Happy Holidays

Hello again!
 Our son, Chris, sent an e-mail to remind us that we were a little behind on our blog.  So here goes.
First of all, we hope that you had a Wonderfull Thanksgiving!  We sure did! Our daughter, Gaylynne and her sons, Kye and Drew flew out to spend a few days with us.  We picked them up at the airport in Raleigh and drove to the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  We stayed at Kill Devil Hills right on the ocean front.

We enjoyed  visiting the Wright Brothers National Memorial at Kitty Hawk where on Dec. 17, 1903 they made their first flight.   Some of us climbed the hill to the Wright Brothers National Monument.

Drew, Gaylynne and Kye

With Drew at the monument

We also saw two lighthouses while there, the Bodie Island Lighthouse built in 1872, and Currituck Beach Lighthouse built in 1875.  We were so excited when we found out that we could climb to the top!!

Currituck Beach Lighthouse

Roger and Drew inside Currituck Beach Lighthouse

Back in Greenville, we enjoyed Thanksgiving at Golden Corral with Stevon and his brother Jamaal Creque.  It had most every Southern dish you could want and we all left stuffed and happy!

These pictures are of  fun times we had with our missionary district!

Sis. Myers, Sis. Dennis, Sis. Eads, Sis. Bowen, Elder Lovell, and Elder Myers.
Back row:  Elder Benedict, Elder Belisle, Elder Geddes, Elder Corey & Elder Hood enjoying
 lunch after playing beach volleyball at our apartment.

Sis. Bowen, Sis. Dennis and Sis. Eads 

Taken at our favorite place to hike, River Park North which is next to the Tar River.  We love skipping rocks, taking pictures of the birds and turtles, the swamp and other interesting things along the way.

Elder Hood, Elder Corey, Elder Benedict, Elder Geddes
Elder Belisle and Elder Lovell

Bowling together one preparation day at ECU

A couple of very successful days on the campuses of Eastern Carolina University and at Pitt Community College sharing the gospel.



   

 Above are pictures from today's Break the Fast in our YSA Branch.  Thank goodness for a lot of great cooks!!!!

               At this time of year, we are so grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ which has been restored to the earth by a prophet, Joseph Smith.  We are thankful for a living prophet today, President Thomas S. Monson.  We love our family, the Missionaries, the Branch, all the wonderful people here in Greenville, NC  and all our wonderful friends back home.   I guess we love y'all!!!!  We feel richly blessed!   Take care.

Time is flying by fast!

          We had a great summer and now we see the leaves starting to turn red with cooler mornings.  We were blessed with some great experiences!  We were able to acompany James and Cheryl Oliver to the Washington D.C. Temple where they were married in a beautiful ceremony!

We brought Sis. Griffin to Greenville on an exchange from a Zone Meeting in New Bern.  This picture is for her mom.

We next traveled to Charlotte, NC to the 2013 Southeast Area YSA Conference.  We brought Jordan Harrell, Amelia Jones and Heaven Tyndall with us.  It was such an awesome experience!  There were 800 people registered for the Charlotte Conference and four other Conferences were happening at the same time as requested by our Prophet.  We enjoyed some very spiritual talks by Elder Bednar, Sherrie Dew and Brad Wilcox.  There were workshops, a dance, we played games, and enjoyed this three day event.  We were also happily surprised to find Amy Lofley from Cleveland, UT there.  She is attending school in NC.

  This was our district (camera not working well)  Elder Myers, Elder Corey, Elder Elkins, Elder Benedict, Elder S. Jensen, Elder Lovell, Sister Quiroz, Sister Roberts and Elder Belisle in front.

Our Greenville YSA Branch took another super trip to the Beach. We had a great time with Stevon Creque, Andi Brown and the others that came.

Jessica Walker posing at the beach.  

 Elder Myers trying the same pose.

David and Hanah Callaway were happily married on Aug. 31st.  We dropped them off at the airport before they flew home for the happy event!  

Sister Oliverson (Sam) came back to visit. YEA!   It was so good to see her again.  Jordan Harrell was leaving on her mission and Sam came back to be her companion on the trip to Utah and drop her off at the MTC.   The above picture includes Carmen Freeman, Sam Oliverson, Taylor Freeman and Heaven Tyndall.  Back row:  Elder Myers, Jordan Harrell, Andreea Andrews and Kerri Given.  A few friends at her farewell party.

    Last weekend, we drove to Norforlk, Virginia to an activity and meeting with the Missionary couples there.  It is great to get to know these wonderful missionaries. 

The Elders and Sister missionaries came over to enjoy a game of Beach Volleyball on Monday - Happy Preparation Day!

We hope you are all doing well at home. Can't wait to come home and see our new baby girl, Brielle.  This week is Grandpa Palmer's 100th Birthday.  Hope you all reached your Birthday Goals. Can't wait to hear about all your accomplishments.

