Grateful for Mission Member Texters

October - November 2015

        It is so nice to have "texted" messages with pictures of our missionary from Members in Elder Bailey's Mission.  Here are a few from this month.

Transfer to the Morrison Ranch area where the Gilchrist family snapped this picture while the Elders were
at the Ward Halloween Party.  Sister Gilchrist says that they have 51% LDS membership in their ward area.

         We learned that Elder Bailey is now the District Leader with this transfer.

Sister Marble was transporting the Elders to go sing in a Musical Number somewhere.

Elders with Bishop Marble and his family.

Ripped Pants

October 26th, 2015

Dear Elder Bailey,

So sorry to hear about your ripped pants.  Someday, I would like to hear the colorful story that goes along with that situation.  In the mean time, did you get them repaired or do they need to be replaced?  Do I need to send some more pants?

We will be back from seeing Carolyn at Christmas break in plenty of time to plan to meet Elder LeGrand.  I hope you will tell him that we would like to make arrangements to come to meet him.  You can give him my cell phone number to call me.  

Hope you got to start teaching Caylynn.  I also hope the ward and her Grandparents come through to help get her and the others to Church.

We went with Katelyn and Matthew's families to get some family pictures taken on Saturday.  We had rescheduled from last Saturday when it was raining buckets.  The only time we had was early in the morning.  We have been so accustomed to warm summer like temperatures, it was a rude awakening, literally, to go up American Fork Canyon at daybreak in chilly 39 degree weather.  The children's noses were red and their lips were blue.  While the light was beautiful, I think we got some nice pics.  It finally warmed up when the sun came over the mountain, but that made harsher light.  We won't know how they pictures turned out until the proofs come back in three weeks.  We will probably send you some for Christmas.

We came home over the Alpine Loop.  Most of the fall color is gone.  There was a little bit of snow at the top of Timpanogos.  But I thought the white bark of the Aspen Trees was very interesting in the morning light.

Beautiful Aspen Trees

Alpine Loop view of top of Timpanogos

Dad has been busy creating a new backboard

for the basketball hoop in the backyard.  
He got a new sprayer that has a very controlled, 
fine spray with not a lot of over spray.  Soon he 
will be ready to mount it in the refurbished post.

Please tell us how the Transfers went.  We would love to know where you are and what you are doing.  Do you have a new companion?  Are you a Trainer again?  Are you in a new area?

Well, life is very busy for us.  Dad has a lot of projects and work going on constantly.  He still tries to go running and swimming and sometimes hiking with Uncle Bob.  I have my little plays and classes at Provost school to keep me occupied.  "Mary Poppins" is also taking up our time helping Grace and Barbara with vocal coaching, costume sewing, and prop creating. Three weeks to go.  Whew!

Well, I hope you have a pleasant week.  Let me know if I need to send you new pants.  

Love you,  Mom

From Elder Bailey:

I’m getting transferred, but I’m leaving the area on a high note.  Yesterday was full of miracles.  We has Liz and Aldo come to church.  Liz had never come to church before and Aldo is a less active.  Then Joe Brown came to church as well.  His parents are inactive and divorced.  His returned missionary brother drove him down from Scottsdale.  He came to the other ward we cover (it was the wrong ward but he came).  And then Ashley Flynn got permission to be baptized before age 18.  She will be baptized in December.  She is praying for a date.  We taught the Cannon family.  He’s a member, but she is not and wants to know if it is true for herself.  She comes to church every Sunday and we invited her to be baptized on the 28th of November.  She said she would pray about it.  Today we will invite Caylynn to be baptized on Dec 12^th.  They will try and put Joe Brown on date on Wednesday, but I wont be here for that. And also, another Ashley that Elder Legrand and I reactivated is leaving on her mission on Wednesday to Macon, Georgia.

I don't need new pants.  Sis. Law sewed them up stat.  And the Marbles’ are moving to Riverton, Utah in December.  So you can meet a family from my mission.

Fun Family Dinner

October 18^th, 2015

Dear Elder Bailey,

Today we celebrated Iris Cochrane's 1st Birthday.  We invited everyone to come to our house for baby back ribs and pot luck.  Kathleen decorated a special area with pink and white and gold decorations --- a little over the top but very fun for the little birthday girl.  We also celebrated Greg's and Emilie's birthdays, but they did not mind being little pink princesses complete with sparkly pink tiaras.  It was fun.

Our little one year olds are getting so big now.  Most of them can walk now, except for Iris and Zak.  But they are getting close.

