I have gotten a little behind on KC's emails...I love it when he sends pictures!

We did some service taking foam tiles off a ceiling in a members home and putting new ones up. I cut my hands a little and the woman was all over it. She wiped off every spot and put iodine on all the cuts.

Before After

There was a car that was almost buried. There are a lot worse ones that haven't moved all winter...with those you can only see side mirrors and a couple of random spots. Otherwise they are all covered.

A members house. We called him a lot, but he didn't answer and the gate was locked, so we decided to throw snowballs until he heard it and answered the door. It worked!

The Rechnoy (river) district...notice anyone familiar? Elder Grover is in my district again.

One of our investigators names Sasha

Feb 2, 2011

Hey Guys,
-18!? That’s way cold. It was cold at the beginning of the week but today it is like 30. So that’s way nice. I’m glad to hear that things are going good with grandma, that’s good that they have nice ladies come out and do that for them. I’m glad to hear that Steven got out on a mission, I hope that its not too hard to live in Salt Lake and not see his family. Maybe they will start doing lots of Family History work down town now, do you think that’s allowed? Is Nate Azera going on a mission soon? I hope so. We had a really nice week, mostly the last couple days. We went out to our Cuban guy and his family, the fam was still in the "hospital" and when we got there there was a sign on the door that said "quarantine, because of the flu" So we called the mom and she said to just come in anyway, so we did. They were all way excited to see us, I'm sure they are way bored in there. And we brought with us an elder from a senior couple that speaks Spanish so that we could talk to Rey, the Cuban guy. We had a great meeting with him about the "Gospel of Christ", he has read the whole BoM and is reading the Gospel Principles book. He is really understanding the gospel well. He's way committed.We had an investigator who is very seriously studying the gospel come to church for the second time on Sunday, so that is good. And he is the relative of a member so he already has at least one friend. We finally met with one of our investigators who has been sick for a couple weeks named Anton. We met before institute and talked about the Plan of Salvation. He understood it really well and when ever I would ask him if he understood or if he had questions he would say "No, that’s pretty much how I imagined it anyway." And the end he told us that he had a feeling that he somehow already knew all this stuff, so we told him more about the pre earth life and how he knew and accepted it all there. It was way cool to see the spirit speaking to him and reminding him of things he once knew and excepted. He stayed for institute and really liked it. Elder Croese, don’t worry I cant pronounce it either, and I are getting along really well. Hes a great guy. Way smart. Today we went into St. Basils Cathedral, that's the one that looks like candy land. I had never been inside before, so it was really interesting. It is basically just covered in icons and paintings. If you don’t know what icons are you should probably google images that. Its an interesting part of their religion. Anyway, this place is just full of them. It was cool. Have a really nice week. I love you guys.
KC

Feb 16

Hey guys!
Happy Valentines day! Someones mom sent them a package with brachs hearts in them and I thought about mom. Did you stock up? Have you finished the candy corns yet? Its nice to hear that things are going so well at home, and that grandma is feeling ok at our house. I cant wait to see Sam, he is way cute. Tell Olivia hello for me, it breaks my heart to think of her being sad, thinking that she doesn't get enough attention. We had a pretty good week this week. We went out and taught that Cuban man again, we talked about temples. It was really good. We had an incredible zone conference the other day. We had a member of the area presidency, President Lawrence and his wife come and speak to us. It was incredible. Sister Lawrence talked about how our real purpose in missionary work is to seek out the house of Israel, because they are those who will accept it. She talked about how here in Russia there are tons of people from different tribes, she had us stand up if we were from Ephraim and all but two Russian elders stood up, then she had them tell where they were from, turns out one is from Dan and one from Naphtali, and we asked another member here and she said she was from Asher. It is really cool to see how they really did go into the North countries. Anyway, she somehow suddenly made the house of Israel stuff interesting. Then President really inspired me too, he talked about sanctifying ourselves in order to be the best instruments in the Lords hands that we can be.., at least that is what I took from it. It was awesome and really inspirational. Elder Croese and I are staying together for 1 more transfer and then he is going home, So we will be 6 more weeks together. I like him a lot. He is way smart. We had a really nice meeting with an investigator family that consists of a mother and a daughter, earlier it was just the daughter that was interested and the mom would just kinda sit in, but this last week the mom opened up and shared her feelings about changing religions and getting baptized and stuff, she isn't against it at all, she just wants to make sure that its the right thing to do. It would be really great if the were baptized, they are way good people. For Valentines day we made heart shaped cookies and frosted them with red frosting. then we took them to almost all the active members in our area, it was really good and they seemed to enjoy it. We shared with them John 13:34-35, about the new commandment to love each other. Its way simple but really easily overlooked. So things are going really well here. Today I got these really cool "russian dolls" that are of all the prophets! you unstack them and the prophets are inside of one another. Its way cool. Anyway, I love you guys. Have a great week.
Elder Jensen

Tuesday morning, Teina called and said her and Julie were coming for a visit.
It was so great to see them! I haven't seen Julie for a long time and haven't seen her little girl Sophie since she was a baby.
Oh my goodness, she is such a doll! She seriously has the prettiest little face you have ever seen!
They dropped Savanah off at her special school in north Salt Lake on the way and had a few hours till they needed to pick her up.
Sadie is in school all day now...I can't believe she is that old!


