Hello everyone!!
This is a long post so you might take a few days to view it all.
I don't post very often but when I do you get tons of pictures.
We have been asked to go to baptismal meetings for our area.
Citrus Ridge Ward had a baptism for a young girl who is 8 years old.
Her father had just become active and was now able to baptize her.
The family is so happy about it!
At the end of the service, the member of the bishopric, who conducted the meeting, said that after the prayer we were all invited into the gym for the party. PARTY!?
We got out into the hall right after and the missionaries told us to come quickly to see the gym decorations while everyone else was visiting.
This surely was a surprise to me!!
Everyone was taking pictures so I had to show some to you.
This is what I saw when I opened the door minus the family.
When I turned the other way I almost fell over.
The children sure enjoyed it!!
Everything was decorated so nicely right from the treats .........
....to the party gifts.
I was a little surprised!
Brother and Sister Harrington, ward mission leader,
took us to Bok Tower Gardens here in the heart of Florida.
This is the highest place in the state of Florida.
These are Anhinga birds in this artwork.
They are diving birds that need to dry off their wings before they can fly again
so here they are with their wings spread to dry.
This is quite a common sight.
Elder Prince and Elder Palmer , our Lake Hamilton Ward missionaries.
We had a great day!!
The tower in the gardens has a big carillon and the bells ring often.
There is a concert each day in the afternoon.
I am standing inside the outline of the largest bell in the tower.
I wish I could remember how much it weighs.
Isn't this an interesting use of cement and rock?
It is the patio.
I loved it!! I think we should have one at home. It massages your feet while you walk.
I thought my grandchildren would like to help with this endeavour....... until
Elder Draper said it would be hard on it to have to shovel snow.
Oh right!! I forgot about the snow!!!
These are air plants that are hung on strings to make a little wall.
This picture is at the entrance of the gardens.
Everything is so green and beautiful!
I love this missionary!! I love the plant too.
These get so big. This one isn't too big yet.
This little squirrel wasn't afraid of us. He really put on a little show.
This is the Bok Tower.
It is beautiful and the pond around it is so delightful.
What a beautiful spot!!
Along the path I took this.
There are such interesting plants here that I haven't seen before.
Elder Draper posing by the pond.
This Sun Dial is on the side of the wall of the tower and it works.
It is 10:33 am. You may have to look closely to see the X (ten).
The big hand points to the minutes and the shadow of the little hand points to the hours.
Here it is a little further out.
This is looking up to the top. I can't remember how tall it is.
The bell tower is at the top.
A close up of the bell tower. It's really bright and beautiful.
Here we are looking out over the land below the hill.
This is the highest elevation of Florida. 324 feet
I miss seeing a view!! And we miss the mountains!!!
Bok Tower
This view is taken looking down into the pond below.
Do you see the koi fish?
There's an orange one and a white one in front of it.
Sister Clinger is hiding behind the gate like she is in jail.
This gate is so beautiful!!!
These are right across the top of it. They are all different.
This flower is on the post that holds the gate.
You can see it here.
This is the door leading into the living quarters.
Mister Bok did live here. It was one of his many homes.
His grave is right out in front of that beautiful door.
This is a close-up of the door.
There are pictures in each square. Each square has a picture from the creation but the one with the tree is done differently so it stands out.
I think it is significant that it is a picture of a tree.
This was given to Mr. Bok by a Chinese employee.
The explanation of the gift.
This is Sister Wright resting on a bench.
She is so cute too.
I hope you can read this.
It's an explanation about the tower I think.
Sisters (Hermanas) Wright and Clinger
I sure enjoy them being here. They are wonderful missionaries!!!
He must be pondering something here!
I know! This sure beats shopping!!
Just outside of the home are these two giant pots.
Elder Palmer and Elder Prince are posing there.
A beautiful lawn area on top of the hill where the tower is.
Looking across the lawn there is a pond just behind the pot down there.
This is a little closed in garden. I love the big plant in the middle.
There is a fountain inside the octagon.
Can you find the sisters?
I think they might be doing the Grecian Urns.
Beautiful flowers
The garden outside of the home.
There are all sorts of vegetables in this little garden.
You can see tomatoes and there are cucumbers, eggplants, kale, celery and more.
Here is the Kale and way behind is the eggplant.
This is blossom from one of the vegetable plants.
Sorry I can't remember which one. I just love the blossom.
Another one of the vegetable blossoms.
This bell flower is along the path. I love the detail in this flower.
I just put my camera under it and took a shot facing up to get this photo.
