We had a fantastic week. . . . It started on Sunday as we attended 2nd ward correlation meeting at 7:30 before church at 9:00.  I love to attend these meetings and help plan the activities that are taking place in the ward and to talk about what we can all do to help the members of our ward in their daily lives. Sister Brown was exhausted and didn't feel up to attending church, so she went home and rested.
      Monday is the day we plan our weeks activities and call sisters to set up appointments. We knew that we wanted to concentrate on visiting as many sisters as possible since we didn't get to visit last week. We made 13 phone calls and were so excited to make 9 appointments for visits including 2 dinner visits and one lunch visit..
      Tuesday we attended the funeral of Virginia Redding who passed away from breast cancer.  She was in the 1st ward and her daughter Tammy lives in 2nd ward and we are her visiting teachers.. We had been calling Tammy for several months trying to set up an appointment to visit with her, so we were so happy to finally meet her and talk to her.  We asked if we could come visit her and she said she would be happy to have us come over. 
      After the funeral we had lunch at Panera and then went to our appointment to have our hair cut.  We just love the girls at the salon and feel so lucky to have found the perfect place.

 Megan

Amber

     That evening we went to dinner at Lyn's home.  She is such a special lady and it was really nice to spend the evening with her. We want to support her not only at church but in the community activities she participates in also, like the Renaissance Festival.  She lives on an acre lot and is bordered in the back by woods.. she is in the community garden care group and wants her yard to be perfect and gets so upset with the various critters that come into her yard and eat the things she plants.. so she has a pellet gun and shoots those troublesome squirrels and deer and rabbits.. she said the deer just jump and run off.  Those left behind are carried off by the red hawks and the opossums.. to look at her you would never think she was "Annie Oakley"..

 Lyn's beautiful home

 Lyn & me

The back yard where the critters better watch out!

     Wednesday we along with Kathleen headed to the temple.. When I was at one assignment I met a sister who was coming back to the temple after 10 years.. It was so wonderful, to see the smile on her face and the joy she had as she served in the temple.  We also work with a husband and wife who bring their son Bill who is 29 and has downs syndrome to the temple each week. He has the sweetest spirit as he works in his various assignments each week.  I was talking to him and to his mom at the end of our shift and he told me his birthday was next week and he would be 30 and then we need to call him William not Bill because he will be all grown up.. and that he is suppose to get married when he is 30.. his mom said last year he said he was suppose to be dating when he was 29, and that hasn't happened.. so she hopes he forgets the marriage idea also.

      On Thursday we started out at Linda's home, she finally let us come back over for a visit.. She is the sister that we helped decorate her house for Christmas and we have been trying to get back over for a visit and she wouldn't even talk about it until this last Sunday and she asked if we could come over on Thursday.  When we arrived she was watching her soap opera and wouldn't turn it off.  She said if we wanted to visit we had to watch that with her.. so we waited about 15 minutes to talk when it was over.. but we did get in to see her.. so that's a positive..  
     After our visit with Linda we were off on a little drive to visit Elaine and her daughter Heather.. We couldn't get the address to come up on our GPS.. we knew kind of where she lived so we headed out and got to their road the Dr. Mudd House Road, (this is the road that Doctor Samuel Mudd's house is on. His (family retains much of the original ambiance. You can see the red settee upon which John Wilkes Booth rested while Dr. Mudd examined his broken leg, and the bedroom in which John slept before he fled the authorities). We arrived at Heathers house & her mom and dad had gone to Fredericksburg and so we just got to visit with Heather & had a nice visit with her and her children. She home schools the 4 older ones and has a little boy 3 1/2 also.
      Thursday evening we were invited to dinner at Kathleen's home, as a thank you for taking her to the temple each week.  They live out a ways and it was like driving around Flagstaff in a way.. Just before we turned on to their road we saw 9 deer standing in a yard just looking at us.  We had a wonderful dinner and then spent some time talking afterwards.. Kathleen's 92 year old mother-in-law Mattie lives with them and she is suffering from Alzheimer's. She was so fun to talk to.. she would say something and laugh and laugh and we laughed too.. It was like watching a comedy show as she interacted with her grandson.. She was so sweet and we loved being with their family.. can't wait to go again..
       Friday we had made an appointment to go out to Pat's house, we had been trying to get down there for a long time and finally we were going.. They live on the Patuxent river waterfront 35 miles down the road from us .. She invited us to lunch and had a delicious spread laid out for us. Pat is 80 years old and became a widow in 2001 and remarried in 2003.. She has lived in her little Amish home since 1977. After lunch we went down to the beach and spent about an hour and a half just relaxing and taking in the sunshine and enjoying the beautiful view.   Pat is a very talented painter. She has over 200 commissioned works of art.  She also plays the piano beautifully and leads the music at church. She has the energy of a woman half her age and is always on the go.

 Pat's beautiful art work.. She is truly talented

 Lunch

 Pat and I standing on the dock, the Chesapeake in the background

The beachfront, so beautiful

     After Pat's we drove a short distance to Tanya's.. What a fun time we had visiting with her.. She and her husband Todd have one daughter, he works for the Government in the US Census Dept. Tanya is very talented musically. She and Todd met at the MTC and both served in the Swiss mission.  They reconnected about a year after Tanya got home at BYU and have been together ever since.  While we were there the heavens opened and we had a torrential rain storm with lightening and thunder.  It lasted about an hour and then the sun came out again..

     On our way home we stopped at Dorothy's.. she is the grandmother who is raising her two grandsons and her 29 year old son who suffers from severe autism. She has so much on her plate, but is doing a fantastic job.. her grandsons are so great, the oldest grandson  Jahari is a straight A student, he plays the piano, the violin, and the clarinet. He is on the safety patrol at school.  Her youngest grandson Jaden is in pre-K and so cute.. We do love to visit them and check up on Dorothy, to make sure she is doing well. Since they live right in our neighborhood we can check on her often.
      Saturday, was our day off and we did things around our apartment and then went to the Saturday evening meeting of stake conference.  We were privileged to hear from all three members of our stake presidency..  I loved this thought that was shared " If you feel like you are drowning remember your life saver walks on water".. As I sat there in the stake center I had the warmest feeling that this was where I was suppose to be at this time in my life.  It was so much fun to see so many people that I knew.. It really feels like home. We also talked to Stake President Sakai and he told us how happy he was with our success in our mission and that he wants to utilize us in the entire stake.. not just in our 2 wards.. so we are excited to know what new things we will be doing.   
     Sunday was our regional televised stake conference.. I love to hear the words of counsel from our general authorities, and feel their love and devotion to the Lord.  It was so neat to think that Kelly was listening to the same talks as me.. It was an East coast conference.. Richard G. Scott was the presiding authority. Sister Allred from the general RS presidency & Presiding Bishop Burton & Elder Paul Pieper also spoke.  These are a couple of the thoughts from the conference that I want to share.  "The quality of your future depends on you not on the world around you" &  "Your I Will is more important than your IQ". 
     Two of our good friends were given new callings in the stake.  Bonnie Ramon is the RS President and Becky Nichols is a counselor in the Young Women. 
     This evening we were invited over to Gary & Rebekah Greismeyer's for dinner.. We love to go to their house and spend time with them and their cute family.

 "We can ask ourselves, “Am I committing my time and energies to the things that matter most?” There are so many good things to do, but we can’t do all of them. Our Heavenly Father is most pleased when we sacrifice something good for something far greater with an eternal perspective."
--President Dieter F. Uchtdorf