Yesterday, Katelyn arranged for a photographer friend of hers to take some family pictures.  Dad and I, and Matt and Ruth were set to join Katelyn's family for the photo shoot, but it started raining as we were headed to the outdoor appointment.  The photographer called and cancelled.  That left us all dressed up with nowhere to go. So we decided to all go out for dinner.  We went into the restaurant looking quite good.  But the little kids came out of the restaurant wearing their food.  We will try again for the photo shoot next Saturday.

Both BYU and the U of U won their games this weekend.  Hard fought games.  Bronson Kafusi was a big play maker in the BYU game.  I think he sacked the Quarterback 5 times or something unreal like that.  Dad said that Britton Covey is quite the play maker as well for the Utes. 

I am so glad that you got to attend that girl's first time through the Temple with Elder LeGrand.  So wonderful to be reunited with wonderful friends.  We would love to be able to meet him.  We will be gone at Christmas for about 6 days visiting Carolyn's family Dec. 23-28th.  Would that still give us an opportunity to visit Elder LeGrand? Came and Greg will be out visiting Kathryn's family in Pennsylvania. Don't know if anyone else would be available to go to Toelle to meet him.  But we would like to make the effort.

Have a wonderful week.

Love, Mom

---From Elder Bailey:

I ripped my pants real bad at the Marble’s house last night.  It was very funny.  This week was good.  We are going to start teaching an over aged youth that is almost 9 and we will start teaching her hopefully tonight.  The over aged youth girl’s name is Caylynn and she came to Church with her grandma yesterday which was awesome.  Elder Legrand will land in Utah on the 30th of December, so I think you will be able to meet him.  Transfers are next week, so that was fast.  My trainer goes home on Tuesday.  I am very sad about that.

I Am a Utah Man, Sir

October 12^th, 2015

Dear Elder Bailey,

We were so glad to hear that you had a good week.  Hopefully the ward will step up their efforts to help those kids come to Church more often.  That's how your dad got to go to Church throughout his youth.  He had a wonderful home teacher that made sure he had rides.  And how interesting that Elder Anderson related the story of your friend in his Conference Talk.  It will be good to reread that talk when it comes out in the Ensign next month.  General Conference was wonderful, but it seems so long ago now because last week was so incredibly busy.

One crazy thing that happened last week I think you will be able to relate to.  I looked at my email last Thursday and found out that we had to get to choir practice early so that we could get dressed in costume for something special that night.  So we quickly contacted everybody in the carpool so that we could meet up earlier.  When we got into the loft, we were told we had to quickly learn the University of Utah college fight song, "I Am a Utah Man..."  Already that rubbed the BYU Alumni the wrong way.  But we learned that ESPN was going to film us singing that song for the opening of their College Game Day show for Saturday that was broadcasting from Salt Lake City, well the U of U campus.  The Utes are ranked 5th in the country at 6-0 right now.  Anyway, the choir did their duty, but it left a bad taste in the mouths of some of us.  At the end of the filming session, Mack asked if anybody had known that song previously.  A handful of people raised their hands (Utes probably).  After that he asked if anybody had gone to BYU.  Then clearly three-fourths of the choir raised their hands.  He said, "Well, don't worry.  Your turn will come around again sometime.  It has happened before."  Fortunately both BYU and the U won their games over the weekend.

Though you might get a kick out of some of these photos.  Isabelle with a hole in her smile.  Unfortunately that hole will be there for a long time.  She shouldn't lose her top front teeth for another couple of years.

Here is Zakarian.  Almost one year old and already a hunk. I think he will be the tallest of our crop of One-Year Olds.  Hope he keeps his blue eyes.

Here is a shot of going over the Alpine Loop.  That is fresh snow up there.  You wouldn't know it was Fall from looking at the front of Timpanogogs.  It is just dull grey and brown.  But there is hope of getting more snow to dress it up this Winter.

Well, we hope you have another good week.  We are praying for you and your companions and your investigators.      Love you, Mom

---From Elder Bailey:

This week was slow but some cool stuff happened.  A girl that Elder Legrand and I reactivated received her endowment and that was really special.  Then Elder Legrand and I walked across the street from the Temple to the Shumway’s house and when we knocked on the door they said "we were just talking about you" and invited us in.  They fed us Bro. Shumway’s BBQ, and we had a grand old time waiting for our rides.  It felt good to be in the company of old friends and have good food.  Neither of us had eaten since breakfast and it was 8 pm.  Elder Legrand doesn't have much time left.  He goes home on December 30^th.  Before he goes to France he will go to Utah and visit with his sister for a week or 2.  He will be in Tooele and I want you to meet him if you can (or send Cami or Matthew or someone to meet him.  I will get you more info).

P.S. And Zak look’s exactly like Michael!