It's beautiful inside the bell flower too!
Here we are inside a little building with a window in the wall.
There are benches to sit on and watch nature.
This is what we are looking at.
I think this is a dove eating seeds.
We did find an alligator. He's right in the middle and looking right at us.
We saw another alligator too but couldn't find him in the picture again.
Here I am with a gopher turtle. It is illegal to even touch them.
They can die if they are bothered and they are trying to protect them.
When you think you've seen everything..... always remember to look up!!!
It's beautiful!!!
A Blue-tailed Skink, he's pretty.
Too bad his tail was in the shade and he ran away fast.
I was lucky to get this photo at all.
This tiny little gecko was joining our picnic.
Elder Prince was lucky to catch it!!
This beautiful lily is in my backyard.
We had lots of them.
As we drive down the highway or side roads the green on the sides is spectacular!!
The vines grow over the bushes and trees and up the trunks so that you only see green and it is such a beautiful shade of green too!! I absolutely love it!!!
The tree on the left has its trunk completely covered with vines.
The tree in the middle is really a dead bush covered in vines.
You can really see the green in this photo.
The ground cover bushes look like a blanket of green.
Here is another tree that is almost dead.
You can see the dead branches coming out at the sides and are broken off.
This neighbourhood is a beautiful well manicured community.
Every home is beautiful.
We like coming out here to visit ward members
although there aren't many in this area.
This is the mailbox at the front of that home.
Isn't it cute?
The dog should be a pit bull because everyone down here has one!!!
It must be the State Dog.
This tree is just down the lane from our home.
It looked almost dead for so long and then started growing leaves.
Now to our surprise, it is growing blossoms at the end of every branch and twig.
You can see them just starting to pop in the very front down low.
We'll keep taking pictures of this tree.
Now the tree is a little further along.
You can see what a beautiful green it is and the blossom are a very bright yellow.
They come out slowly.
This is the same kind of tree.
You can see the blossoms are on the warmer side of the tree
but they will eventually grow over the whole tree.
We passed a lake and FINALLY we saw our first alligator in the wild in Haines City.
They look like they just hang in the water.
Even when they are moving, they can move without making a ripple in the water.
It is so fun to see them. I love them!!
This is a Anhinga bird.
It is diving for food and comes up every now and then for air.
Then it dives back down again.
While I was waiting for the Anhinga bird to show itself again
I noticed the beautiful reflection of the sky in the water.
Nice, eh?
The same bird up again.
He comes up anywhere and facing any which way.
You can see his body a little in this picture.
At another lake shore where we found alligators.
This is the water coming from another lake.
There are man-made water canals joining several of the lakes together.
Lots a algae!
This gator is facing us head on. Cool!!!
Here is our same tree a few days later.
Efren is sitting in front.
He has invited us for dinner and his friends came too.
The sisters and I are in the back.
Efren comes to English classes that we help teach.
He's pretty good at it. He comes from Mexico.
There are lots of Spanish people here coming from all over Central America.
You can tell which country they are from by their accent.
We, of course, cannot tell anything..... only the Spanish can tell. (The Sisters can too.)
Another alligator which shows his body going down to his tail.
These gators aren't very big..... maybe about 5 feet.
Same gator slowly swimming along.
It seems like every day you can see something you've never seen before.
I was walking across the lawn and noticed these beautiful little flowers.
I put my foot in so you could see the size of the flowers.
Nice shoe!!
Our back yard.
The tree in front with hot pink blossoms is amazing and they are everywhere.
They line the boulevards. People plant them all over in their yards.
You can see that same kind of tree behind it.
It is yellow on top but just that beautiful green as yet on the bottom of the tree.
So beautiful!!!
These little berries are growing on some bushes we have in the yard.
An ant hill
These are not fire ants!
I love how they build a little hill with that hole in the middle of it.
You can see that the hole is pretty big for ants.
Our District before transfers.
back row: Elder and Sister Draper, Sister Wright, Sister Clinger, Elder Prince, Elder Boeme
Front row on floor: Elder Palmer, Elder Nessen, Elder Call (District leader) Elder Butler
Elders Prince and Nessen were transferred. We are so sad about Elder Prince!!
We worked closely with him in our ward and he is a wonderful person.
My guess is that he will be an AP before his mission is over.
I bet he'll train next transfer. Sister Summerhays agrees that he is ready.
This is a close-up of the flowers on that same tree.
Aren't they gorgeous?
Look at the tree trunks.
Some trees here have the strangest formations in their trunks.
Notice the vines growing on the dead part of the tree trunk and over to go up the tree.
