Week 56 - STARTING OUR 3RD MISSION

Total Exposures Filmed  338,860  to date, BUT WHO IS COUNTING?

We are going to post a running total of the number of exposures that we have taken. It will help us and you understand the progress that we are making.

Names Grandma has indexed  114,986   While Grandpa is at the camera, Grandma uses her extra time indexing for Family Search. She also does this while we are traveling, in the evenings, and any other time when she could be pursuing other more self-centered activities.

 

 

 

This is the beautiful city street that we live on.  We arrived at our new home
at the peak of fall color.

 

 

  

 

FAMILY MATTERS


The boys were interested in taking their own

photographs of the books.  Holden, Owen, Nathan 

each turned the pages, and pushed the shuttler

release to take their own pictures.

Wade and Jenny and the boys visited us.  We took a few days away and greatly enjoyed seeing them, talking with them, and doing some things together.   


       


Owen and Nathan driving their own

covered wagon at the Visitor Center

in Independence



Wade took us to a Kansas City Chiefs and

Texas Rangers baseball game.



The pool at the Marriott's Willow

Ridge was refreshing for Wade,

Jenny and the boys from the

heat of the day.


 

The morning that Wade and his family

started their long drive home, Grandma

and Grandpa were able attend the new

Kansas City Temple with Elder Virgil

and Sister Marie Pugsley who are

serving at the Independence Vistors

Center.  We greatly enjoyed our visit

to this beautiful temple.  Our time

there was well spent.  This temple is

a sister to the Brigham City Temple. 

They are very similar indesign and

were constructed and open in paralell

to each other.

 

Wayne and his brothers took their boys into the

wilderness of Idaho. Here Kaden and CJ are

preparing backpacking food.  Looks like

cup'o'soup.  Good training for mission life.

Wayne was proud to say that the boys did

very well.









We Started To Film Again
We are all set up at the Iowa State Historical Society and are now in full operation.  The facilities are good.  We are located on the main floor of the building in a special projects room adjacent to a large entrance hall to the State Historical Museum.  We are able to mix with many people coming and going.  We are doing loose, unbound documents which keep Grandpa and Grandma equally busy.  Our apartment and our work are both very close to freeway access.  The drive into the city and back is only about 10 minutes and the traffic is tolerable.  We have a garage at our apartment and we park in a parking terrace next to the Historical Society. 



Leaving Oklahoma
We packed up our trailer with our belongings and our equipment and headed for Iowa.  As we were loading our equipment before our departure. Grandma stepped back and fell backward.  Her feet tried to keep up with the pace of the fall.  She landed hard on her bottom. Grandpa gasped releaf that she had cushioned her fall but the backward momentum caused her to keep falling backward.  Her head struck the hard concrete floor with a solid thud.  She hit hard enough that Grandpa thought she would be knocked out, but this should not surprise anyone - Palmer heads are harder than concrete.  After resting on the floor for a few moments, Grandpa helped her to a chair.  Thankfully, only a headache resulted. 

We were blessed to have been able to live for several weeks on Grand Lake of the Cherokees.  While we were here, the pelicans came through by the thousands on their annual migration south for the winter.  We had to drive about thirty minutes, each way, to our daily work in Vinita, but we were uplifted on every drive by the scenic beauty that we were so fortunate to experience. 



View from the Bithel's condominium where we
stayed most of September.

We left Oklahoma with some regrets.  We loved it's beauty and it's people.  Our work with the Saints and the historic records was meaningful and most gratifying.







We traveled through this magnificent 27 hole,
pro golf course morning and night to and
from the Bithel's Condo.

 

 

 



The two men on the right are prison inmates

that helped us move the books from the

Courthouse to the Archives Building.  The

sheriffs deputy on the left was with them

for obvious reasons.  They were a huge help

to us.  We treated them with friendship and

respect and they did the same with us. 

Grandma made sure they were rewarded

with chocolate for their efforts.  Grandpa

has told a sad story about the man on

the right.  See the story in the text to the

left of this photo.



