And so Salt Lake We say Farwell to You

 Our mission to the Utah Salt Lake City Headquarters mission is over.  It truly has been a trip, both amazing, frustrating, hard, wonderful, spiritual, fun, and every adjective you can come up with.  Missions are amazing but the most amazing part of any mission we have served has been the wonderful people we meet and serve with.  This one has been no different, it has just been mostly over Zoom, WebEx, Google Meets, and Teams.  They have been a challenge to learn, but a blessing to keep us all connected and serving even from our homes and apartments. We had our exit interview with President Steven K Randall (Mission President) and then President Cory Ellsworth (Stake President) came to our home Thursday, November 19th at 5:30 and officially released us.  We removed our badges and now on we go to serve in other ways, but to serve.

Release letter from President Randall

Our release certificates

A new favorite picture titled: She Will Find What is Lost by Brian Kershisnik.  It represents our ancestor angels on the other side helping us to find them.

Saturday morning we got a call from DaNell (Bobs sister) who was visiting from California. Mom, Evelyn, had fallen and they were on the way to the hospital.  She broke her left collarbone right at the shoulder and is now in a sling for 6 weeks. She will be 89 in two months.  We are back to 24 hour care.  I take the nights and Bob takes the days and we will get some help from family set up soon. She is such a trooper and has always healed fast in the past.  We pray that this will happen again. This is three broken bones in three years from falls!

Evelyn with broken collarbone.  She looks miserable.

We had the tree in our front yard taken out as it was dying and such a messy tree.  Never plant an Elm with all its little leaves and seeds.  We will miss the shade, but not the mess.  It is amazing that even in trees there is "opposition in all things".

Hug-a-Tree.  Notice the smiley face :)

Henry up a tree!

Almost gone

Grinding the stump.

Totally gone in 1 1/2 hours.

Our granddaughter, Shaylin Mayhew, brought three of her friends to Mesa for a weekend of sunshine.  They are all students at BYU and three are on the cheer team with her.  We had a private show in their backyard and it was so fun and amazing to see what they do.

Shaylin and Gavin

I bought a chair at Deseret Industries for our keyboard in Salt Lake.  It was in need of a good cleaning and tender care.  I refinished it and it is as beautiful as I knew it could be when I saw it in it's sad state.  I think that chair is much like each of us, and I am so grateful that our Heavenly Father can see our potential and continues to work with me.

Almost finished beautiful oak chair.

This has been an interesting but great mission.  I am not sad it is over, but I am so glad we were called to serve in the Utah Salt Lake Headquarters Mission.  We did concerts, Music and the Spoken Word, Christmas lights, best New Years Eve Party ever, great friends, COVID 19, Temple closures, earthquakes, fires, Zoom, quarantines, isolation, WebEx, Salt Lake Temple remodeling, and some family issues, but overall it has been a great year and we are so thankful for the opportunity to complete mission #4.  Now we hope for the Mesa Temple to open and we hope to go back to serve there.

Halloween, Family Fun, Christmas Projects

 We are down to our last 9 days in our mission and it feels really strange.  It definitely been an interesting mission with COVID keeping us behind masks and working all online.  I have learned a lot of things I didn't think I would ever have to use, but now I can see the value of learning the computer, Zoom, Webex, Teams, Power Point, Sharing Screens, Family Search and everything else that came with the last year.  We had our exit interview with President Randall today, and I have to say I did shed a few tears.

Bobs Zoom attire, notice the jeans and no shoes?

This is the way of the COVID world!

I taught my last "Telling your story" class and it went well.  Bob did his last Discover, Gather, and Connect class and it was his best yet.  It is interesting how life works that way, just when you think you understand something, it is over and on to the next challenge.

Our last Zone photo. Sharon Collier, Susan and Mike Parker (zone leaders) Kari Minor, Norda Harder, Dale and Sharon Boushely, Us, Lynn Thomas, Patricia Shearer, Shaunna Robbins, Carrie and Frank Eddy, Toni Cook, Don and Janet Farnsworth, Paul and LynnAnn Farnsworth, Judith Kay, Kerrie Versluis, Julia Raines, Cindie Walker, Becky Richards, Greg and Janet Reed.  Missing John and Kathryn Rogers, and Margaret Cason.

Halloween found us at Heidi's for dinner and Trick or Treating in their driveway with a fire in the pit.  It was a very warm night, but so nice to be with family.  DaNell was here with Evelyn (Moose) for a few days, and it was good to visit with her.

Heidi and Heather my tie dye twins with a tie dye sunset.

Heather, Heidi, Bob Evelyn, Debra, DaNell Halloween 2020

Zoe with Heather dressed for Halloween

I finished the swing and it looks beautiful.  But not as beautiful as Debra sitting in it!!

