BLOG#51

BLOG #51 April 19 -24

Wow this year has really gone by fast.We have enjoyed this part of our life. I am so grateful that we have been here.We have met a lot of great YSA’s and felt that they have become ours. We know some of their challenges and desires. These YSA’s are wonderful and we love them.

We experienced the first of the summer storms last week. Just like the week we arrived. The thunder is so loud and the lighten is so close and the rain comes down in sheets for hours. Our little community of St. Croix(where we live) receives a lot and the retention ponds fill up faster and the swimming pool rises to the top and the water just before the front entrance gate becomes a   huge moat. We have to cross it very slowly—you would think that the city would have fixed the road before now--it does cause a fun spray of water if you go into it at a good speed. I am sure that will change as the city is working on the whole street of Bruce B Downs for several miles. It is a mess.

Monday was New Testament class and FHE. Elder Judd taught the trial before Caiaphas and Pilate. He said that it was really a good and the spirit was really strong.

After class, we always have the beginning of FHE in the Institute room which has proven to be a good thing- prayer, scripture thoughts, announcements and introductions. We then went to the gym for a rousing game of human foose ball. It is hilarious to watch as they have to stand in their lines only kicking the ball to hit the goal, it gets a little wild at times.. Elder Judd and I were asked to go and get the plates and forks for the refreshments only  to find that as we entered the gym all +25 YSA’s were singing “God be with you” to us—very emotional. They had purchased a fun cake with a picture of us on it. Modern technology I ate my head and Elder Judd ate his that is a good way to end the day! Everyone had a piece of cake and ice cream. Fun evening‼

We met with president Cusic for a final meeting as a missionary. We have enjoyed having the mission office here in the building so that we could associate with the missionaries. A lot of them come and stop by to tell us what is happening and where they are going. They have a great spirit about them! As usual, we ended up going to Costco and purchasing the food for the YSA dinner and the S&I in-service breakfast. We then went on to Clermont to visit with Brandon, Mandy and Rusty Judd (Elder Judd’s nephew and family.)W have been able to enjoy their company while here. Their little son, Rusty, is so cute and we have been able to get to know and play with him for this past year. Cracker Barrel is a good meeting place and good food too.It was a late night coming home- it takes about 1 ½ hours to travel to see them.

We have had a great week meeting with friends and family,having some wonderful lunches and dinners.We went to Cracker Barrel again with the Severinson’s for the last time. This couple is a wonderful senior couple that was here when we started.They will end their mission next September (they will have served 2 year mission) their assignment has been office/Orlando Temple/ MLS. Busy, Busy people. We have loved all the seniors couple but have not had very many to know. In this mission we only have 6 couples and they are really spread out.

 Elder Judd:  Wednesday night’s class had about 16 students in class along with Tara. We also learned from Tara that her and the missionaries had fasted last Sunday that her mother’s heart would be softened so that she could be baptized soon. On Monday for the first time her mother said nothing negative about Tara’s involvement with the Church and told her to say high to her friends at the Church. Needless to say, Tara and the Missionaries were surprised and elated at the change in her attitude. In another discussion with her mother at the beginning of the week, her mother told Tara that she would meet with the missionaries to get to know them instead of just hearing about them. As Tara told us about these abrupt changes she bore her testimony of the truth of the Church and the hand of the Lord in what had happened. I will never forget the look on her face as she told us that her testimony of the Gospel is stronger now than ever before because of what she has been thru in the past year. And with all of this, she is bringing some of her friends, who will come to the institute and church for the missionaries to teach. She volunteers for prayers, offers comments and bears her testimony in class frequently. I have kidded her that she is a Dry Mormon to which she replies that that is going to change, and she hopes soon. She has set a baptism date for about May 31.

I made dump cake Thursday it is so easy and everyone loves it. All you do is purchase a pie filling, yellow cake mix and butter. Assemble and cook and it is gone before you know it. Some one asked for mac‘n’cheese again so that is what I fixed. It is a great crock pot recipe and only takes about 3 hours to cook. The students really loved it.

For the in-service meeting early Saturday morning, I fixed tator/tot breakfast casserole, Monkey bread with nuts in a 9x13”pan, a lot of strawberries and grapes. We have been apart of this group now for 1 year and have started to know the people. They are always eager to learn how to teach their young people. 

We started our packing this week. Packing is not fun and where did we get all this stuff and how did it fit into the car the first time? Elder Judd is great, he has vacuumed the floor, cleaned the extra bathroom, and packed a lot of the things into the suitcases that will be shipped home. He has really helped me get things done, I appreciate that. After I read this it makes it sound like he did all the work—I did help .