On a hot day in September two prisoners from the Craig County Jail were moving the heavy books for us.  Grandpa was talking to the man on the far right in the photograph.  As we were making acquaintance, he interupted our consersation by saying, " Listen. Hear that dog barking? That's my dog."  Grandpa said, "that must be difficult." He said with considerable emotion, "Sure is!".  I looked toward the sound of the dog's barking and said to the inmate, " which house is yours?".  He replied with some pride, "the second house from the corner.   He looked anxiously toward his house but then returned to transporting the books with his fellow inmate.  As these men continued to make many trips back and forth with books in their arms, Grandpa watched the man closely to see how he was reacting to being so close to his home but yet so very far away.  As he was carrying the last, heavy load of books, he stayed focused on the frontyard of his house.  I immediately followed the direction of his eyes to the same scene.  A little boy, 3 or 4 years old was standing at the end of the driveway waving both of his little arms to his daddy.  The man hurried toward our building with both arms occuppied by the heavy books.  He quickly layed them down inside our building and rushed back out to look toward his son.  He, also, waved back with both arms. I said to him, " that must be your son?"  He knodded in the afirmative because he could not speak the words.  The men were finished with their work and started back toward the jail.  As the imprisoned father slowly walked away, he turned every few steps to look and wave to his son.  The little boy continued to wave after his father disappeared behind the jail door. The boy turned and slowly walked back toward his home.  This was difficult for Grandpa to watch.  I cannot imagine the pain and regret that this young father must feel as a result of his own bad decisions. 



 

This is Stan the Craig County

custodian man. He is a very

humble and quite man that

we quickly made friends with.

He agreed to let us take a picture

of him with his very unique hair

collection. If you cannot tell,

Stan's keeps his hair 1inch above

the floor. He has had this hair

this length for 17 years. He told

us that he had applied as a local

cast member for a movie that is

going to be filmed in Oklahoma.

They declined using him in fear

that he would up-stage the star

actors. It takes him almost an

hour each morning to wash,

brush, and tie his hair.

 

Bentonville Arkansas for Stake Conference


Bentonville Arkansas Steak Center

About three weeks ago, Grandma and Grandpa were sitting at PF Changs in Tulsa having dinner. Grandpa said to Grandma, "Think about this. We have been out here now for a year. We have traveled whenever the opportunity arises and we have yet to run into anyone that we know. Doesn't that seem strange? Whenever we travel other places we often run into someone we know or have known." Grandma thought for a minute, then said, "That is true." We then went on to finish the spectacular coconut/pineapple ice cream with banana egg rolls.  The next morning we traveled almost 90 miles to our stake conference in Bentonville Arkansas (WalMart Headquarters). We had a very good conference. The visiting authority was Elder Shayne Bowen who also spoke in conference on Saturday. He told about his son that had choked to death on a piece of chalk. He told the same sad and equally uplifting story at our stake conference. Well, at the conclusion of the stake conference Grandma and Grandpa walked down the packed hallway to make our way to our car. As we walked the corridor we passed one of the open doors where people were coming from the cultural hall. Grandpa made eye contact with a man coming through the doorway. We both smiled at each other as we passed. Grandpa turned to Grandma and said, "that looked like Willie Deursch, from Wellsville", Just then this man tapped me on the sholder from behind. I turned and he said, "don't I know you?" I said, "Willie Duersch, what brings you here?" It was a fun reunion. Willie and his wife, Karen raised their family in Wellsville in parallel with our family. We had lots of contact with them through church and scouting. We stood and talked for a few minutes. They were visiting their oldest son, Taylor, who is a V.P. for Marketing at WalMart Headquarters. Taylor said that until a few years ago, Sam Walton would not hire members of the LDS Church to fill senior staff positions. But now that he as a few, he wants more.


Karen and Willie Duersch, our friends of
forty years from Wellsville. 

Willie has not been well and is suffering with Parkinson's Desease. Willie looks pretty good though, wouldn't you agree?   Of Course Grandma and Karen still look great dispite their age and their companions.  Maybe it is the contrast that makes them look so good.












Evening in the Visitors Center at Independence
On our travel to Des Moines, we arranged to stop in Independence, MO to visit and stay with Grandma's cousin, Virgil Pugsley.  Virgil and his wife, Marie are serving a mission at the Visitor Centers in Independence and Liberty.  They invited us to stay in their extra bedroom.  We stayed Saturday night.  In the morning we went to church with them,  Had a nice lunch at their apartment.  We stayed again Sunday night.  Then, left for Des Moines early Monday morning.



On Sunday evening we went with

Virgil and Marie to look at some local

sites.  This cemeterywas of particular

interest to Grandma and Virgil.



