June has arrived!

Thought to Ponder:  Reading the conference talk, The Home: The School of Life,  by Elder Enrique R. Falabella of the Seventy I was struck by his words, "One of my wife's motttoes has been "In order to contend, you need two people, and I will never be one of them."  For some reason that thought really resonated with me.  Since we know that contention is a tool of the adversary, living by that motto seems to me a very good thing to do and I am going to truly try!

Dates to remember:
Chris and Christine celebrate 22 years together on the 7th of this month... amazing (time flies) and wonderful!
Nicholas &  Robin Burgis celebrate 8 years together on the same day!

Happenings of the week included of course my birthday and I can certainly say I received a multitude of birthday wishes, not the least of which were a goodly number of Facebook ones.  If I ever get around to really learning about Facebook and how to properly use it that will be amazing.  In the meantime, I really enjoy the little bit of staying in touch it provides me especially as I am so cut off from family and friends as we serve in the mission office.  Right after our devotional at the office we sang our birthday song to one of our missionaries who had a birthday then too, then Sister Terry brought out a birthday cake and they sang to me too.  Then she told every missionary that called me that it was my birthday and to say happy birthday to me - so, lots more birthday wishes:).  My desk is graced with beautiful flowers (from Emily and Linda) and a package of delectable treats arrived Friday evening from Christi - which I think we will share some of tomorrow at the office.  It was fun to get so many phone calls too - they were great!  And the one from the grandkids in Wyoming was really unexpected and appreciated:)! (Christine and Ammon were out of the state)  Thank you to everyone!

Sister Young brought us a leftover Costco pizza on Tuesday after their training meeting for all the new missionaries and on Thursday we decided to have a pizza party lunch all together.  That ended up not working quite as planned because the Eugene district meeting ended at about the same time and we had a dozen missionaries show up right as we were beginning.  Unfortunately we didn't really have enough to go around, so they didn't get any:(.  

Thursday afternoon we learned that one of our visa waiters would be flying out for Denmark early Monday morning.  The visa and paperwork arrived Friday so we were relieved about that.  Then, late Friday afternoon, we received a call from SLC that 3 more visa waiters would be flying out Monday morning.  Their visas were somehow being sent electronically.  Then, talking with the  APs this morning at church, it sounds like a 5th missionary is leaving at the same time.  This one injured his knee playing football on  Pday - and now has surgery and several months of recovery ahead of him.  That is sad.  

Yesterday (Saturday) Dad helped rescue me by giving up most of his Saturday to help me get the supply orders into boxes for each of the 15 zones.  He was not favorably impressed with how heavy the boxes were...but now he knows a little more about what I do:).  I usually try to get the boxes filled a few at a time and then have someone help move them to the shelves, but the week had been so busy with just referrals and mail that I had not been able to get any done.  Very grateful for the help - and very tired at the end of the day.

Today was a nice day at church; I love the ward we are in and feel so blessed to have been placed here.
I have no pictures, so this will be a much less time consuming blog:).

Family News:  I will try to remember a little, but know I will forget much.  
Jim Jr. and family did the Carry the Load walk/run, which most of us have seen on the Facebook posts - so proud of them and their efforts.  I know they are planning a vacation - to North Carolina? - this month; I know I wrote the dates down somewhere, but have lost them.  Congrats again to Jeanie on her weight loss and her great physical condition!

Monday morning Chris received a surprise call to go help evacuate the town of Burlington because of a tornado warning and one touching down outside of Cody.  All turned out well, the tornado bypassed them and they were able to do their Memorial Day plans for the afternoon.  Tuesday Christi and Ammon went to Salt Lake City for medical appointments for Ammon.  They were able to connect with Mary one night I think and got to watch her aerial class (?). 

Mary was flying out the next morning very early for Indianapolis for a grand opening of another Sub  Zero store.  I talked to her on Wednesday night I think and was happy to know she had made it safely...with all the tornado warnings out there it does make me worry a little.  She was impressed with the store and how they had set it up so I hope all ended well.  Haven't heard any more since.

Charlotte shared a bunch of stuff...but I didn't write it down:( and now I cannot remember anything.  I will have to catch up on her next time.  She did sound healthy again and Seth is healthy again so that is good.  I know they offered her the chance to go full time on her drawings for the video games... but she came to a compromise and can do full time if and when she wants to.  Good work Charlotte!

Emily posted a very cute picture of Rose for her 3 month birthday and an awesome picture of Adam and Eli "chilling out."  Seems she had Eli with her for many hours that day in the car so he had not had a nap nor opportunity to work out his boundless energy...so Adam was taking care of that outside:)!

Steve shared that he and Holly are planning a vacation down to Florida - it might even be this week, I can't remember for sure. Sounds like fun and a good thing to do after a hard year of teaching school for Holly.  Apparently there are some management changes in the works at Steve's place of work - but he said he will miss them.

That is about all I can think of for right now, so I think I will call it quits!  You can e-mail me news anytime...then I cannot forget it!