Spring, Spring, Spring

It is so beautiful here. Spring has arrived. These yellow bushes behind me are across the street from our home and are just beautiful. In just one day you can see green on a great many of the trees. We looked out the temple window yesterday and the trees along the walk had green buds on them. It is exactly one year ago this week that we arrived in Palmyra. I wore the same peach jacket to church and they had the same YW Sacrament program. It's is hard to believe 12 months have gone by. We are so excited to meet the new missionaries. They have all arrived. Paul has been the official greeter. He has talked to all of them by phone before they left and has kept tabs on them as they have traveled across country. The whole temple district is excited to have them here. Today we have invited three couples for dinner so we can get better acquainted. We look forward to a wonderful summer and fall.

I did not get a blog written last week. We had a wonderful visit from our dear friends, Gene & LaRay Figueroa and John and Garni Tarazon from Oxnard, CA. It felt so good to see friends from home. There were in the area for a week. They first went to Niagara Falls then over to Kirtland. Here in Palmyra, Gene met up with a air force friend from 30 years ago. Mark and his daughter Chody went to all the church sites with them. We had a great time here in Palmyra.

We took them to the Joseph Smith, Prophet of the Restoration movie at the Hill Visitor Center.

We drove out to the Martin Harris farm and visited the Smith farm. They attended the temple with us, drove out to the Peter Whitmer Farm and saw just about everything there is to see.

It was hard to say good bye, we had such a good time.

Today Paul and I attended the Brockport Ward east of Rochester. Bro. and Sis. Zollweg serve in the temple twice a week with us and Sis. Zollweg was to give a talk in Sacrament meeting today to inspire the ward to do family history and attend the temple. She asked Paul to deliver her talk and add a few words of his own. He was happy to do so. Can't think of a better topic for him.

Sister Payne was serving in the Brockport Ward. It was great to see her. She is being transferred back to the sites on Tuesday. She is a wonderful missionary.

It has been a great couple of weeks. We have been very busy at the temple. Spring has brought people back to the temple. We have had several weddings and lots of youth baptisms. Saturday Paul and I served in the baptistry all day, we had three sessions. The Crookstons came for a session in the morning so we snagged them to help us in the baptistry in the afternoon. Elder and Sister Yancey and Hullingers also helped. Next Thursday we are having 120 youth from Brooklyn, NY and the missionaries will handle three of the sessions so we needed to train a few more people.

The Bishop Storehouse was also busy since it was closed over conference so there was lots to do. Sister Siebach and I went to visit Sister Beaver. Her husband recently passed away and they have lived in the area for a number of years and have been very active in the church here. They live in the stone house that was the school house Oliver Cowdery taught in on Stafford Rd. Really a cute place.

Have a great week. Can't wait to tell you all about our new missionaries and the fun we are having.