Thank you for tending our home.  Hope you made it okay with all the flooding.   And thanks so much for all your support of us on this mission.  We are praying for you and love you very much!!!  Take care!

Virginia Chesapeake Mission

As you probably know, we are now the Virginia Chesapeake Mission.  It is so EXCITING to be here with all the new missionaries and see the Lord's hand in hastening His work!  

                   We are now 2 1/2 hours drive away from our mission headquarters.  And along the way these are some of the sights we saw.

This was our last Zone Meeting in Kinston before transfers came 1 week later.  Greenville District

Havelock District?                                                                                      Kinston District

Taken after our Zone Meeting in New Bern

This time, transfers took Elder Balaich (on r) and next time will take Elder Elkin.  Our sisters moved to Virginia also.  Sister Hoyt, Elder Myers, Sister Vazquez and Sister Landon (from Wilson)

 We were happy to find Sister Smith (r) and Sister Eide at the Meeting.  Our new Sisters are Sister Roberts in her last area and SisterQuiroz in her first - fresh from the MTC

 We have been able to go to the Raleigh Temple several times. Once with the Couple Missionaries from our Raleigh Mission, with Jordan who will be leaving in August for her mission to Las Vegas, NV, and with Cheryl and James who will be married this next week in the Washington DC Temple.  Our youth are so strong.  They have such wonderful testimonies.

On our last preparation day, we took the Sisters to River Park North for the famous hike with a picnic at Town Commons on the Bridge - somethings don't change.  But these are places we love and trying to find turtles, deer and birds is fun for us.  These pictures are for grandchildren with sharp eyes.  Can you find the birds hidden in the pictures?

         There are many miracles around us!  Our testimonies have really grown and each day there is another wonderful truth we learn about the Gospel of Jesus Christ as we share it with others.  We love the people in our Branch, the wards, the missionaries we have known, and are serving with now.  We know that as you share your testimony with those around you, it too will grow stronger and you like us, will learn just how blessed we are to be a member of Christ's church once again restored to the earth.

     We love each of you.  We thank you for your prayers and support of us on this mission.  We will always treasure the time we have spent here and the things we have learned.   Take care!

June's Fun

Hello again,
Just wanted to share some pictures from last month.  It was a month of "Goodbyes" to many dear friends we have served with in the North Carolina Raleigh Mission.

           Elder B. Jensen, was our District Leader and we were sad when he went to Goldsborough, but happy that he came to the new mission with us.

We enjoyed Elder Dewey while he served here  Now, we have Elder S. Jensen as our new District Leader

This little turtle tried to bite us while we (us and the Sisters) were trying to save him from getting  run over by cars near the highway.

 These wonderful Sisters -Vasquez and Hoyt are the ones which we are currently having a GREAT TIME!  This picture says it all.  You can see how FUN it really is!! 

 We took this picture at our Zone Conference in June.  We were so happy to have 12 sisters!
back row:  Sisters Jacobson, Tillman, Griffin, Bouldin, Pace, Hoyt, Eide. front row:  Sisters: Eades, Jones  Nielson, Vazquez, Smith and Myers.  They are so great!

 

In the month of June, our Kinston Stake puts on the Promised Land Pageant at the Ormond Amphitheatre in Bath, NC and they do a wonderful job!!  The couple missionaries came again this year to enjoy it. This is a picture of the boat ride from the Eustarium Center in Washington, NC that we took while enjoying the Pamlico and Tar Rivers in the morning.  

Elder and Sister Johnson,  Elder and Sister Davenport.  Below Sister Burdick, Elder and Sister Heidenreich.

                                         








   Elder and Sister Myers and Sister Fitzgerald below.  Lucky us, it wasn't raining at this time of the day.  We saw lots of turtles along the way.

 Our group picture was taken in Bath,NC at Bonner's Point along the Pamlico River.  Bath is the oldest city in NC.  We enjoyed the Visitors Center with it's historical video and learned about Black Beard the Pirate. We visited the St. Thomas Church built in 1734 and the Pirates Treasure store before the Pageant began.    We have had some unforgetable times with these great missionaries and some others that have finished their mission and gone home.

 Below is the Zone Meeting in Harker's Island.  It was a farewell meeting for the Elders and Sisters serving in  the Kinston Zone to say goodbye to President and Sister Bernhisel.  We are so thankful for the time we have had with them in the North Carolina Raleigh Mission!  We love them!

Today was history - a new beginnning for us as we are in one of the newly created missions!  It is so exciting to serve at the time when the Lord is hastening his work.  We traveled to Virginia today to meet our new President and his wife, and were so happy to look around and see the missionaries we knew that had transferred with us.  The Gospel is true!  Jesus Christ leads His Church and you can see his hand in the way the missionary work is moving forward.  We feel so blessed to be able to serve the Lord.  Thank you so much at home for helping to make this possible, by watching our house, taking care of each other and supporting us through your prayers.  We love you all. You're in our prayers always.  Take care