montebello High School days. Barbara Schmidt Peterson. We had so much fun when we together.  We were always planning parties at my house and just having fun. She now lives in Utah so she came and picked me up and we spent the afternoon together. It was so much fun to be with her and get caught up on our lives.

 

On our way to our Tuesday Devotional we met our good friend Doug Brenchley. When we were married he sang "Some Enchanted Evening" at our reception in Ogden. He now leads the choir at the MTC (Mission Training Center) The Young Elders under his conducting will be singing at the Priesthood Session of General Conference.









Neal's Surgery



What a surprise. Neal started to have a black dot in his right eye that started to get bigger.  On Monday September 13, with the help of the Mission Home they were able to get him an appointment at 10 with an Opthamologist and was refered to a Retinologist at 11 It was determined that he had a detached retina and had surgery at 5 pm. We still don't have our Visas but it wouldn't make any difference as he cannot fly till the gas bubble in his eye is gone, about 2 weeks. We have found out that our visa's should be here by then. Neal has not had any pain with his eye!



This is our CES group we really got close to them and saw each one as they left for there missions all over the world. Some were waiting for their Visa's and they came in on the last day. What a relief for them.



We were on our way to the cafeteria and heard our names called.  We turned and there was Sister Elizabeth Rosenloft. I t is always so nice to see a familiar face. She is really enjoying the MTC and has a great companion.



We had a volunteer from Provo come to our language class to talk to us in Swedish. He would correct how we said the words and what was proper in their language. His name was Bob Lundquist. We found out that his brother and his wife are serving in the office in the Stockholm Mission Home. On Sunday we got a call from them, letting us know that our Visa's should be there by the end of the month. What a fun time we had with Bob Lundquist who also served his mission 53 years ago in Sweden and was known as "The Big Brown Bear" as he has a beautiful bass voice and did a lot of singing in Sweden. He has also been a member of the Tabernacle Choir!





Neal is by our Swedish Tudors. Zak and Michael.

We were able to spend the weekend in Lehi with Steve's family. We went to Gracie's and Ethan's Soccer games. They both won their games. So they were really excited. They are both star players on their teams.



MTC Provo Utah

Arriving at the MTC (Missionary Training Center) on Monday September 6, 2010

Michael, Ashli, and Carol dropped us off at the MTC.

We are standing inside the famous world map at the MTC pointing to Sweden where we will serve! Notice my arm won't even go up that high.

Our first devotional was on Tuesday September 7, 2010. All Senior Couples have a special area reserved for them right in the front. Elder Lowell Snow of the Seventy and his wife were our keynote speakers. While singing the opening hymn we noticed Doug Brenchly  a good friend of ours was the conductor. He noticed us in the audience and got a big grin on his face and mouthed "Where are you going?" I mouthed back "Sweden!" He will be leading the Missionary Choir in October General Conference.

My cousin Myrna and Bill brought their grandson Michael Marshall to the MTC on Wednesday. I was able to break away from lunch and find them. It was fun to see a new "greenie" arrive. He is going to French speaking mission in Canada. It was good to see some familiar faces!

Wednesday night we called Michael to see if they were having a girl or a boy.  They said I would have to go to the MTC Post Office and pick up a package. The P.O. was closed so we had to wait till after our 1st class Thursday morning. We were so surprised to be handed this big cookie just like what you see. (It was not in a package) It was delivered by UPS (it did have a plastic cover on it) We took it to our zone class, there are 5 Sr Couples in our zone. We all enjoyed eating what we could then found some Young Elders and gave the rest of the cookie to them.

WE ARE SO HAPPY TO HAVE ANOTHER GRANDDAUGHTER COMING THE END OF JANUARY!!!

We stopped by to chat with some Elders studying, they asked where we were from and we said Ridgecrest, CA this Elder said "well I have a brother that lives in Ridgecrest. Come to find out his brother lives in our ward, he name is McCain Cox!!
What a small world

This is our zone group

Elder and Sister Oakden (SL Headquarters security), Elder and Sister Poelson (Michigan, CES), Us,

Elder and Sister Hatch (Congo, office work) Elder and Sister Lurf (Kenya, Africa CES)

These are all the Senior Missionary Couples with us at the MTC. Can you find us?

Saturday was our P-Day (Preparation Day) so we walked across the street to the Provo Temple and did a session.

Our Mission Farewell

Bert and Marie Gould and Rosalee Ferguson had a Farewell Open House for us. We had a nice time visiting and saying goodbye to our good friends. We appreciated the delicious cookies and good conversation. We will miss our friends and look forward to keeping in touch!

Our six kids and their families came home for our farewell. We had family pictures taken by Kiahna Williams. It was quite a fun photo session with 13 adults and 11 grand kids.

Here is a picture of us with all eleven grand kids! They each have such cute personalities. They had so much fun playing in our backyard catching lizards, riding the train, climbing on rocks into the "grand canyon", and making up all kinds of fun games. We will miss spending time with them!

On Friday night the older kids slept out in a tent in the backyard. Before morning they all ended up inside except for Cater...he is a trooper! The younger kids wanted in on the action so we set up a pup tent in the living room for them.

On Sunday was our farewell. Neal and I spoke in Sacrament Meeting and my grand kids and primary girls sang the song "The Holy Ghost." They did a great job! After church it was nice to have all of our family over including my sister and brother and some of their families. The kids got a nice cake with a Swedish flag on it that said "Best Wishes." We sure had a good time visiting with everyone.

A rare picture of my sister, brother, and me (Carolyn Richmond, Bill Blake, me)

On Monday Carol, Allison, Steven, and Rebecca and their families drove to Corona Del Mar to spend a day with me at the beach. They all know how much I love the beach! We had such a relaxing day playing in the sand and swimming in the ocean.

I love the water and had fun jumping waves with my grand kids. Ben loves the water as much as I do!

Group shot on the beach!

While the kids played in the sand the adults had a good time visiting and playing Frisbee!

The kids had so much fun looking for sea shells and playing in the water. I am so glad that I got to spend the day relaxing on the beach with some of my kids and grand kids before I left to Sweden. That night we went to Balboa Pier and then to a fun Mexican Restaurant. It was sure hard to say goodbye to Alli, Rebecca, and Emily and their families. We will say goodbye to the Utah kids when we go into the MTC.

On Tuesday I traveled with Carol to Barstow. Neal met us there with Lily so Carol could drive her to Utah. Neal's sister Noni is going to watch her for us while we are on our mission. Lily has been Neal's little buddy, it was sure hard for us to say goodbye to her! We enjoyed spending our last weekend in Ridgecrest with family. Now we are off on a new adventure to Sweden!