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.

Home, Heber, Hurricanes, and Much Needed Help

 The week of August 31- September 4 we had 14 Church Service Missionaries go through our week of training.  It went smoothly but we found it was super busy as the enrichment classes were also going.  It was back and forth between the classes to get the emails and handouts sent.  We survived that week.  We fed our cute Sister Missionaries on Wednesday night in our home.  They just were released to go into homes for dinner this week, and it was so fun for them and for us to visit and share our testimonies and experiences.  One of them was here from Australia after being reassigned due to COVID.  Both of them have the same release date as we do, November 19.

Bob and I drove to Heber, Arizona on Friday the 4th after the go forth meeting to check out some other property.  The one we had our eye on and wanted was sold out from under us the very day we called to put in our offer.  This one is not far from the other lot and is beautiful, so now we wait to see if we can get this one.  We have gone back and forth so many times, I don't know whether to be excited or disappointed.  They had a huge fire with thousands of acres burned on the way to Payson in July.  The road was closed down to one lane as all the guard rail was burned and they were busy fixing it.  It was so sad to see so much destruction and burned trees and saguaro cactus.  There are so many fires in the West this year it is insane.

The burned mountain, saguaros, and guard rail posts along the Beeline highway 87

More of the guardrail on the ground as all the posts had burned away.

Monday was Labor Day so we had no classes.  Bob put up a 20 foot flag pole with a solar light for the nighttime.  It is beautiful and so great to see the Stars and Strips flying on high.

Our beautiful new flagpole.

Tuesday September 8-10 we were training 17 full time missionaries.  Most are still at home but their missions have begun just as ours is, online.  On top of the craziness of virtual missions and training, Salt Lake and northern Utah had hurricane force winds of 70-100 miles per hour.  It knocked out power and the internet to most of the training zone missionaries, some for 5 days, so we were scrambling to get substitute teachers and shuffle the classes to meet the teachers who had power.  With the Lords help we pulled it off.  Our Zone Leader Elder Parker did not get power back until Friday.  Not only no power but it turned very cold so they were bundling up to keep warm. No problem like that here in Arizona as we are still having triple digit temperatures. Bob had to be the host for a couple of days, and he did well.  Many of the new missionaries were still at home and had the internet, so we carried on the best we could.  We have amazing missionaries in the training zone and the ones who could were VERY busy trying to keep enrichment and new missionary training going.  Bob and I were assigned to be the mentors for Elder and Sister Boushley from Peoria Arizona.  They are actually living in the Brigham Apartments in Salt Lake so they also lost their power.  They took to their car and did Tuesday that way and then got power back on Wednesday.  They are amazing and we were so happy when they were assigned to serve in the training zone.  They are going to be amazing and are so fun and knowledgeable.  We learned from President Randall that we have 846 missionaries in the Utah Salt Lake City Headquarters mission.  268 are full time missionaries, and 578 are Church Service Missionaries.  These numbers are not down as far as I had expected.  We had close to 1,200 when we came in December, and many had gone home, and not been replaced.

After the Go Forth Meeting on Friday, Heather, Heidi and I went to Heber to meet Valerie for lunch at Casa Ramos, our favorite place to eat up there. September 11 is a special day for our family as it is Valerie's birthday, and this year she is 39.  We girls went tromping around the lot that we are hoping to buy, and met with Jay a contractor who may be helping us with the build if we go forward with that plan.

Debra, Valerie, Heidi and Heather at Casa Ramos in Heber, Arizona

Happy Birthday my sweet 39 year old baby, Valerie.

Saturday Heather, Heidi, and Kyen came and helped us paint the family room.  Bob and I are just getting "big and old" and we sure appreciated the help from our girls.  We are painting the whole interior and it is a big job.  We will continue to chip away each week, and hope to have it done by the end of the month.  A fresh coat of paint makes a big difference.  It is interesting to work an hour here and there between mission and sleep, but it is happening.

Our master painters, Heather, Kyen, and Heidi.

We surly are living in interesting times and as we study the Book of Mormon it is easy to see how it truly is a book for our time. We had our family zoom meeting and it is so good to see the family, even our college kids.

Family time by way of zoom.