A baptism and goodbyes

Elder and Sister Terry with Michael. He found the Church through the mormon.org website.

It was a priviledge for Elder Terry to baptize Michael three days before we left.

 

Sad to say goodbye to special friends....

 

 

 



Bishop Paramore and his wife Beth. Note the old books in the cabinet! She loves them as much as Sister Terry does!

 



Sister Terry with her friend Glea and Glea's 92 year old aunt. Aunt Esther's home was like a museum of all kinds of things representing her life. And, believe it or not, we witnessed her eat a whole one pound hamburger, the only one in the group to eat the whole thing!

Glea and her son Kenny became some of our closest friends.

Elder and Sister Blake are now Brother and Sister Blake! They met us for lunch on their way home from serving in the mission. Glory Days is the best pizza ever! One of our most favorite hangouts in Burns.

And here is the owner of Glory Days, Nick and his son Cooper.

The Bingham family. It was great having dinner with them!

Dinner with the Gahleys. Where? See above!

Terry and Debbie. Long time Burns residents.

Linc. Recent convert and the owner of the local radio station.

A great Relief Society President and her family. The oldest son isn't in the picture.

 

Tom and Peggy. Kind hearted people.

Will and Toni. The first people to feed us in Burns. Will is in his 70's and still races his vintage motorcyle, even after suffering a stroke a few months ago!

Elder Terry with Cheryl in the family history booth. She is the ward historian and a great help to us. We will miss her family history expertise!

Elder Terry with our dear friends Mel and Jean and their friend Mary. Jean is 87 and is the best cook! Mary has the biggest and best garden in the whole town and probably the whole county!

What a small world! Pam went to the same high school and graduated with me. Even though we didn't know each other then, it was fun talking about the good old days at West! 

 

To quote a song Elder Terry mentioned to Glea, "God be with you 'till we meet again with His arms unfailing 'round you." We only have a few pictures of the people who have come to mean alot to us, but there are many more. We know we will see them again some day!

 

 

Harney County Fair

The biggest event of the year in Harney County is the fair. Almost everyone in town in involved some how. No school because the kids are all doing 4H projects. Even the only movie theatre in town is closed. We decided to take advantage of the opportunity to use the fair as a missionary opportunity by having a family history booth.

The banner we had hanging across the entrance to the booth. The people in the pictures are the ancestors of the ward family history specialist.

We had a video playing talking about family history. On the back wall is a family tree of the Winn family who settled here in the 1800's.

Elder Terry loved having the excuse to wear his Western attire during the fair!

And here is Sister Terry waiting to help people search for ancestors on the familysearch.org website. We handed out 90 familysearch.org cards and quite a few people were able to find success in their searches.

We didn't spend all of our time in the booth. We had a great time watching the parade. Here is the Burns High School Marching Band!

Eric in the front of the wagon with his dad Stacey. They are a great family who add alot to the community and the Church here.

The rodeo queen

And the Paiute Tribe's Queen. There is a small Paiute reservation on the north side of town.

 



Senior Conference #2

At the end of August we took another trip to Eugene to attend our second Senior Conference. We love being able to spend time with the other couples and catch up on how things are going in the areas they serve in.

This conference's theme was "Let Your Light So Shine." (Matthew 5:6) We can be a light to others through sharing our testimony of Christ with others. Through our missionary work, we are answering other peoples' prayers and the Lord will answer ours. We need to reflect HIS light to the world.

We always look forward to the time we are able to spend with President and Sister Young.

President Watts, Sister Watts, President Young, Sister Young, Sister Lowary, President Lowary

President Young with his counselors and their wives. They all work so hard in helping us to be better missionaries. We are truly blessed to be in this wonderful Oregon Eugene Mission!

Another Baptism

August 25, 2012 was a special day. We were able to witness the baptism of Cassandra.

Cassie has a big smile and sweet personality. It was a joy to be able to teach her.

Cassie was baptized and confirmed by her husband's Uncle Alan, who is also the ward mission leader.

It was a great day for us too!

Cassie and her husband Ryan.

Cassie and her sister in law Kandi who was a big support to her. Kandi is also the sister in law of Beth, who was our first baptism!

"Know ye not that he was holy? But notwithstanding he being holy, he showeth unto the children of men that, according to the flesh he humbleth himself before the Father, and witnesseth unto the Father that he would be obedient unto him in keeping his commandments."

2 Nephi 31: 7

 

It is HIS example that we follow.

