Even though it is a little cool here, there are some very beautiful scenes in the nsighborhood that we call home. Some of the leaves are falling but most of these trees are evergreen. The one tree across the lake in the middle, is the closest I can come to any fall color. There are lakes like this and canals running in every direction. You can't go 1/2 mile without seeing some type of water pocket or canal. There are ducks and water birds everywhere.

We are missing our grandchildren. Even more so at this time of year. These cute little girls were at another party that we were invited to in the Coral Springs Ward. We had the opportunity to visit with President Current and his wife at the party. He is the one that started Project Elijah that is spreading around this mission. The goal is to teach the new members about family history and get them to the temple within the first three months to do baptizms for their deceased family members.

This Menorah has been standing in the office building foyer for several weeks. During the period of time that the Jewish people celebrate Hanakkah, one lamp is turned on each day. This is in remebrance of the Children of Isreal. Then, the wells that now hold candles were filled with oil and burned around the clock for the nine days.

One of our missionaries not knowing about the tradition saw that some of the lights were not burning and went out and purchased new globes, thinking that they had burned out. This created a chance to "talk" about religion. These missionaries are so neat!

This is the most important thing that we display at Christmas. After seeing the Tony Orlando show "Santa and Me", we made sure all of the married kids have a nativity in their homes. We hope all that read this know of our love for them and pray that the Lord will have a place in their homes and hearts now and in the coming year. Merry Christmas from the Graffs in Florida.

This is part of the beach that we found. Elder Graff is pointing the way to Nicaragua and wishing Elder Yates a Merry Christmas. We just got a call from the Key West Elders and we have been invited to teach a new member from Eastern Europe tomorrow night. So I am really glad we brought the computer and the printer. We also have another appointment back in Homestead Sunday evening. We got a call from Ann Boyd in Homestead and after she returns from spending the holidays in New York we will go back to Homestead to show her how Roots Magic works with New Family Search. These appointments are what we hope will take these people to the temple.

We dedicate this picture to our freind Nancy in Cedar City. There are three dogs going for a ride in the cart. They are about the size of Tinker Bell. After we passed him, he stopped so we couldn't take another picture. So we wished hm a Merry Christmas and went on our way. There is only about a mile of beach with sand. The rest of the island is reinforced with a cement wall and/or boat docks. the boats belong to the owners of the houses or condo that come right out to the water or dock. I'm not sure what the price tag of these homes would be, but I'm guessing it is in the millions. The old town of Key West reminds us of Santa Catalina. The houses and foliage are about the same. The small streets and the tourists driving around on scooters, bikes and golf cart things just like on Catalina.

We are in Key West as I write this. We passed this sand scuplture and went around the corner just to see if we could get a picture of it. It is the grinch that stole christmas.

We have the whole day off, so after sleeping in we ate a breakfast lunch at IHOP and drove around the island to see if we could find a beach. This is the place to be if you are over 60 and over weight. Elder Graff andI fit right in, but we aren't about the bare it all on the beach like some of the tourist. We signed up to serve at a Soup Kitchen tomorrow morning with the Elders. That shoukld be a great experience for us. We both brought an extra pair of shoes to change into if we can't stand up any longer.

This is Sister Zitting and Sister Ramey. We had just given them their christmas sack, and explained about the travel jewelry bags that Susan D Alessandro makes for us in Branson. They were joking around and put them on their heads and then we got them to pose for a picture. These young ladies have gone the extra mile and then some with their dedication to serving the Lord. They are now training a ward member in the art of American Sing Language so the ASL members will have that continue on for them after these young ladies go home. We will be very sad at the next three finishers dinner that we serve at. It will be hard to have them leave and go back into the big wide world.