Here we are at the edge of an Orange Grove.
The tractor is pulling the watering machine.
It goes slowly up and down each row when they aren't having enough rain.
This is a perfect example of the vines growing up the trunks.
Everything is green!!
This butterfly landed on our kitchen window ledge.
We couldn't get a picture of underneath the wings.
They were beautiful but completely different than the tops.
We have lots and lots of great butterflies here.
Lots of them we have never seen before.
Here's Elder Palmer and Elder Prince on transfer day.
Elder Palmer doesn't like shaking hands let alone being touched on the shoulder
or heaven forbid, to get a hug!!!
We tease him about it all the time. He's a good sport!
Elder Prescott is our new Elder.
He is always up and cheery.
I'm sure we'll learn to love him but we miss Elder Prince.
Elder Prince with me and Elder Draper
I wear my badge on the other side
so that when I shake people's hands they can read my tag
without breaking their necks or looking too obvious.
Elder Palmer & Elder Prince
Elder Palmer is dying but putting his arm around Elder Prince anyway.
I'm lucky to get this on camera.
We had to coax him!!!
More greenery on the road
I love the vines climbing the trees.
This is another great thing.... to have the trees reaching across the streets.
Here we are at the Mission President's home.
It is the evening of transfers when the departing Elders and Sisters come here
to have dinner, bear testimonies, and sleep.
This is our former Zone Leader, Elder Johnson who is the new AP and is posing for us!!!
He's is a great leader and we love him. He'll be great as an AP!
Sister Summerhays is in the pink sweater.
The other AP, Elder Cook is visiting with Sister Sachel,
the new mission secretary since about the beginning of April.
We miss Sister and Elder Mott but Sister Sachel and Elder Sachel are doing great jobs too.
Elder Johnson & Sister Summerhays
Departing missionaries with the Summerhays.
This is Sister Turner.
I only got to meet her at conferences but she is great!!
We always do role plays at conferences so we get to interact with each other.
Doesn't President Summerhays have a great smile?
This is what he looks like all the time. He's just a happy person!!
Sister Montes, from Philippines, English is her second language,
Sister & President Summerhays
We came out from visiting with Teri and this little critter was on my car window.
Isn't he beautiful? He's big too!
I love this house! Isn't it interesting? I'd love to see inside.
I guess we should go track it out.
We drive by it all the time.
Here is another brightly coloured home.
Someone explained to me that they like the bright colours because they are tropical.
That makes sense!
It's hard to get a clear picture outside because of the humidity. You can see it here.
Just a picture of vines on the trees.
We went to a Mission Training Meeting early one morning.
This is the sun rise.
It was so beautiful but we couldn't stop to take the best picture.
This is pretty too though.
I'm taking this shot hanging out my window on the side of the car.
This one is taken from the sun roof.
I don't stick my head out of there, just reach the camera up.
Now little flowers at the church's flower bed.
Here is another of those trees like we have in the back yard.
In the winter the trees are cut back to just the tops of the trunks.
We wondered for the longest time what the tree was like.
When they started to grow we were so pleased.
They are beautiful and they come in all shades of colours.
Another of the same tree in Brother King's yard.
This is that same tree down the lane from us.
Isn't is pretty?
There are so many different kinds of palm trees.
I need to get a book so I know what they are.
These ones are growing seeds right now.
They are beautiful!!
This picture shows two different kinds of trees.
You can tell this only by the difference in the seed pods.
A close-up of one of the tree's seed pods.
Our District Meeting
Elder Boeme gave some instruction to us on how to be better missionaries.
Elder Boeme comes from a farm in Idaho. He rides in the rodeos.
Elder Call, our District leader, also comes from a farm and he will probably see more people on his mission than he'll see for the rest of his life. He never leaves the farm and loves it.
Whenever anyone mentions a tractor he get homesick..... not for his mom but for his tractor.
It's so funny!!
He came to our home one day and came in, shut the door
and looked at the pictures on the back of the door.
He said, "Horses! Now I'm ruined for the rest of the day!"
He's joking that he's ruined for the rest of the day but he sure loves his farm life!!
He really is a hard working elder.
Elder Boeme taught us that we are like tractors. We need to get the negative things out of our lives.
That is like the exhaust. Then we need to learn and grow in positive Christ-like ways.
We listed things we need in our lives and he said these were like the little steps to get up into the tractor.
We were all having a good time with this but it also was a very good lesson.
When he drew in the steering wheel at the end, I couldn't help but laugh.
