Week 35
We had a wonderful July 4th with Kim/Doug and the girls.  Here is a picture of them by the Bumble Bee transformer on the west side of town:

We had lunch at Mojo's, a restaurant with a four-lane bowling alley attached.  Pretty fun to watch how excited Wendy got every time her ball got launched down the little bowling ball ramp.

Hard to say good-bye to these little girls!

Haven't had a nature report for a while, so here goes.  We have really enjoyed the plants that just don't grow in Utah.  First is the crape myrtle--comes in tree or bush size, lots of colors, blooms all summer, and is all over town.

The other is hydrangea.  They're about through blooming now, but they've been beautiful.

We aren't seeing our blue heron as often as we used to, but we've seen one or two white egrets almost every day.  This morning we opened the front door because we heard our resident lizard scratching around outside, and there were both the egret and heron in flight over and landing on our little pond.  Those big birds are just magnificent in flight.

We named him Eddie, but for all we know she is Edith

Wednesday we met the new mission president--President Mansell.  He had a meeting with all the missionaries in the south part of the mission on Tuesday then came up to Stillwater on Wednesday for the missionaries in the north.  First he met everyone individually, then he had two of his sons and his wife speak briefly, then he spoke.  President Mansell is very dynamic and there was a wonderful spirit in the meeting.  Among many things, he said that he wanted his missionaries to work hard, be obedient, and have fun.  He's been a YSA bishop for the last few years, so working with the missionary age group is right up his alley.

 Thursday was a ward temple baptism trip.  When we bought our Highlander, it was with the intention that we'd be able to transport YSAs, and we've had at least two passengers for every ward temple trip.  This time five passengers rode with us, and three went in another car.  Afterwards, we treated everyone to dinner at Smashburger.  Such great YSAs, and we love being with them.  Our numbers are down because of summer break, and it will be good to see the "returnees" and we hope many new students in the fall.

Today was Sister Christensen's last time for Sunday dinner with us--she's going home on Thursday.  Sister Smith is excited and scared because she will be training a new missionary straight from the MTC.  It's her first time as a trainer--she's nervous, but we know she'll do a great job.