Mission Conference in Eugene

Recently we traveled to Eugene to attend two days of a mission conference and to have a little R and R on the days in between.

We were able to travel through the Mc Kenzie Pass. It's closed in the winter and early spring, so this was our first chance. This is a shot of the lava beds that are all the way through it.

Standing near the Sea of Lava area.

This is an informational sign explaining the Sea of Lava.

An observatory on top of a hill of lava.

A nice view of the Three Sisters Mountains from Mc Kenzie Pass.

 

 

After arriving in Eugene we attended the first of two conferences. This one was for half of our mission and we were instructed by Elder Steven Snow, who is the Church Historian.

 

Each of us were able to shake hands with Elder Snow who is seen on the right.

What a great opportunity it was to be instructed by Elder Snow. The meeting lasted several hours but it seemed like the time flew by. The missionaries in this picture are from our zone. We were lucky to  be able to sit so close. In this segment we were being taught the chain of missionary work from finding to retention.

Here is the wonderful Cascade Zone shown with President and Sister Young and Elder and Sister Snow. Some people may recognize Sister Francom, second on the left. She used to live in Las Vegas!

We have mentioned in our emails how much we miss attending the temple as it is far away from where we are currently serving. When we found out we would have a few extra days in Eugene the first thing we planned to do was attend the Portland Temple.

It is as beautiful on the inside as on the outside. There is alot of marble throughout the whole temple. We liked the fact that the floor plan is similar to Las Vegas so it was easy to find our way around.

The temple: a blessing in our lives.

We spent a little time in the Visitors Center which is near the temple.  

Our second day of R and R was spent driving down the coast and enjoying the ocean.

This was one of the strangest things we saw. It reminded us of Robinson Crusoe, a great book, by the way, that we highly recommend!

A view of the ocean from a jetty.

Another strange sight. Oyster shells by the side of the road!

Umpqua River Lighthouse, a working lighthouse. We found it on the map and had to find it to take a picture for Michelle who loves lighthouses.

 

 

 





Our final day in Eugene was another missionary conference. This one was with the entire mission. It was great to join all together as missionaries with the same purpose: TO INVITE OTHERS TO COME UNTO CHIRST BY HELPING THEM RECEIVE THE RESTORED GOSPEL THROUGH FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST AND HIS ATONEMENT, REPENTANCE, BAPTISM, RECEIVING THE HOLY GHOST AND ENDURING TO THE END.

 

We knew we would have an Apostle visit but were surprised to have several more general authorities.

Elder Neil L. Anderson

Elder Ronald Rasband of the Presidency of the Seventy

Bishop Gary Stephenson, Presiding Bishop of the Church

Elder Richard K Hansen of the Seventy

 

It was amazing to be able to be instructed by all of these great men. An experience we will never forget.

 



More exploring

There are so many beautiful things to see in the area of our mission. We enjoy those days when we can explore. As our area is so big, we usually combine visiting with sightseeing.

Relaxing at Emigrant River. This is where Elder Terry fished a few months ago. He has had the chance to fish there again and had a great time.

After visiting some families in a town called Frenchglen, we drove partway up into the Steens Mountains. It was neat to see these wild horses running around.

This is a view of Blitzen River. And no, there isn't one named for Dasher or Dancer or Rudolph or any other reindeer around here!

Think there are any fish in this one?



Malheur Cave

A few weeks ago we took an interesting field trip. We had been hearing about Mulheur Cave from several of the locals and decided to check it out. One Monday, which is our prep days, we drove out to the area where it was and stopped in to see a family in the Crane Branch to find out exactly, as it is located on their property. Even following their directions we almost missed the path that led to it. But at last we arrived.

Here I am at the entrance. You may notice the unusual symbol on the left side. I will explain that in a minute.

Inside... I have only been inside a cave one other time in my life. That was Lehman Cave in Northern Nevada which is all lit up except for a point where the guide turns the lights off. I tried not to notice the noises overhead which could have been these:

Bravely we went in further. We had flashlights, but they weren't as bright as we would have needed to be able to explore as much as Elder Terry would have liked.

Bleachers. Remember the symbol outside the cave that I mentioned? It turns out that this cave belongs to the Masons. They used to have their meetings inside the cave and had bleachers set up for people to sit on. And way before then, Indians would hide out inside. And way in the back behind the bleachers is a lake. We didn't make it that far because of our lack of good lighting. Probably one of the most unusual road trips we have taken so far!