This large statue of Jesus, The Christ,  is 
appropriately the center of focus of the entire
Independence Visitors Center.  We were able
to meet with a group of Elders, Sister and

investigators on Sunday night to sing hymns,
and have a closing prayer for the day.  We
were also able to watch the annual Womens
Conference in the Theater at the Visitors

Center.  Grandpa went too. The next
weekend, Grandma went to the Priesthood
session of Conference with Grandpa. 
She sat in the foyer, but was able to hear
it all, which was good. 










We Have Been Shocked by the Cold In IOWA

 



This is the view looking north from our balcony.

The first two days that we arrived in Des Moines were beautiful. On the third day we were stunned by the 34 degree temperature. It has been cold every day since. I noticed that Des Moines is about the same lattitude as Cache Valley.

 

Iowa Capitol Complex
The building that we film in is called the IOWA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY AND MUSEUM.  We have very comfortable conditions. It is a bit cold for Grandma, but anything cooler than a tropical rain forest is too cold for Grandma.  The 500 watt photo lamps will warm things up.  

There are lots of school groups that visit the museum almost daily. It is a very active place with lots of activities occurring throughout the days.  We do not get very good WiFi reception in our filming room.  To take or make a phone call we need to go out into the large interior open area of the building.  So if you call and it sound like we are inside a gymnasiam, you will know why. 



From the cafe inside the Iowa Historical Building

The building has it's own cafe on the top floor.  It has been so cold that we have not wanted to leave the building so we eat lunch in the cafe. The view is good and the food is certainly acceptable.  Good soups for the winter. We will be regulars here.  If you look closely you can see a glimps of the Iowa State Capitol Building through the window.





From outside of our building looking east
we see the Capitol




Looking west we can see downtown in the
far background.

Our Additional Mission Assignments
We were delighted to be welcomed by our new Mission President, Dirk Jergensen.  He is a cousin to Jace Jergensen of our home ward and a Councilor in the Stake Presidency.  It turns out that Jace's son Zac was an AP when President Jergensen came to Des Moines.  He said that Zac actually trained him.  Anyway,  in our first week we were invited to the Mission home for dinner twice.  This is the first time, during our mission, that we have been invited to a mission home.  It was good.  The first dinner was Tuesday night. We were there with a new sister and 9 new Elders that had just arrived that day.  We had a testimony meeting after dinner.

Sister Missionaries that we visited on Saturday. 
There apartment very well kept.  We left them
cookies and gave them a positive inspection
result.

The second dinner was Sunday night after conference.  We were there with the President and his wife, and Elder and Sister Gardner from the mission office staff, and the two Assistants to the President (Parkinson and Moser).  We had a very enjoyable evening getting to know one another.  We think President Jergensen has much higher expectations of his senior couples than either of our previous Mission Presidents. 

He has already made assignments for us to help inspect mission apartments.  We have four to do within a week.  We will give you more information on this as we get into it.  We have also been assigned to a ward which is outside the ward boundary that we live in.  President Jergensen said they need some help, but did not say more. 



In Fast and Testimony Meeting a yound Priest,
bore his testimony.  He is the only one in
his family that is a member.  He is the now the
President of his Quorum.  He told that every 
Sunday his parents hide his scripture and
do all they can to discourage him from
coming to church.  He said, " here, in this
 Church, I find answers and uplift for all of the
discouragment around me." 

On Thursday night Gladis Knight is entertaining 2,600 hundred guests.  Besides her great entertainment, she gives away her latest CD, and she asks those interested to complete a referral card to let the missionaries come to their homes.   After the preformance, we went to the mission office to help enter names into the church-wide referral system.  We were their until 12:30 am.  The referrals were in the hands of missionaries the next morning. 

President Jergensen will also interview us regularly and he has required us to be at all zone conferences.  All of this is a large change from our other mission presidents, but we are very pleased to be making an additional contribution to the work outside of our record preservation mission.  No complaints from us.  We would like to be going out with the Elders as we did in Oklahoma.  We think that will certainly happen.  We inspected four missionary apartments on Saturday.  This is good.