Saturday night was a special night we were honored to be witnesses for a private wedding of two of our YSA at the Institute. Kenneth and Shauna Prettyman. They were married by Bishop Harris. It was so special that they would ask us to do this. They are sweet kids and very much in love. They have plans for a temple marriage in a year and I am pretty sure they will make it. After the ceremony and a few pictures, Bishop and Sister Harris invited us to dinner at the Outback restaurant. We all had a great steak dinner and a good visit. It was a nice finish to a busy and productive day.We came home and watched a netflix movie. What a day‼

Elder Judd: In Sacrament meeting I looked around and thought about how nice it has been to enjoy Sacrament in a quiet setting. It has been wonderful to be a part of this generation’s YSA. We have come to love them, rejoice with them, cry with them, laugh with them, teach them and just be a part of their lives at this juncture of their lives. Marsha and I have learned and grown so much .

This is the last week of being here in the Tampa Bay YSA. We have been busy with the normal thing of preparing the last lessons and the last dinners and the last reports and the last of saying good-bye.  Thursday we were invited into Bro Patrick’s class and was given a plate that had been signed by all the students and missionaries. What a great going away gift. One of the greatest gifts was ‘Bro. Hopegood’ coming to help with this last dinner. We do love this man and his wife. They are such good friends.  They will be coming to Utah so everyone can enjoy them too. We will miss everyone.

We will be on our way home in a day or two. So excited to see the family and friends.

April 24: Now we have everything in the car and it  is jammed packed,We  have started our drive home. We will be following the Interstate 10 through Texas. It is so we can stop and see the St. George granddaughters. We figure it will take us about 5-6 days with all the stops. We will be excited to be home again.

BLOG #50 APRIL 6-12

                      BLOG#50 GOOD WEEK  APRIL 6-12

MONDAY  We had to go to Staples  and pick up a banner that will be used for the Bull Market(promotion for clubs on campus) on Wednesday .The banner identifies the institute as a on campus club  It is important that we are recognized so that missionary work can be there.  In the process, we met a young couple that had a flat tire that needed some extra help in taking of the tire. Joel was ready to help them and had the tools to do so. We ended up going to 2 different places to try and fix the tire, but they ended up having to purchase a used tire to fix it. While we were driving around doing this the young man asked us a lot of questions about what we were doing   here and what we believed. After the tire was put on Joel bore his testimony to them. They thanked us for the help and told us that they would accept the call from the missionaries to learn more about Christ. We felt that we had done a little missionary work  here in Tampa.

Tara Hartman came back. She is the young lady that last summer was going to be baptized but would lose her families love and support if she joined the church. It really put her into a tail spin when this happened. She loves her family deeply so she backed off for a while keeping her testimony but not being baptized. Almost a  year later, The situation is still the same and she feels the same about being baptized, but I do not think that she will be able to go through it yet. One day on the Lord’s time table she will be baptized and she will be all the stronger. We will just keep praying for her.

Tuesday we worked all day -- Joel did a test proctor in the afternoon and I did reports. We were hoping to finish earlier in the afternoon, but did not finish until 5:30pm.  We were hoping that we could leave the office about 4:30pm to pick up the Hopegoods for a dinner appointment. Well we made it later than earlier and  all was ok.  One of the students told us about a great restaurant  in Ruskin-near Gulf Port called the Sunset Grill.  It was a great dinner with us eating and sitting and watching the sunset with such great company.  The food was really good by the way. I had a Blackened Chicken pasta with parmesan cream sauce, Joel had a half a chicken with a special rub of spices on it called Jerk Rub , then we had Key Lime Pie. It was so good. We went outside to take some pictures of the sunset and beach with the Hopegoods and us. They are such great people we will miss them greatly.

ELDER JUDD: We wanted to spend an evening with Jean’s one more time and rejoice over the blessings that we have been given to associate with those I baptized them fifty years ago this month in New Hampshire. We had nice visit with Bob and Jan Jeans, their son Rob and his wife Leni, and their granddaughter, Gillyn, and husband , Chris,  and their children: Pheobe, Liddia and Anchor. The children were the fourth generation of members of the Church since Bob and Jan were baptized fifty years ago on April 4, 1965. Visiting with all the family that night was a great experience and we rejoiced in the blessings that we all have enjoyed because of the Gospel in our lives. Literally hundreds of souls have been blessed by Bob and Jan joining the Church. Many missions have been served, many temple marriages, many converts made and many children born to this choice family. I reminded Bob that our association would go on forever and never end because of the blessings we enjoy. We enjoyed their company and ate a rotisserie chicken dinner with baked potatoes and salad that we had brought with us to treat them. It was a great evening. On the way home, Marsha and I stopped at Culver’s for a late night ice cream sundae.