Yes, we did decorate for Christmas. Thanks to Jiffy for the the socks and ornaments, Stephanie for the candy canes and the Porters for the snowman. Most of the young missionaries had small christmas trees in their apartments. We took the missionaries double AA batteries in their christmas sacks. Then we found out that the fire alarms take 9 volt. So our intend was valid, but what can I say? Our house was build over tweny years ago and the fire alarm still works and takes AA batteries. Elder Graff told them to put the batteries in any toys that they got for Christmas or they could put them under their pillows and recharge at night.

At the Hollywood Ward Christmas Party, all six of the young missionaries sang "Joy to the world" to the ward. Elder Frederick is to your left, then Elder Munns, Elder Larsen, Elder Cook and

Sister Ramey. Sister Zitting is playing the piano. They asked me to play for them ten minutes before they sang, so Sister Zitting could sing with them. But, even after practicing, I could not see well enough to find the keys and the notes. It takes me all week to get one hymn ready for Relief Society. My young friend Kelita is sitting facing the missionaries. We have had the opportunity to teach her Roots Magic and started her on New Family Search. We sent out 34 Christmas Cards to the people that we have taught since getting here in October.

This is Sister Guzman on the right and is Spanish Speaking, she is from Honduras. Sister Ramey is from Idaho and is American Sign Language. Sister Osmeni is from Albania and just new here in Florida. These young ladies are amazing in their efforts and dedication to the missionary effort. They are trying so hard to keep us filled with appointments. Our trip to the Orlando Temple next month is happening because of all the young missionaries efforts.

I hope you can read this sign. I had to take a picture of it. We were at a marina looking at the yachts and saw this sign. Not a place you would want your little kids at run around at. We didn't see any crocodiles, but we didn't get out of the car and venture around the piers. Now that the weather is a lot cooler, we are being told the aligators will surface and try to warm up in the sun.

On our way to an appointment in Homestead we passed many palm tree farms. They go for many miles of row after row of palm trees from 1 foot to these giants. I can't even begin to imagine how much money they would bring in at one time if they were all harvested. This farm is about three miles from the Atlantic Ocean.

There is a canal just in front of these trees. We passed several men fishing in it. We're not sure just what kind of fish they were catching.

Elder Barrington and Elder Burros set up an appointment for us to
teach Alexandra at the Miami Beach Chapel. We gave her a disk
with Roots Magic Installer on it and then exported her pedigree
chart onto the disk. When she gets home, she will install Roots
Magic and import her file into the program.

The Blue folder is her "starter kit" that we give out to the people that we teach. It has a basic pedigree chart, a cheat sheet for Roots Magic, the cd and two plastic sheet holders. We also give them a copy of the "Members Family History and Temple Work" booklet.
It has been very rewarding to watch these peoples faces when they see their names in print on the pedigree chart.

This is an iquana that has just fallen out of the tree at the Miami Chapel. When the temperature gets as low as it did this day, the iquanas drop from the trees. Elder Graff and Elders Barrington and Burrows pulled it out into the sun and after about 15 minutes it ran off into the bushes. Some little geckos were not so lucky. They were upside down and stiff. I'm sorry that the little critters can't take the cold, but it feels good to me. Today I am wearing a jacket in the office. But the cooler is still working.

These are three of our very favorite people here in the Ft Lauderdale mission. They are telling President Hale that Elder Graff won't tell them who will be speaking tomorrow at the Coral Springs Chapel. The buzz around the room was all about "who do you think will speak?", "who do you think is here to see us?", "I think it will be someone from the First Presidency!" How right they were. Elder Graff almost got in trouble again, because he tricked Sister hogge into telling us who it was. In thinking about the week-end, I'm sure that keeping it a secret was not only important for the safety of President and Sister Uchtdorf, but to add to the thrill of the moment. These young people are so on fire with life and their purpose here, that they need to have moments like this to refire and refuel and rethink about their own life after this mission. "Go Forth with Faith" has new meaning to all of us. What a blessing to experience these moments with these young people.