Grandpa's Drivers License Saga

When Wade and his family were visiting us, Grandpa realized that he did not have his drivers license.  We were at the cashiers counter paying for breakfast.  My credit card asks to "Please I.D. Me".  When I gave the cashier my card she correctly asked for my picture identification.  I handed her what I thought was my Utah driver's license.  She looked at it then looked up at me in a strange way.  I said is anything wrong.  She said this is a Concealed Firearms Permit.  I quickly took it back and tried to find my drivers license.  It was not to be found.  I ended up giving the permit back to her because it was the only photo I.D. I had.  She reluctantly took it and said, " no one has ever given me an I.D. like that before".  As we left the restaurant I frantically thought back where we had been that day and where I had used my license for I.D.. The Bass Pro Shop in Branson, Mo. was the only place I could think of.  I later called them to see if, by chance, it was there.  They had to send two people into their safe and reported no license.   I thought that there might be a chance that someone would mail the license to our home.  I waited a couple of weeks with no luck.  In the meantime, I called the DMV in Utah to asked about a replacement license.  Of course, they told me that when you loose your license out-of-state it takes 90 days to replace it along with applications, birth certificate, and SS card.  None of which are with us. They are at home in our safe.  So we tried to...  You know what?  this is going to take way too long.  Here is the shortened version. 

 

• Electronic safe combination fails.
• Sherrif's Deputy, Mike Richardson, visits home to verify safe.
• Safe company sends master combination.
• Jeffrey retrieves Soc Sec Card from safe
• Grandpa orders birth certificate from state.
• State sends application for new license to home only.
• Jessica gathers everything and sends to Iowa.
• Grandpa pulled over for speeding in a construction zone, without a driver's license!
• Grandpa recieves a warning from Oklahoma State Trooper (We and the trooper are still amazed at the outcome).

 

Today, Darren called from Trailers Plus Trailer Sales in Oklahoma City where I bought the cargo trailer on July 14th.  He asked if I wanted my drivers license mailed to my home address?  Wow.  I frighten myself.  What is going to happen to us when were are released as missionaries? 

We found a Real Deli

Finally a real deli. We happened upon this neighborhood store in south Des Moines. We went in to order and like a true deli customers are treated with a little disrespect. We were deciding what to order as a stanger walked up behind us to also place his order. I noticed that this man was a regular because the owner behind the counter pointed at him and smiled. Both men had some fun with us when they found we were new customers. The man behind the counter was John Jr and the man behind us waiting to order was Mike. Mike and John both helped us order and we kidded back with them. Mike convinced me to get a specialty sandwich that is not on the menu. I ordered it to go. As we were waiting for our food, I introduced ourselves to Mike. He seemed to be a genuine man so I told him what we were doing in Iowa. I told him we were missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and that we were here as volunteers . He was very surprised that we were in Iowa preserving historic records and that we were using our retirement years to do this. He commended us for our work and said," your church must pay for your housing?" I told him that we were here completely at our own expense. He thanked us for what we were doing. Just then John Sr. showed up and Mike introduced us


This is John Jr. one of the owners of this 5th generation neighborhood market.  His brothers and sisters were also behind the counter, all working together.

 

to him and he then told our story.  We talked to John Sr.for a while about the history of his 100 year old business.  Grandma incouraged him to commit his story to writing.  He agreed to do that.  While all of this talk was going on, John Jr. kept yelling to Mike and his dad to leave us alone. "Their food is getting cold".  We finally made our way to the seating area where Mike was finishing his sandwich.  Mike is a local radio personality.  He was just returning from his Friday broadcast.  As Mike was leaving he wrote something on the back of his business card and handed it to Grandpa.  He said, " I own the Flying Mango" a local restaurant in the City.  He told us that he wanted to treat us to a dinner at his  place.  We thanked him and exchanged warm wishes.  When we completed our meal, Grandpa walked to the cashier to pay.  She said that our ticket had already been paid by someone else.  We do not know for sure, if it was Mike or the one of the Johns who paid, but we were very grateful for the gracious treatment that we recieved.  This was a great discovery we will be back to feed the Elders here. 

 

Grandma and Grandpa talked later about our experience.  We have found that, as missionaries, whereever we go, there is some meaningful purpose for our travels, encounters, and conversations.  This part of our country has lots of attitudes about Mormons because many of their relatives are those that hated our relatives 170 years ago.  All of the national attention given to the Church because of Mitt Romney is helping.  But changing attitudes about Mormons is done one person at a time, just as the gospel is taught and accepted, own person at a time.  We are happy talking to people and influencing them one person at a time. 

 

By the way, we told this story to one of the couples in the mission office.  They said that the 'Flying Mango" has a reputation for the finest barbeque in Des Moine.  We will see. 

 

 

 

 

This guy was scratching his chin as he patiently waited for an unsuspecting fish to happen by.
 

 

HAPPY TRAILS TO YOU. UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN.

GRANDMA AND GRANDPA