Saturday was spent relaxing a little and gathering up some of the things in the apartment in readiness for packing. Then we were off to the Brandon Stake center to watch the YSA play a challenge game of Ultimate Frisbee with the YSA of  Sarasota. It was a very warm day but with the refreshments and the association of these great young people, we had a good time. On the way home I decided that Marsha had had enough cooking for the week so we stopped for a burger at a local Steak & Shake (not Steak, Shake and Bake as Marsha demands that it is named). In the evening we watched a couple of movies

Sunday, April 12, 2015, we headed off to Church for the baptism of Ami Dunn. Ami is another YSA convert in our ward. Her conversion came thru the efforts of Kenneth Prettyman and Shauna Bowman.

                                                                                                                     

BLOG #49 MARCH31-APR5

BLOG#49March 31-April 5

Just some thoughts for this week’s events.

            I had to go to a clinic to see what the matter was with me. I had the same symptoms for 8 days, and  it was getting  worse I would sit up in a chair for most of the night so I would not cough as hard. The  Doctor’s Assistance told me I had acute Bronchitis and sinusitis- -a double whammy.  I guess I was not feeling well -----no I knew I was not feeling well- the work just needed to be done anyway so I continued  to come into the office and accomplish what was needed to be done and then I would go to the mother’s lounge for a nap.. She (the PA)loaded me down with a lot of medicines for the next week to start the process of getting better.  I still coughed for a long time after but it will get better. I know it will. 

            The missionaries had a new assignment on Thursday. It was decided that all  missionaries would be on bikes, walking, or rides from ward members.  The idea behind this was to make the missionaries more accessible to the public and hopefully get more contacts. When  we saw the sister missionaries we had to run out side to take of picture of them as we had not had seen them before. They laughed at us as we all took pictures. Good sports. We are praying that it will work for them some elders and sisters have not ridden in a long time.

            We had tator-tot casserole  and cinnamon pull aparts this week.  I fixed a lot but for some reason the number of students were down  and I had one tator/tot casserole (9x13) left. I froze it hoping that I would find some one that really needed it in the near future. Monday Sister Hopegood told me of a family in her ward that was in need of a meal because of illness in the family, so that meal went to a great place for a great cause.

Elder Judd: On Friday we took Lacho (Horatio) Palomo to the Orlando Temple for his Endowment prior to his departure for his mission to Mexico. It was a great time to serve as his escort in the temple and assist him thru his first experience there. Wesley Lind, Cat Hunter and Taylor Grave Douglass came also. It was a great experience for him and us. These YSA are much more prepared than I was for this experience and he really enjoy it. When he came into the Celestial room of the temple, his eyes got as big as silver dollars. Upon leaving the temple, we all went to Olive Garden for dinner.

We watched the Saturday sessions of conference at the Institute with about 12 YSAs. One of the YSA brought a crumb cake and we ate it during the afternoon session. It was such a nice thought for her to share. Being in the presence of the YSA is always so uplifting.

            Sunday Morning, we went over to the church for Conference ( still like it at home  better but the messages  are still great no matter where). The conference attendance here at the church  is small when you think this ward building  has 3 wards. I  thought it was interesting that several families brought their children  dressed in Sunday clothes ready for church  it was great to see how they handled them during the am sessions. We also had a lot of YSA and missionaries come too. The afternoon session we watched at Alex Patrick’s home with his family. That was nice to be in a family setting. His children are very pleasant to be around and enjoyed conference too. We had the best roast beef  and potato dinner, then we walked over to the Indian Shores beach so a picture  could be  taken and sent to their son on his mission, so I was able to take a picture of the sunset and us too.  It was a very relaxing day after not feeling well for so long these past several weeks.

BLOG#48 SPEAKING IN CHURCH--OH NO!!!

MARCH 22-28:

WE WERE ASKED TO SPEAK AT BISHOP PATRICK WARD ON SUNDAY. I KEEP TELLING EVERYONE THAT I AM NOT THE SPEAKER IN THE FAMILY—I AM THE SUPPORTER. ANYWAY I DID SPEAK WITH THE YOUTH SPEAKER AND TIMED HER ,. SHE TOOK LONGER BY 3 MINUTES THAN I DID.  SEE I DID WHAT I HAD TO DO AND IT JUST HAPPENED TO BE THE SHORTEST TALK. ELDER JUDD’S TALK WAS REALLY GOOD AND MAYBE YOU WILL HEAR IT LATER.