Elder and Sister Porter are the couple in the front left of this picture. They are from Snowflake, Arizona and are the ones that made the "German Babies" dessert for us. We have made them twice since we had them. Needless to say, the food in Flordia is way too good and both of us are increasing in size. The lady in blue is Sister Martin. She and her husband are here from Seattle,
Washington. They handle the cars and the mail and baptism reports. Both full time jobs, especially now with the holidays upon us. They reported 187 pieces of mail just this Monday. We are going into the office before our afternoon appoinments to help sort and record the mail. Then next week, we start delivering packages and letters. We have twelve apartments that we will be visiting. Then we head for Key West again to deliver and spend the Christmas week-end.

This is our very special Elder Perry! He works part time in the mission office and helps me with all my computer questions. He has helped me learn how to burn a cd to give to the people that we are teaching and how to transfer the install program to that same cd. He is going home at the end of December and we are really going to miss him. He is going back to college and studying computer tech, which is no surprise. Some company is really going to be getting a very sharp young man some day.

Christmas Conference

This past Saturday and Sunday, all of the Ft Lauderdale missionaries gather at the Plantation Chapel for a Christmas Buffet and Devotional. Then sunday, we went to the coral Springs chapel and were treated to a visit from President Dieter F. Uchtdorf and his wife. The mission choir sang the prelude for us. All the choir seats were full and they had to bring in four more chairs. These young people have great voices and we have some very talented musicians.

President and Sister Hale spoke to us first. Sister Hale spoke about memories and President Hale spoke about shaking the hand of a prophet. He had all the congregation come forward and shake hands with President and Sister Uchtdorf. What a privilege.

Sister Uchtdorf talked about the blessings of Christmas cards and President Uchtdorf talked about the joy of service and doing the best you can and asking for forgiveness at the end of each day. He said not be a character, but to have character. They then gave everyone a Christmas Card signed by the first presidency.

Today, we are going out to buy more Christmas Cards and send them to these people we have been teaching. We had seven more people go to the Orlando Temple this last Saturday.

This is Margleth and her family. They are our adopted family for the season. It is her family that we hope our grandson Taylor will find in Nicaragua. She is going on the Temple Bus this week end. That makes three more starfish success stories for us. Slowly but surely we might make a dent in the scope of things. I hope that the church will be able to release more indexes from South America soon. The records for Cuba, Haiti and South America are sparse. The good news is that the Ft Lauderdale Temple will be started soon and we think that will have an impact on the records that we need to thelp these people.

These are three of the ladies we taught this past week. Kelita and Julie are from Haiti and Szilvia is from Hungry. We hope all three will be on the bus with us next month. They are so much fun. They joke around with Elder Graff and I have a hard time getting on with our sessions. He is always teasing them and making them laugh. Our little friend peeking around Julie wouldn't talk to me.
We had to hurry after taking this picture. The bishop has all the missionaries in his office for a ten minute "huddle" after the block. We share our upcoming week and who we are teaching. It really is an important fact sharing meeting. He keeps us (Spud) on track and sends us home within time. Quite a feat with us!

This is Elder Graff with our Hollywood Ward Librarian, Auntie Lee and our newest missionary ready to do to the Caribbean!

She made all the missionaries pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving. Elder Cook was to pick ours up for us and bring it to the Mission Office, bit it never made it. She says she will bake us something else for Christmas. We are realy enjoying this ward. We have been given permissoin to go on the next Temple Bus in January with the new converts. I am so excited! It is a loing trip both directions, but Elder Graff will keep them entertained with his stories. He has to be very careful about what movies he choses for them to watch.

Oh my! What a week! Dr Leonard says I need to have my glasses changed again. This I am not going to do. I think I will see what the neurologist says this Wednesday before I spend anymore money on glasses.

We met at the cockroach capital of Florida for a teaching session. When we left, we went straight to Walmart and bought as much roach spray and traps that they had. Even had a tiny one crawl across my computer. ICK!!! As soon as we got home we stripped and threw our clothes in the washing machine and then dried them twice just to make sure everything was dead! It makes me itch just to write about it. We will meet somewhere else if there is a next time.

