Whew!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi Everybody,

We're trying to decide whether or not to write this e-mail or go to bed (it's 7:02 p.m.)!  We've had an insane week and even insaner (is that a word?) weekend.  But it's all good and we were blessed to have the physical energy and good humor to do it all with a smile on our faces all (most?) of the time.  How about that!!  But first, it's almost time to come home for a few days for Jordon and Jen's wedding and we're excited about it all.  We have to be careful not to be excited in front of the Elders though because they're missing out on important family events and can't come home.  But as we said before President Wirthlin encouraged us to come.  He and his wife are amazing people and the missionaries love them....and especially a cool picture of them at some function in their little fake sports car and sun glasses.  The mission office is loosing their two office couples this summer....missions finished....and only have one couple coming to take their place....and they're busy nonstop as it is.  So if you know of any old people who need a great experience.............   My word, before we know it, Carlee and Cade will be missionaries too!!  It blows our minds to think about it.  If you know of anybody else who are "old" and want to serve in The Dakotas or Minnesota tell them to go!  Or anywhere else.  We love our young missionaries and they make us better people and motivate us to work harder.

Although we don't think we could work any harder than we have these last few days!  Last week we visited Seminaries to promote Institute.  That meant getting up at 4:00 a.m. so we could be on the road by 5:00 so we could be to the places we needed to be by 6:15 or 6:30.  Then we'd come home and do our regular daily activities.  Luckily we had our great Institute president go with us....Kristy Parkinson....who kept us awake and told us where to go when our GPA didn't know where IT was going.  And who suggested we go out for breakfast after Seminary each morning!! We'll miss Kristy at the end of the summer as she is finished with her graduate degree here and on to bigger and better things.  As an aside , we saw Kristie last as a little girl back when her brother, Dula, ran CC at MVHS with some of you.  Tomorrow she's taking the YSA (and us by extension) on a cemetery tour for Memorial Day.  We have old cemeteries here that have the graves of soldiers from the Revolutionary War resting next to some who've died recently in the Middle East....side by side.  So this coming up week, we finish up our Seminary visits.  These kids that go to early morning seminary are GREAT!!   Although some of them don't wake up until half way through class.  We had our Goth young man, Brian, come back to our Institute class in Owego and he was engaged in the lesson and participated and everybody was so kind to him and we sent him home (a homeless shelter I think) with all the left over treats. of which I make way too many.   And this week we learned an awesome way to make s'mores. from the YSA.  You take long skinny bread and slice it and toast one side and then put your toasted marshmallow on it with the chocolate square and a sliced strawberry.  Delish!!!! 

But the highlight of our week was the weekend.  We spent it in Palmyra helping with a multi-region YSA Conference.  What a wonderfully exhausting experience!!  We went down (oops up) Friday morning so we could do a temple session at the beautiful Palmyra Temple.  It's small but absolutely beautiful and overlooks the Sacred Grove.  In fact, there's a special window as you walk passed the recommend desk in sort of a little alcove where the glass is clear and you can actually look out on the Grove.  So we walked in and the first people we met were Dwayne and Dahnelle Smith!  We had to stop and think for a second "wait! where are we?!"  They've been there for a month serving a temple mission and it was so great to see faces from "home."  We were asked to be the witness couple which was a special experience.  Then after that we changed our clothes and started to WORK!!  The Conference was held at the Church History sites there by the Temple and at the Stake Center near the temple and the Smith property and at Zion's Camp at Hill Cumorah.  We along with two couples and three other sets of senior missionaries and the CES supervisors prepared and served food and cleaned up and chaperoned around 200 young people from the participating regions including a large group from Canada.  It included an amazing 7:00 a.m. morning devotional in the Sacred Grove which is incredibly beautiful and green at this time of the year, workshops (which we didn't go to because we were doing food) a evening fireside, keynote speaker ( a man who teaches politicians and anybody else who needs his help how to communicate....and who also was a YSA branch president and a bishop in the ward in Washington who had Senator Reid and Orrin Hatch at the same time!) which we did go to, a talent show, service projects, a dance(which we helped chaperone and finished cleaning up after at nearly 1:00 a.m.) and this morning a 2 hour sacrament meeting where the mission president of the Rochester Mission spoke and some of the young adults gave testimonies.  There was some free time too and we spent most of it just walking around the Sacred Grove and at Hill Cumorah.  We wished you all could have been there with us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Then on the way home, we stopped at the Peter Whitmer farm and had a wonderful tour by a Sister Missionary who was sooo good and who we discovered,at the end of our tour, is Mike and Rebecca Pinegar's niece.  It's always a small world in the Church.  The other CES coordinator is Brother Gammon....a nephew of the Gammons in Vineyard and a grandchild of the Rowleys in Orem.  While in Palmyra we stayed at a wonderful little place called the Palmyra Inn which is within walking distance of the Grove and the Stake Center and the Temple and the Smith Family farm sites.  So....we booked a night in July to stay there the night we go to the Hill Cumorah Pageant.  So.....everybody decide when you want to come next summer and see the Pageant and we'll get a couple of family suites and stay over night and see all the other sites (Smile!  We'll take whoever we can get!).  They start taking reservations on February 1st of next year.

So....we're home now and Dad's asleep on the couch!  We're thinking that this is the last week of school and everybody is doing the last programs and concerts and we'll miss graduation and dang!!  But when we were in Palmyra we walked early this morning (had the Grove to ourselves) and as we came out you walk up to the Smith farm house and you look at this wonderful 2 story frame home that Alvin Smith built for his parents and brothers and sisters so they could move out of the little teeny tiny cabin they'd been living in and then read that they only got to live in the house for a few months and then they lost the farm and had to move back to the little cabin and there's a plaque explaining all this and then a quote from Lucy Mack Smith which I have to find it so we can tell you the exact wording where she says that she just doesn't look back....and we know we're where Heavenly Father wants us to be at this time in our lives.  We love you all and are so glad that you're making such good choices that will let us be together forever and ever!!

XO  Dad and Mom/Grandpa and Grandma

P.S.  We'll send pictures of the Grove