Rainy days in Vermont

Today is Sunday and it has been raining most of the day. The humidity was at 97%. We had many visitors at church and it's exciting to visited each week with them. We have been called to teach in the primary. Ruby is working on a painting and trying to organize our little apartment to find a home for more stuff then we have room for. We have been going on long walks in the nearby woods. Our landlord took us to some very old stone chambers or root cellars and some have even call them calender sites. But they are very old and usually have old stone walls nearby and old stone foundations where homes once stood. I was told that National Geographic did an article on the the ones near our house. I took a walk around McIntosh Pond today while Ruby worked on her landscape painting. She is making bread and will be cooking it long past bedtime tonight.

Ruby got a new camera and so is happily taking pictures again after I lost her other one. She is designated to document the flowers and garden for the yearly history book of the Memorial Site gardens. We are enjoying the other missionary couples. We work with the Lamb's from AZ, and the Sanford's from Maine on the grounds. The Mckinnon's from Orem, the Vorwallor's from Urda (Toolle), and the Slade's from Star, Idaho work in the visitors center to welcome guest and give tours.

We are blessed to work at the Joseph Smith Memorial Site and can understand why it has designated as a sacred site. The Vermont countryside is so beautiful and green. I'll bet it was hard for many of the early saints to leave this area. Due to the hard times and the inability for many to make a living here, they left for New York. I am sure the Lord had a hand in each of their lives so that would be directed to move on to other areas so that they would be instrumental in the restoration of the gospel. We miss being home in Midway and hope all is well there. We also missed visiting with family and friends who attend the wedding of my sister's son Peter Bell to Jen Green who's family lives in Midway this week end. Wish we could have been there to enjoy the activities

This is the kitchen of our Tree House. Not much room for anything. Not much to cleanup either!

Sorry about the quality of the photos, this is why we bought a new camera. And why we are so sad we lost it yesterday.

This is why we call it our tree house.

We live in the far right bottom area of the house.

Father's Day June 15, 2008

It's been pretty quiet today. After church they served root beer floats and chocolate chip cookies to all, to celebrate Fathers Day, and called it mini linger longer.



It has been about two weeks since we last posted to our blog. Since that time we have moved into our new apartment. It is very small but really close to the JSM site. We are only 1.1 miles away, so can actually walk or ride bikes to work on nice days. Only problem ther are a couple of hills going to work. It will be nice for coming home though. We have planted all the flowers that were ordered and are just waiting for them to grow and fill in with color around memorial site.



We drove to Quechee, Vt for their annual Father's Day Balloon Festival. All the balloons departed at 6am and again at 6pm so we missed that. The rest of the activities were not what we wanted to do so we drove on to Woodstock. While there we were stuck in the all class reunion parade. We were sitting on the green waiting for the parade to start and when we got up to watch we left our camera sitting there and did not realize it until later that night. Called the Police Station to see if anyone had found a camera but nothing. I think we have seen the last our camera which was less than a month old. Later in the day, we drove back to JSM and had a Senior Missionary Social. There are 14 senior missionary couples which includes proselyting, visitor center, family history, and service missionaries. That also included our Mission President and his wife. Everyone brought something for dinner as assigned and we had a great time.

Sunday Drive

Patriarch Tree (200+ yrs. old) on Patriarch Hill at Monument.

The above two pictures were taken at the John Morrell Historic site in Stafford, Vt

Our first two investigators

We had a nice church meeting today with a linger-longer after to eat and get to know all better. One of the ladies, Sister McShinksy, says I look like her daughter who lives in Virgina. She is one of the old timers here, and several of the other folks have asked her how long her daughter will be visiting? So I guess I have a new Mom for a while. We will be moving to our new apt. next weekend. I call it our "tree house" because it is in the forest and you get to the loft byway of a ladder. We planted flowers last week and still have a few more to plant, about 4000 total. The grounds are looking more & more beautiful with forest, green grass and lacy fern. Nephi & the other Elders have been draining one of the ponds so it can be dredged and cleaned out. They stock the 2 ponds with fish, too bad we don't fish. We went for a ride in the country today after church to a small town called Stafford. A typical small Vermont village, a couple of churches, no stores, some have a general store, and lots of older homes (18th century). On previous drives we thought we would find some good prices on antiques in some of the village shops, but no such luck.