Our next three meeting went very well and we have found some amazing pieces of history and documents for some of these people that we are teaching. We found a marriage record for one ladies' mother and she was so surprised. She said, "My mama never told me she got married! She must have married him so he didn't have to go back to Haiti!"

The temperature got down to 72 on Thursday and we watched one lady jump out of her car and put on a long heavy coat and wrap a scarf around her neck, then run into a restaurant. We think the weather is wonderful. The only indication that it might be fall is that some of the leaves are falling off some of the trees.

Elder Graff and I survived another Sunday of speaking in church. We should be very good at this by the time we get home. To celebrate, we made German Babies for supper. This is a recipe that we were served after our Thanksgiving dinner at a local Chinese Restaurant. Actually we had the dessert at the Porter's condo. They ran a B and B in Snowflake, Arizona until they retired and this was their signature dish. Yummy! It is eggs, flour, milk and bake. Then spread real butter, lemon juice and powdered sugar over it after it bakes for 12 minutes. Eat and enjoy. We will probably make these until the doctor tells us no more butter, eggs and sugar. Until then we will order us larger clothes.

This last week was very busy in spite of Thanksgiving. We are still doing most of our teaching in the evening. So that makes for a long day. We have had the opportunity to teach people from Jamaica, Cuba and Haiti again. These people are so excited to get their family history written down. I love showing them how Roots Magic works and how they can scan pictures and documents into it.

One of our contacts does not even have a house to live in as we know it. He occupies the back patio of someone else's house and uses old mattresses for walls. We set up our computer and printer on an old dresser that he is refinishing and stood the entire time we were there. He was so grateful for the information that I found for him. He will take five names to the temple next month.

The temperature coming home from church this afternoon was 92. Isn't much like the winter we know at home. They say, it should get down to around 65. We hope so. The humidity isn't quite so bad, but still there.

We finally are getting new neighbors above us. With all the northern people moving down, I was surprised that it took so long to rent it. Guess they had to find poor people like us to rent it. I still haven't gotten over the fact that we had to re qualify for low income housing.

The kids sent us some more pictures and a few letters. If they realized how much Grandpa Spud needs those things, I'm sure they would send more. (Hint, Hint, to any kids reading this). The rest of you can send pictures and letters too. We are making a scrape book called "Back Home".

Our next round of apartment inspections will include the delivery of Christmas presents. I guess the "inspections" will be more a holiday visit. We are trying to decide what to take the missionaries this time for a treat. Any suggestions out there? I tried to take sugar cookies this time, but Elder Graff insisted on Crispy Kreme donuts. He told them they were a secret recipe that the cops across the nation have voted as #1. Most of the donuts never lasted the 15 minutes we were in their apartments.

The missionaries were given strick instructrions to only accept two dinner invitations for Thanksgiving day. One at 1:00 pm and one at 5:00 pm. These kids all have hollow legs when it comes to eating. Our Elder Larsen just got here from Utah with a broken wrist that he got in a skate boarding accident just before he left to come out here. Riding a bike is a real challenge for him.

We rode out to the Everglades Holiday Park to check out the airboat rides. The large ones will seat 35 people. When they finish their ride they watch a "gator show". We will probably do that after our Chinese Dinner we will have for Christmas. It wasn't crowded for Thanksgiving so we might try it again next month.

These young men with Elder Graff are really funny. They call Elder Graff the Roy D Mercer of Florida. They shared some funny stories before we had to leave. The tallest one in the middle is from Italy and had to wait one whole year to get his visa and papers cleared so that he could come here. The day we visited them two jet boarder patrol planes flew over with a small single engine aircraft between them. They were wing tip to wing tip. There was no way that little airplane was going anywhere except exactly where they wanted it to. They were taking it to the air field in this area. These condos are brand new. Even our GPS lady had a hard time finding it. We start our apartment inspections over again this coming Friday, so that means we get to go back to Kay West. I think we will stay a few more nights. They want us to speak in church while we are down there.