They are so sweet and thoughtful and brought nice things for everyone.
Cute outfits and diapers for Sam and a fun play dough set for Liv.
Olivia and Sophie had fun playing together and we all had a good time visiting.
Julie is a really talented photographer...she has always taken the cutest pictures of her kids...really professional.
She brought her camera and took some great shots of Sam. She knows how to set him up really cute. He was so smiley... I can't wait to see how they turned out!
Julie has some real tough challenges in her life with her autistic daughter, but is always cheerful and positive. She is a great example to me...I sure do love and admire her.

"BEE MINE"

Olivia's Valentine ... immediately named Myra... of course.

Maybe a little too much love?

Sweet thoughtful friends brought surprises for everyone ...even some tart cherry juice ...to help me sleep better! (Stacey and Rick, how lucky we are to have such great friends!)
Tinkerbell! So cute!Candice wrote Kelley and I the sweetest card...made my day!Angie brought me this cute Valentine plate along with some peanut m&m's (my favorite) for a prize drawing on her blog. How sweet is she? We took Olivia to McDonalds for lunch...sharing her drink with Myra.

Leslie sent mom a real nice Valentines Day card. She sent one for Kelley and I too. She is always so thoughtful like that!Monday afternoon the fed-ex guy delivered these beautiful tulips for Camille from Kellen...Camille loves tulips!A few minutes later, Megan S. came to the door with a dozen georgeous red roses for me from Kelley. What a wonderful surprise!Kelley has been helping Todd with a side job after work so he didn't get home till about 8:00. Even after working hard all day long, and I know he is absolutely beat, he comes home cheerful.

He got me the new men's tabernacle choir cd and this book I have been wanting by President Uchtdorf. He knows what I like!

He also gave me the sweetest card. He is so good to me. Im a lucky girl to have such a special man.

I thought it was sweet when I went in to get mom up that morning, she was laying on her side looking at daddy's picture. She had turned his picture sideways so it looked like he was on his side looking back at her. She said she was just laying there talking to her sweetheart.

I don't have any doubt that she was doing just that.

Sunday afternoon fun

I decided to skip the nap and instead, went outside and spent a lovely afternoon in the warm sunshine playing with Olivia.

(Unusually warm day ...60 degrees!)

Did I forget Lizzy?
She is pretty much attached to Olivias' hip. Chasing bubbles wouldn't be nearly as much fun without her! She jumps way in the air to tries to catch them. Then Olivia decided that she is a puppy dog too and jumps in the air just like Lizzy.

We swang and twirled on the swings. I can see why Sam likes his swing so much...very soothing.We poked around in the fish pond...the ice was about half melted, and we saw 5 big fish! We gave them some food, but they didn't seem interested. I think they are still in hibernation mode.Went exploring around in the rock garden. Found some cool treasures. (my sunglasses I had left out there last fall... a sparkly rock, a cute little green plant poking it's head out from the ground way too early. A seed pod that Olivia opened up and planted each of the little seeds inside....She put up a stick marker where she planted them...I'll have to check this spring and see if anything comes up!

It's refreshing to look at the world through a 4 year olds' eyes for a change. They see things with fascinating imagination and endless possibilities before them.

First thing she wanted to look at was to see if there was any raspberries to pick. She has a great memory! Picking raspberries with Olivia was a lovely memory for me too!Played hopscotch...except Lizzy kept picking up our hoppy taw as soon as we threw it and running away with it.

She still hasn't figured out how to play fetch. We throw a ball or a stick and she runs right after it and picks it up, but then just tares around the yard with it...not a chance of giving it back to us.Went for rides in the wagon. I pull her, she pulls me...ok not so much of her pulling me, but she gave it a good try! Later after dinner, we busted out the Monopoly game.

I'm not sure why we keep subjecting ourselves to this...Kelley always wins, ( I know he must be cheating somehow...)

And that isn't the worst of it. It's the way he wins. He buys up everything he can, gets his hotels placed strategically, then sits back and rakes in the dough. I know we have the same chance of doing that, that he does, but he always seems to come out ahead.