THIS WEEK WAS A DIFFERENT WEEK IN THAT I WAS NOT FEELING WELL. THE FIRST BAD AND ONLY COLD  THAT I HAVE HAD THE WHOLE TIME WE HAVE BEEN HERE. THE COUGH ATTACKS ME AT NIGHT AND I STAY UP HACKING AND COUGHING MOST OF THE NIGHT. WHERE DO YOU  GO  IN A 2 BEDROOM APARTMENT  TO STOP THE NOISE FROM GOING IN AND WAKING EVERYONE ELSE UP?. I DON’T KNOW THAT  ANSWER YET. 

MONDAY I DID  PRETTY GOOD AT THE INSTITUTE UNTIL FHE  AND THEN MY BODY WENT INTO COLD CHILLS. WE CAME HOME EARLY AND LAYERED ME  WITH BLANKETS AND OUR  CORN WARMING PACKS. ELDER JUDD HAD TO PROCTOR A TEST TUESDAY AND I DID NOT FEEL GOOD SO OFF HE WENT AND LEFT ME SLEEPING  OFF THE SICKNESS. IT HELPED BUT DID NOT GET RID OF THE COUGHING.  THE WHOLE WEEK HAS BEEN LIKE THAT COUGHING AND SLEEPING. I WAS GRATEFUL  FOR THE MOTHER’S LOUNGE IN THE CHURCH I WENT AND SLEPT FOR A LITTLE WHILE AND  THEN BACK TO WORK.

ELDER JUDD’S CLASSES SO FAR THIS WEEK HAS BEEN REALLY GOOD. THE STUDENTS ENJOY LEARNING ABOUT THE SAVIOR AND HIS LIFE.  THURSDAY NIGHT WAS ABOUT THE OLD TESTAMENT WHICH HE CALLED THE LEHI CONNECTION AND THE BABYLONIAN DESTRUCTION. HE HAD ABOUT 12 STUDENTS COME . ELDER JUDD ALWAYS DOES A GREAT JOB OF TEACHING.

ELDER JUDD:

SISTER JUDD  WAS ABLE TO PULL EVERYTHING TOGETHER FOR THE MEAL. SHE MADE SEVERAL LOAVES OF BANANA NUT AND POPPY SEED BREAD AND THE MAIN COURSE WAS A CROCK POT CHICKEN TACO PLATE THAT HAD BEANS, CORN, AND RICE WITH SALSA IN IT. AS USUAL, THE YSA LOVED IT AND I DID TOO. SHE KEPT SAYING HOW AWFUL IT SMELLED AND LOOKED, BUT EVERYONE ELSE DISAGREED. I HAVE FOUND THAT THE MORE SHE COMMENTS ON HOW BAD SOMETHING LOOKS AND SMELLS, THE BETTER I LIKE IT.  THAT IS TRUE, ANYWAY, WITH THE MEALS SHE MAKES THAT ARE MEXICAN IN ORIGIN. SHE MUCH PREFERS A LESS SPICY FOOD THAN I DO.

AT THE END OF THE MEAL, ALEX INSISTED ON SISTER JUDD AND I LEAVING FOR HOME WHILE THEY ALL CLEANED UP AND CLOSE UP SHOP FOR THE EVENING. IT WAS WITH GRATITUDE THAT WE FOLLOWED HIS SUGGESTION AND LEFT FOR HOME SO THAT SHE  COULD GET SOME WELL DESERVED REST. AS WE LEFT, OUR KITCHEN/OFFICE FILLED WITH HELPFUL STUDENTS PITCHING IN TO GET EVERYTHING CLEANED UP.

WEDNESDAY AND TUESDAY WAS REALLY A BLUR AS WE DID NOT DO THE REGULAR THINGS. WE DID A LOT OF PREPARING HERE AT THE APARTMENT. IT HELP ME  TO FEEL BETTER.

BISHOP PATRICK ASKED ELDER JUDD AND I TO COME AND PRESENT A FIRE SIDE TO HIS WARD ON FRIDAY THE 27^TH. THIS TALK AND SLIDE PRESENTATION WAS ON “JERUSALEM-TESTAMENT OF OUR SAVIOR AND REDEEMER: WALKING WITH JESUS CHRIST IN HIS FINAL HOURS. 
THE FIRESIDE HAD ABOUT 75 PEOPLE THERE AND IT WENT VERY WELL. ELDER JUDD  HAD SPENT TWO OR THREE HOURS FINE TUNING THE PRESENTATION AND, WITH THE BLESSING OF THE LORD, THE SPIRIT GAVE HIM  CONSIDERABLE ASSISTANCE AND THE ENTIRE HOUR AND 35 MINUTES WENT VERY SMOOTHLY.

IT WAS A BUSY WEEK AND WAS MADE EVEN LONGER BECAUSE OF HOW I WAS FEELING!  I THINK THAT ELDER JUDD IS COMING DOWN WITH THIS COLD . WHY NOT‼!