I just finished this quilt in my spare time. Just kidding of course. Spare Time is an oxymoron here in Florida. The quilt was here in the apartment waiting for us when we moved in. I did hand stitch the border on the bottom so you couldn't see the suitcases hiding there. The picture was given to us by a friend. We can look out the window and see the ducks and the canal. The sun coming in the window wakes us up every morning. By that time we should be at the office anyway, if we were office personnel. We work the late shift as Elder Graff tells everyone. I file reports in the morning and we leave to teach our new converts by 5:00 pm on the nights we can get someone to listen to us. Then we roll back home and fall into bed by 10:00 pm is I'm lucky. Elder Graff listens to the news and the latest Andy Griffith re-run. Sounds very familiar. Are we sure we're on a mission?

The youngest of the girls told Elder Graff he is her new best friend. She is four, her older sister just got baptised, and her little brother is asleep on the chairs behind them. It's their mother that we are getting ready to take some names to the temple. Her parents are in Nicaragua. We hope that Taylor can find them and give them the gospel message. They sit in front of us at church every Sunday. We took some books for them to look at today.

Even though this chapel is right down town Miami, it is on the bay to the left of the picture. The chapel part is upstairs. The missionaries live right across the street in the apartments that you can just barely see.

There are canals with yachts tied up to docks at the rear of a lot of homes and condos. There is so much water everywhere. I wish we could figure out a way to pipe some of it home.

We met at the Miami Chapel with Lily and Anthony and four of the Elders. This chapel is two stories and is build out of coral rock chiseled into bricks. We helped her sign into New Family Search and started them both on Roots Magic. I am so glad I have a Verizon Wireless card and a portable printer. It doesn't take much time to get set up and working as long as I can find an electrical outlet.

This is the chapel that is closest to the Cuban Food that I mentioned before. Where we learned to love black beans and rice.

These are some of the Elders that we have to do apartment inspections for. Elder Graff and I think that the one on your left looks like our Dallen in St. George. They seemed to enjoy the cookies that we took them. They are also lining up new members to have us teach them about collecting family history.

When we pull into an apartment complex we find a car with a bike rack before we find the apartment numbers. Every time that is where the elders or the sisters live. Almost all the sisters have to live on the second or third floor. It has been interesting to see the flags that the young people have on their walls from their native country. So far the language has not been a problem for us. The young people are there to help us out. My Spanish is coming back a little at a time. All though it was never great even while I was in high school.

This is Harold and I. We stopped at his house on our way to Key West. He was able to take three names to the Orlando Temple. He was then able to do 15 more baptisms and many confirmations. It was fun watching his expression as he saw his family names in print. Now we only have 699 more people to teach and probably 70 more by the end of the month.

The trip to Key West took longer than we thought. Most of the drive was on two lanes and the speed limit was only 45.

We stayed at the Continental Inn on Marathon Island. Our room was the closest to the beach, just right of the chairs in the picture.

I went swimming the next morning. It was cool, but a lot of fun. The two women setting in the chairs that morning asked how I could swim when it was SO COLD. The air temperature was at least 83. I told them I was use to water a lot colder than that.

We are making -plans to drive down again after December 1. Our visits to the Family History Centers did not go as planned. The entire mission area is going to hooked up to Internet cable and we will enjoy the capability of a webinar with the Family History Centers. Our Hollywood Ward has been given the green light to become a Family History Center and we hope to a part of the staffing process.

My debut as the pianist for Relief Society went better than I had thought, but I am a long way from doing more than one song for their meetings. My key board will allow me to practice but it is not like playing an actual piano. Wish we had Delora Hunt here to teach someone in the ward how to play hymns. I think the pianos know the songs, it's just that the player can't make the fingers find the notes. Brother Torsok told me today, "keep looking, the right keys are there somewhere."