That was a victory dance from Sam when Candice landed on free parking.

Camille and I had pretty much given up and were more interested in the popcorn at this point.

All in all a fun night.

Things have been really up and down with mom this past week. Some days she will wake up and be really weak and confused and not know where she is and other days, she will walk right out into the living room and sit down all by herself without any help. I don't know what it is that makes the difference. On Wednesday, she woke up pretty ornery. (that hardly ever happens) She did not want to take a shower and for sure didn't want Rebecca to come help her. I warned Rebecca when she got here mom was kind of grumpy and didn't want a shower. She came in and with her sweet cheerful way, totally changed mom's attitude in about one minute. By the time she left, mom was telling her how grateful she was that she had come to help her and she would see her in a few days!
Thursday morning, Brenda, Teina, Angie and Lisa came over to spend some time with mom. Angie and Lisa had flown in that morning to attend their grampas' funeral.
Mom was having one of those rough mornings where she was kind of confused. I know she loved visiting with them though because later that day after they had gone, she said " It was so nice to have everyone here...it's been so long since I've seen them!"
They stayed till about 2:00. I know Lisa and Angie were both pooped after flying out very early that morning, so that was nice of them to stay for a while. Brenda had told me earlier that she was planning on spending the day here so Camille and I could get out for a while and she would be here with mom. But then Dennis' step dad died so I sure didn't expect her to go ahead with it. She said she was picking Lisa and Angie up at the airport anyway and they all wanted to see grandma, so they would still plan on coming. That was really nice and it raised mom's spirits to see them all.
Yesterday, I saw something in mom I haven't seen before. She was sitting there staring at her pills..as usual, and she said "someone has been messing with my pills...I can't take these!" I said 'no mom, these are the right pills...no one has touched them'. After much convincing, she finally took them. Then later that night, Kelley and I had gone to the stake conference adult meeting, and when we got home, I came downstairs and found mom with this look of panic on her face. I said "what's wrong?" She said she had been waiting and waiting for the time to pass. What was odd was that Camille had been sitting with her all evening (she was still sitting right next to her) chatting and watching Lawrence Welk. A few other things happened too, like her saying that Tizzy...(Lizzy or wiggle waggle...that's another story) was upsetting the baby...(baby sound asleep, Lizzy asleep) or that Olivia had done something to the baby swing and had broken it. (Didn't happen) I would reassure her that everything was fine and within a minute, she would be over it and completely pleasant and happy again. I have seen a few incidents of paranoia from her when I've been at her house, but this is the first pretty bad ones since she's been here.
I know it's just something that comes with dementia...got to learn to accept it and not let it get to me.
Camille said they had had a nice evening together with no trouble at all. Many thanks to her again for making it possible for us to go to all of our stake meetings on Saturday.
This morning,I came downstairs early and found mom awake. She asked me what day it was. I said "Sunday", and she said "well I had better go to church then!" I told her it was our stake conference and she was welcome to come with us! I got her hair all fixed and put on her pretty green skirt and blouse that goes with it. She looked beautiful! Then we got her upstairs for her breakfast and she took all her pills in record time! I was so glad Kelley was here to help us...he can really move her around easily in the wheel chair... even down the front steps! Lifted her into the car with no trouble, then into the wheelchair and into the church in a jiffy. We sat at the back where it was easy to move the wheel chair into a spot. Conference was good. Some real good speakers and the music was nice. Mom stayed awake the whole time! That was better than I did!
We visited with some friends after it was over and introduced mom to several people. Everyone was really great and sweet with her.
When we got home, she said she liked going to our church and she had really enjoyed the meeting. Wow! That made it all worthwhile!
Now lets all have a nap.

A few things from this week...
I don't know what it is, but Sam gets this mischevious little twinkle in his eye and cutest smile when ever grampa holds him.
After fussing for hours, he will settle right down and start smiling when Kelley gets home.

Cute froggy towel from Holly

This was one of the cute shirts Kim gave him...he loves it!

The latest addition to the zoo...wiener dog...Olivia is so obcessed with dogs, I figured this might be a good choice....It was pretty wierd looking till I got all the parts sewed on... hence his nickname...torpedo dog.

Mom likes to hold Sam...sometimes I think she forgets she is holding him and he ends up sliding down onto the side of the chair. It's so funny though cause he doesn't seem to mind one bit... Just lays there peacefully staring at her no matter what position he is in.

This is what happens when grampa is left in charge for the evening.

Camille and I decided to try making some of these baby legs she had seen at a boutique. They turned out pretty cute!

The time is going by way too fast while Camille, Liv and Sam are here. We haven't really done anything too exciting...just enjoying the everyday kind of things together.