Greetings from Brampton, Ontario.  The photos above are of the Mission sign on the door, foyer, Mike's office and my office.  We are learning so much and are on a bit of brain overload right now.  Our mission president and his wife, President and Sister Shields, are kind, gentle, funny, and so great to work with.  There are a total of three couples serving in the office.  Elder Wolfley looks after the housing and finances for all of the missionaries.  Sister Wolfley is the receptionist and looks after referrals, convert baptisms and supplies.  Elder Cannon is the medical specialist and Sister Cannon is his assistant.  Elder Swendsen is the vehicle co-coordinator, and has a lot to do.  He gets calls from the missionaries all day, every day.  Sister Swendsen is in charge of arrivals, transfers and departures of all of the missionaries.  Elder and Sister Youngberg have been doing our jobs since September and have been training us.  They have been a big help.  They will be returning to their assignments fairly soon.

It has been so great to work with these wonderful senior missionaries.  We have had a few socials so far and have met some of the other couples in the mission. The young elders and sisters are fabulous.  They all have a great spirit about them and so much enthusiasm.

Yesterday afternoon and evening, there was a bit of a snow storm - called an Alberta Clipper here.  It wasn't so bad.  The big difference is that the snow freezes on your car.  Everywhere we went (shopping and dinner), when you left, you were told "drive carefully".  There wasn't even that much snow.  They do have amazing tractors with huge/wide bins that scrape and clear the snow away very quickly.

We are having great fun trying to find our way around here.  The streets do not run north/south and east/west.  Queen Street is one of the main streets in town.  The fun thing is that when a street intersects with Queen Street, it changes name on the other side.  You can't cross the Queen.  We are so grateful for our GPS.  Mike went out and bought a second one as he often has to drive a mission vehicle.

This week, President Shields assigned us to attend the Heart Lake Ward.  This is a family ward and they meet in the Brampton Stake Centre which is right beside the temple.  It is about 10 minutes away.

Well, we have traveled and been in lots of new states.  We left Iowa this morning and went through, Illinois, Indiana, and are now just east of Cleveland, Ohio in Painesville.  Since Friday - Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio.  Tomorrow - Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Ontario.  In Illinois, this morning, we saw a half ton truck with Alberta licence plates.  Haven't seen those plates in a long time, except on our car, of course.  In Indiana, we went through Elkhart, the home of the Charles Walter Piano Company.  Mike used to be the dealer for them in Calgary.  We have one of their pianos in our home.  We will stop in Niagara Falls tomorrow to look around and take some pictures.  We should be in Brampton, tomorrow afternoon - Our new "Home Sweet Home."  We are ready to be in our new home.

Winter Quarters

We arrived in Omaha, Nebraska - Winter Quarters, on Saturday afternoon.  After a super dinner at Mouth of the South (spicy southern cooking), we went to the Visitor's Center and drove around the temple.  The Visitor's Center has a marvelous 15 minute video about the pioneers.  The temple is so beautiful.  The doors appear to be golden.  Today we went to Church in Papillion (part of Omaha).  We then had a short visit with a couple (Elder and Sister Hunsaker) we trained with in the MTC.  He was our district leader for the first week and Winter Quarters is their assignment.  Then we resumed our trek east.  It was interesting to think of the pioneers travelling west in the same area that we are travelling east.  We are in Davenport, Iowa tonight.  We had dinner at an amazing place - Machine Shed Restaurant.  http://www.machineshed.com/  The food is so good.  The United States has sure been very windy since we hit Wyoming, three days ago.

We Have Left the MTC

It is official - we have left the MTC.  This the door hanger than you hang outside your door once you have loaded up all of your stuff.  We drove through Wyoming today and are staying is Sidney, Nebraska.  Wyoming was something very different.  The landscape was very different, yet beautiful.  We felt like we were in the Wild West.  We went through Fort Bridge (no Rendezvous), Laramie, and Cheyenne.  Lots of roads and shops were named Maverick, Bonanza and even Outlaw.  We saw the sunset of 360 degrees.  There were colors everywhere.  We had sun, blue skies and dry roads.  We also had a lot of 40+ mph winds and a lot of blowing snow.  I had the fun job of driving through most of that while Mike snoozed.  Tomorrow, we will get to Omaha and visit Winter Quarters.  Our first District Leader and his wife got there two days ago to serve there.

Week Two District

This is our Week two District.  All of us are going to mission offices around the world with various assignments.  We had super instructors who were very patient with helping us old fogies learn computer skills.  The young girl in the middle is Sister Stratton, an instructor.  It was another week of brain overload.  I was very glad that I did have some computer skills, but very glad to learn some new tricks with Outlook, Excel and Word.  The program we all had to learn for the missionary stuff is called IMOS.  It sure can do a lot of things.

Weekend of Rest

Saturday was a day of sleep for me.  Mike read and watched some videos. Saturday night, we went to dinner with Bob and Larilyn Dang at Cafe Rio.  Bob and Mike were mission companions many years ago on the Navajo Reservation.  The Mexican food there is really good.  That place is very popular and was really hopping while we were there.
Sunday we went to our Sacrament meeting in the international branch.  Those elders and sisters are so sweet and humble.  We then came back to our room and watched Music and the Spoken Word.  This is always so good.  Mike then went to Priesthood meeting and I had another long sleep.  Mike went to the Sunday Devotional.  Elder Allen is the managing director of the Missionary Department and was the speaker.  He called up about a dozen young elders and sisters and asked each one of them what they gave up to come on their missions.  Some of the answers, I guess, were quite humorous.  One young Elder Osmond, gave up his family.  He is Donny Osmond's youngest son.
Today we started our training for serving in a mission office.  There are five couples and two senior sisters in our group.  This training is all on computers.  I have learned a couple of new tricks in using Word and Excel.  Three more days of training and then we are off!
It has snowed off and on today and there is supposed to be a bad storm coming in from somewhere.  Part of I-80 in Wyoming is closed already.  We will be taking that route on Friday.  We are hoping for much better weather by then.

Mission District January 16, 2017

This has been our mission district for this past week plus two of our instructors.  These are such super people, very humble and so special.
From left to right:  Brother Webber and Sister Rawle (2 of our 3 instructors), Elder and Sister Swendsen, Elder and Sister Hunsaker (district leader), Elder and Sister Redd, Elder and Sister Watabe.  We just love all of these wonderful people.