We met with a family of four Wednesday evening at their home. The young lady had cooked dinner for us and the three missionaries. It was very good. Being fed by the members was not one of blessings that I even had thought of. We were able to get her registered into New Family Search and start her family history in Roots Magic. We give them a disc with their names on it after our meeting, then they can import that into their computer and continue working on filling in the data.

Last Monday evening we were invited to dinner with the Mortensen Family. After dinner we had Family Home Evening with their four kids at home. they have a daughter on a mission and one that is attending college in Hawaii.

Yesterday, Elder Graff and I celebrated 44 years of marriage. What a lot of great memories we have shared together. We ate dinner at another Cuban Restaurant. They spoke to us in Cuban (spanish) and the menu was in spanish. The dinner was okay, but not as good as the one in Miami Beach.

Last week was very busy. We met with Brother and Sister Clanton, who are over all the Family History Centers in the Mission. It is their responsiblity to see that the equipment all works and that they have internet for the computers. He liked my "Football Analogy" and wanted a copy of it. They gave us some more names for consultants in some of the wards that I needed. We went over the report on new members that I am submitting to the bishops after we work with them. He liked it and she didn't.

Visited the Miami Beach FHC and met Ilana Burdick. Introduced Roots Magic to her and two of her consultants. I really am pleased when they understand how great it works with New Family Search.

Our meeting with the Collins, who are the other senior couple that do apartment inspection went well. Since we offered to drive south and do the Key West and Marathon apartments, they are taking six more apartments than we have. I guess they feel that time and mileage averages it out. We had to give up some of the apartments we had already visited. It felt like giving some of our up. I'll especially miss the "cookie monster".

On our way back to Boca Raton we stopped at the Collins home and I was able to have her download Roots Magic and get her started with the data input. She signed into NFS and was off and running when we left. Our meeting at the Boca Raton FHC was well attended and we were able to show them all how Roots Magis works with NFS. These evening meetings get us home late at night. But I let Elder Graff sleep in on most of the next mornings.

Brother Pete Arnett is our FM Group advisor. (Facility Management) I thank the Lord every day for him. He has become our cheerleader and confidant. I can run ideas by him and get great feedback. He is working ahead of us with the FHC and making sure that they have Roots Magic installed at each location.

Spud came down with the flu or something Friday. So I let him sleep in. I worked on the computer and logged my FHC visits into that website. I also outlined our visit to Key West and made a list of the Elders and Sisters and phone numbers that we need to contact and tell them when we will be there and see if they need any supplies or something for their apartments.

Saturday we attended an informal dinner at the Hogges apartment. We got to visit with all the senior couples. It was a lot of fun. They are great people and keep telling us to hang in there. The driving will get easier. It is, but we could not get along without "Precious" our GPS lady.

The "Hooter Tooters" are arriving from up north. It has become a joke for us. A split second after the lights turn green, they are laying on their horms for the line to get moving. They will not wait at all in line at the grocery store and yesterday, I had a lady demand to be waited on at JoAnn's. I wonder if they realize how much they are being laughed at.

We are making cookies to take to the young missionaries down south this morning. Thank you Jiffy for the cake mix recipe. It might cost a little more, but SO EASY and the kids love them.
Hopefully will have some more pictures for this by next week. Especially of the Marathon Key where we will be staying.

Some of the ducks that hang out by the canal. They seem to be eating a lot of the insects that live in the sawgrass. Strange though, there doesn't seem to be many flying birds in the trees. I haven't figured that out yet.

This is the canal that runs north and south by the condo. This is where my duck friends hang out and watch for anyone to walk along the canal hoping for handouts. We haven't really seen any gators lurking out here, but I don't want to wade in the water just in case.

The pictures are of the front and side of the outside of the condo. The other is the living room.

We enjoyed going to Stake Conference this morning. One lady spoke on family history and getting her names ready for the temple. It has rained on and off all day. There is a storm out in the ocean, but so far has just given us rain. We have to travel to the Flager Chapel again tomorrow afternoon, so I am hoping we don't have to drive in the rain.