Debra on the finished swing.

Bob cut me out a Nativity for Christmas and I painted it.  It was a lot of work but it is very nice.

Bob the builder, can he fix it? Yes he can!

Finished Nativity, now we wait for Christmas.

We joined with our Empty Nesters group at Tom and Connie Larsen's and had a great time.  We have watched the last two BYU Football games at there home and enjoyed cheering together.  They are still undefeated this year and are doing really well.

Valerie and David Peterson celebrated their 19th wedding anniversary on November 10.  Just the beginning of an eternity together.

Valerie and David Peterson 19 years ago.  Still going strong.

Betsy Peterson turned 14 today.  What a sweet granddaughter.  We truly have been blessed with the best kids and grandkids!

Betsy, such a fun sweet girl.

Fun, Funerals, Work, and Memories

 These past two weeks have been very busy mostly with personal things.  The mission continues to go on and we have been doing Enrichment Training.  We do Classes daily at 10 and 1 and have had 70 to 80 missionaries signed into WebEx to learn.  I have been training Sister Sharon Boushley (Bosley) to take over the emails and handouts when we finish on November 19.  She and her husband will be great assets to the mission.  

We had two funerals that we attended virtually due to COVID. Debra's nephew, Darren Jensen, lost his youngest daughter, Mariah 13, and son in law Austin Jenkins 27, in a tragic auto-semi accident in Idaho.  How grateful we are for the gospel and the knowledge that life goes on and we can be together again in eternal families.  Austin leaves two little girls 3 and 1 and a pregnant wife.  They were all in the car but three survived and two did not.  It has been such a shock to Sherry and Richard and all of us

.

How Temple Square looked when we went on our mission in 2019

How Temple Square looked when we left it the end of August.  It is good to know that it will look beautiful again.

I have been working on refinishing our porch swing and Bob has been working on THREE plumbing leaks and issues.  Luckily two have been outside with sprinkler issues and one under the kitchen sink with the RO unit.  It really is a blessing that we are at home and caught them quickly.  It could have been a real mess if they had gone on unnoticed.  

Bob's new replaced sprinkler valves in the backyard.

Debra's stripped down swing.  Still a lot of work to go.

Bob and his "man friends" went up to Strawberry for some ATV riding.  They took the Rim road and had a great day together.  It looks like our dream of land and a cabin in Heber Arizona has hit some seemingly unsurmountable problems with Navajo County zoning.  I am trying to let it go and move on.

On top of the Rim with the ATV's

Bob with two of his Men boys.

Tom Larsen, Bob, Gary Simmons, Steve Stuart, Jerry Bodine.

BYU played their first home game last night, October 24, so Shaylin got to finally cheer at a real game.  We went to Larsen's and watched on ESPN.  We did get two quick shots of the cheerleaders and got to see a quick flash of Shaylin.  Of course, she was the cutest cheerleader there. They won Texas State 52-14.  They allowed 6,000 tickets and spread them out, social distancing as it is now called.  Heather and Jacob flew up to watch her cheer, and are now back home in Mesa.  It is nice to be able to fly to such events.

Heather with Cosmo at the BYU game, cheering on the Cougars, or was it Shaylin?  

Shaylin  Mayhew at first BYU Football game.

Flyer Shaylin, high in the sky. It is hard to see her with the bright lights behind her.

When looking for newpaper articles for Family Search.  I found this of four of us Higginson kids.  It was in the Provo Daily Herald on October 30, 1961.  59 years ago,  I remember like it was yesterday.  We felt so "famous"  our pictures in the paper.  Elder Parker, our zone leader, called this morning and said it had snowed last night.  It made me think of our October snow and Marilyn MonSNOW.

Del Ray, Rosemary, Kraig, and Debra Higginson October 1961

General Conference, 10/10/2020, Winter grass, Garden, and Snowflake

 Our mission will be coming to an end in about a month, so our posts will also be coming to an end.  These past two weeks have been very busy as we did training for the  new Church Service Missionaries and the new Full Time Missionaries. Of course they are doing it all from home and we are doing it from our home.  It is really hard for us to sit in front of a computer for seven hours a day during training weeks, but the Lords work goes on, and we have some really great missionaries joining the Utah Salt Lake City Headquarters Mission. 

 A great break between the weeks was semi annual General Conference.  I look forward to them more than ever now as this world is in such commotion.  It is a good reminder that the Lord is never surprised by the goings on and is in control.  It is nice to also know that in the end the Lord wins and we are on His side.  Saturdays session was really for the world.  It was very much about loving our enemies, and obeying the laws, and how we need to unify despite our differences, and overcome racism.  All great teachings of our Savior Jesus Christ.  When we went on this mission, one of the most anticipated parts of it was to attend conference in person, but alas, both conferences have been "virtual" and on TV.  It was exciting to have announced a new temple in Lindon, Utah, my stomping grounds.  That is where I lived the first 5 years of my life.