We got to speak to our first person to travel to the Orlando Temple with his family names. He had a wonderful time and was so excitied about what he had accomplished. Our meeting tomorrow is with three people that have names they are working on for the temple.

We get to meet with three more Family History Center Directors next Wednesday evening, down in North Miami Beach. Last Friday we met with the Miami Beach Chapel on the bay. Such a beautiful setting. We took the elders to dinner at Las Vegas Cuban Cuisine. We had black beans and rice and pork stew. It was really good! I'll have to take back every naughty thing I have said about black beans.

Chris would have been proud of me. I ate all of them.

We will have to stay on apartment inspection until December. The next senior missionary couple is coming down from Canada and is having problems with their visas. I didn't think we would enjoy that assignment nearly as much as we do. The missionaries really enjoyed the cookies we took them. They even took the red licoirce we had and didn't want.

Saturday afternoon the mail person delivered us a box of tortillas from Nancy. We had told her how bad the tortillas are down here, so she sent some from home. She even found some from Santa Rosa California. We ripped them open and devoured six until we couldn't eat any more. They reminded me of living in California as a child and having Angie our housekeeper make them fresh for the farm workers. I got to eat what I whated first with butter and salt. What wonderful memories. Thank you, Nancy! You made our day.

This week brought a new challenge. The Condo Sales office is telling us we have to move out of this apartment and into one on the other side of the project. They say we make to much money. We meet with them again tomorrow. I really like this condo and don't want to move, and I can't see where they are coming from. I want to know what figures they are using. This saga may go on for serveral weeks. So I'll write more later.

We got a box of pictures and letters from Chip's family. We are working on our scrape book pages. It is fun to look at them and see how the kids are growing.

I can't believe we have been gone a month today. We met a man at church Sunday, that told Spud he had been waiting four months for him to show up in Florida. After talking to Elder Graff, he scheduled his baptism! I was able to teach him about New Family Search and how Roots Magic can interface with it.

We have been asked to help inspect apartments until another senior couple can get here. It has been a lot of fun. These young missionaries are so nice to us.

The little lizards keep trying to get into the condo. They are really fast. Elder Graff made enchilladas for the three missionaries that moved us in. We met Harold and I was able to introduce him to Roots Magic. We have another meeting tomorrow night. They are fun but we don't get home until after 9:00 PM.

Our talks in Sacrament Meeting went well. We both spoke about the Starfish Story and have decided to name this our Starfish Mission. Our first temple excursion may be this Friday. We have to see how that plays out.

I help in the mission office tomorrow on the phones and Elder Graff helps inspect the cars. It has been Zone Conference for three days. It takes a while just to travel from chapel to chapel. We are meeting the Family History Consultants and giving pep talks about working in your personal records first before opening New Family Search.

The humidity is still high, but the temperature is down to 82. Have some pictures to add. Hopefully I'll get them in correctly.

I am still trying to get the one picture out and keep the other one there. This has been an exciting week. Hopefully I can fix it and start a log of experiences.

We had the TV hooked up yesterday and found the BYU channel. So we were able to watch the afternoon session of conference. I hooked up the computer and we watched the morning session on the computer. We signed the lease and went shopping and Elder Graff cooked dinner for us.
I tried out the pool; it is not as clean as our pool at home but I had some duck friends stop by for a visit.

We had dinner with President Hale and his wife Friday evening. They are younger than Chris. We really feel OLD. The GPS lady is named Precious Trickleson, she is the sister to Lavica. An old joke from high school days. Elder Graff marveled that she can tell exactly where we are. He would have liked to have had a GPS in his trucking days. he talks to her when I'm not listening.

Our marching orders are going to be given to us tomorrow. There will be a lot of organizing to be done. I need to visit the Family History Centers and see how they are organized.

My first attempt at adding a picture to a post went way wrong. I chose the wrong picture and not can't get it out. Hope someone can help me with that.

Dinner is ready! Elder Graff has a roast in the oven. Sure smells great!

We are in Joliet, Illinois, this evening and have just had dinner with Slick and Jane Gardner. The computer died this afternoon and is happily recharging as I write this. We visited with my Aunt Dorothy in Blair, Nebraska, last night and had breakfast this morning with her daughter Neena and her husband Ken. It seems like a long way to Florida, but we have been listening to a book on tape called Wednesday Letters. I had no idea that could be so entertaining. We can hardly wait to get back on the road to finish the book. We will start south and east tomorrow. Will hope to post some pictures tomorrow night.

The girls met for luch before we left. We promised to keep in touch and invitd them to come see us in Florida. It would be fun if they would come see us.

We left St George on Sunday with a very full van of stuff. At Provo, we decided to drive by the MTC to see if we could find the place the next morning. As we found the sign to the entrance we had to stop at a stop light and watched as dozens of young men and women walked by on their way to the Temple which ws two blocks away. We pulled the car into a parking lot and watched the procession. They walked by six and eight abreast. All dressed in their white shirts and ties or Sunday dress. It was as if the two thousand stripling warriors were marching by us. A visual of the 'holding to the iron rod". I have asked Taylor to take a picture of it next Sunday so we can post it on theblog.

That was the begining of the most awesome week we have ever experienced. In spite of the fact that I broke my right little toe Monday morning. This was the fourth time. Spud drove me to Insta Care and they gave me another boot and some pain pills. The next morning at our break he went to the book store and fell in the drive way. There were ten young men there to help him up. His suit will have to take a trip to the cleaners when we get to Florida.

Our classes included interaction with the other Elders and Sisters each taking turns role playing as new converts, less actives and investigators. We could not believe how fast the days flew.

We are in Grand Island, Nebraska, as I write this. It is quite fun to have a laptop that has a good battery. As soon as I get a chance, I will download some of the pictures we took at the MTC with Taylor and his companions.

We hope to make it to Blair this evening to visit with my Aunt Dorothy. We are not making as good a time as we thought we would.

This is one of our closest neighbors that we will be sharing the condo yard with. I hope he approves of Utahns. The canal that runs beside the Condo is home to a few more fearsome friends. But we did see some wandering ducks that were looking for a hand out. Spud said ducks are fine, snakes NO Way.

I will miss my birds, but according to Sibley, Florida is home to finches and sparows, so I'll find some to buy bird seed for.

We have heard that our new bed has been delivered. It got there before we did. We are busy doing final errands that must be finished before we can leave. We hope that the weather stays nice while we travel. The hurricane season is in force as I write this, but so far has missed Ft Lauderdale.

Spud and I heard from President Hale last week. He asked me to teach the new converts about New Family Search and Roots Magic. Spud will organize Temple Excursions by motor coach! I am so excited about these callings. Our grandson, Taylor, is in the MTC and loving it. We must report on Monday, September 20, at 10:00 am. I am frantically packing and repacking. This next week will fly by.

Our farewell talks went very well. I'm not sure exactly how close I came to giving the speech that I wrote, but people have told us what a great meeting it was. Taylor gave an awesome speech that he wrote himself. We are very proud of him. I hope to add a few more pictures before we leave. We'll see how well I have learned to do "blogging".

We met four of the senior missionaries that are currently serving in the Ft Lauderdale area. They were kind enough to take us over to their condos and show us around the neighborhood.

May 10, 2010

We flew to Ft Lauderdale to check things out and see just how bad the humidity really is. Maybe by the first of October we will be able to get use to it. The mission office is in a nice business office complex and the condo where the other senior missionaries stay is very nice. Even has two pools and security guards. Resident ducks live there and forage for food at the back doors.

We've been called to Florida.

The letter came while we were in Arizona. The kids wanted to open it before we got home, but we made them promise to wait until Saturday evening. The letter was dated April 6, 2010 and it came in the mail Thursday, April 8. So they had plenty of time to steam and reseal, but they swore they didn't peek.