The property we are hoping to buy in Heber is still in the air with some legal things that need to be worked out, but we are still hopeful.  We took a trip to Snowflake to visit with Valerie and Family.  They are such a cute family.  We worked on a house they are trying to finish and sell.  Bob finished up the electrical and fixed a few issues they had.  The whole gang went to dinner at Streets, a new and delicious restaurant in town.

Jay modeling a new funny hairpiece.  Thankfully it is not permanent!

Nathan Peterson dressed for work at Subway.

Aubrey, Nathan, Jay, Bob, Betsy, Debra, and Emily, October 9, 2020 Snowflake AZ

We went to our 46th Ward Sacrament meeting today and was so happy to hear Cade and Colby Ellsworth report on their missions.  Before we went on our mission we helped to drive them to their mission assignments at the Mesa ROC.  They both have Muscular Dystrophy and are in electric wheel chairs but better young men can not be found.  We love them.

We finished planting the garden and Bob scalped and planted the winter grass Thursday and it is already sprouting fine green grass blades.  The nights and mornings are starting to cool off and we can even open the house in the mornings and cool down to 68.  The days are still hitting 100 degrees but we should not have too many more of those.

Bob with new winter grass.  You can see the sprinklers going behind him.

We are watching Heidi's dog Zoe while they are on a Fall break trip with their kids.  She is a cute little dog.  

Debra with Zoe

We have enjoyed having Heather and Heidi come and do their practicing for EVMCO, East Valley Millennial Choirs and Orchestra.  It is online too but it is amazing to hear them continue to sing beautiful music.

Heather and Heidi virtual choir practice.  

Director on screen.  The twins on twin pianos!

The Heat Goes On

 It is hard to see the cooler temperatures in Salt Lake and be here in Mesa with our 100 plus degree days every day.  We are about to break a record of the most days over 100 degrees, not a record I will boast about.  It looks like they are starting to open the mission a bit and we were told today that the missionary branches in Salt Lake are going back after General Conference next week.  We continue to do our classes over Zoom or Web ex and feel quite connected even though we are 600 miles away.  Today we had our last Zoom meeting for training zone Come Follow Me.  I will really miss it and our great conversations with great gospel minded missionaries.

We planted the garden this week, and the zucchini squash is up about a foot.  I go out every morning before it gets too hot and pull my nemesis weed.....SPURGE!  

Zucchini Arizona style

The property we are wanting to buy in Heber Arizona has hit a few walls.  It seems the plot survey was never recorded with the county and so it needs to be resurveyed.  So we wait to see what will happen next, and the dream goes on.

There was an amazing sunset a few nights ago.  The sun was huge on the horizon and red from the smoke from the California fires.  I took this picture as we drove to see Moose and take them dinner.  We were in the car, hence the wires and other cars.

Another amazing Arizona sunset

Evelyn (Moose) Bob, and Warren Steffey at their apartment

We had a very fun "empty nesters" night at the church.  Lana Moore taught us exercises and how to keep healthy as we age.  Our group is getting so big we had to hold it at the church.  The Moore's provided dinner for all of us.  We love our 46th ward friends.

Such a fun group of 46th ward friends

Lana leading us old folks

Kyen Mayhew had her 15th birthday on the September 25.  How could she be getting so old?  She is our super gymnast and such a sweet young lady.  She had many parties with lots of friends.

Kyen's 15th birthday September 25, 2020

Shaylin is in Provo on the BYU cheer team but is still unable to cheer at any games so she went to Logan with a couple of the other cheer team members and did their own cheering.  She is recovered from her positive COVID test and never did get sick.

BYU won the game with Troy despite no cheerleaders.  Love those masks!

There is our flyer, Shaylin Mayhew.

The mission continues and I must say we are both kind of tired of sitting in front of computers, but this has "forced" us to learn things that I am sure will benefit us for life.  We have a busy two weeks ahead of us with training the church service missionaries this week and then training the full time missionaries the following week.  We are getting better at sharing our screens, optimizing for sound, and going between platforms, Webex, and zoom.  Some of the training zone are going into the office next week for some real in person training.  We will ever remember the words, "you are muted", "you need to unmute yourself", "please keep your sound muted", "put your questions in the chat", and many other lines never used before COVID 19.

Ruth Bader Ginsberg a Supreme Court justice died this week, and now the real fight begins between the Republicans and the Democrats as to who will replace her.  Amy Barrett has been nominated and we wait to see what will transpire next.  This has been such an ugly few months with fighting, lying, rioting, and looting.  This cartoon says it all.

So grateful for a gospel perspective and we know in the end who wins.