I thought it was the farmer driving the tractor in great haste!!
It was a great time!!
This is Elder Boeme who taught the lesson.
This is Elder Call who loved the lesson!!!!
This is at Sister Nina Hutchison's home.
We went to visit her because she had been out weed-whacking the day before for 4 hours.
She did her yard and then did the house next door because it is empty
and she doesn't like it to look so bad.
She really hurt her arm that day and can't even move her arm today which is a few days later.
You can see what a little mite of a thing she is. She's so cute though.
She never stops talking.
She says you'll know when she's dead because her mouth won't be moving.
She very fun and jokes with everyone.
She's the door greeter for Sacrament Meeting.
We stand out in the foyer with her so we can visit with people as they come into the building.
We get to see all the visitors and investigators and returning members that way.
One tall lady in the ward, Sister Waters, always walks up and says to me,
"Can you see something? I can hear something around here but I can't see anything? Can you?"
It's cute and fun and it's the same joke each time.
I love these ladies.
Sister Hutchison is related to Ellis & Glenda Stonehocker.
She was a Bullock and she comes from Welling.
She showed her house to us and you wouldn't have believed it.
This is her Christmas room.
She has to dust everything all year round and you better believe that there is not a speck of dust anywhere in her home!!!
When she opened the door I almost fell over. Elder Draper told me not to get any ideas from her.
It is totally covered with hundreds, maybe thousands of little Christmas trinkets.
She loves them all!
She lives in a mobile home.
It still has the original stove top, oven and fridge from in the 1960's!!
I opened the oven and it looked like she had just brought it home from the store.
Not a spot of anything on it or in it.
The appliances are an adorable turquoise in colour.
Her whole house is filled like this with regular everyday decorations that people have given her.
She keeps them all and they are all clean as a whistle!!
What a welcome place to be!
I think this is the cleanest spot in all of Florida!!!
I took my suit jacket to the dry cleaners!!!!!!!
I could have done that to it right here at home.
I love this jacket. It was expensive too!!
All they would give me for it was $80.
I didn't make any fuss because of the name I wear on my chest.
We should remember always that we have taken His name upon us whether it is visible or not!!
What a good lesson for me!
I DO NOT LOVE THIS!!!!!!!!
We went to the church to help the Sisters with filling the font for their baptism that afternoon.
This is what we found!!!
You can see that it is very big!!
Sister Clinger caught it while I screamed and then we took it outside to let it go.
Boy, could it move!!!
Last week in church the Elders were on the front row. They saw this same kind of spider on the wall at the front of the chapel and pointed to it. Well, everyone saw it then!! All eyes were on the spider instead of the speaker so I made myself look at the speaker as much as I could so she could see that at least someone was watching and listening to her. I'm sure there were others too.
The spider climbed up the wall to the ceiling quickly and startled a few folks.
Then it started to come across the ceiling.
Thank goodness it took a turn and went behind the wall where we could no longer see it.
He went toward the light from the window. That was soooooo funny!!!
I'm thinking what if it comes over and then drops from the ceiling and lands on someone or worse, ME?
We've had so many good visits lately. Some of these people we have been working with since we first got here. We have made so many good friends. Some of the less actives have totally come back and some are still on their way. Some had never been to the temple and now have goal dates set to go to receive their own endowments and then get busy on family history. We have very good family history people here. We are so excited to go to the temple with them. We love to see them repenting and building their faith in the Saviour. The less active who are coming back were active at one point and so it is our goal to get them active again. To us that means that they are actively going to the temple to serve at least on a monthly basis. Watching them come along is so wonderful and so rewarding.
It takes a little longer for some than others but that is OK and we are being patient because forward movement is positive. We have one woman that is so ill that I don't think she'll live long enough to make it to the temple herself. She has given us all her information so that I can go and do her work for her if she doesn't make it on her own. What a marvellous privilege!! We have come to love these people so much and know they are loved by our Heavenly Father too. The missionaries find investigators to teach and when they aren't progressing they have to drop them and move on to find others that have been prepared by God to listen and accept the gospel. We, on the other hand, don't drop people. Our people have already made covenants and we have to keep trying until we can reach them. Some are more ready than others and we can spend more time with them but we can't just drop them. They are already a part of us and we need to lift up their feeble arms. We have realized that some people have gone from accepting our visits or putting up with our visits to where now they are looking forward to our coming over to visit. It's like they can't wait to see us each week. It is so great to see them letting the Lord work in their lives again. They are receiving blessings that have been missing from their lives and they know it. They express their gratitude to us but really it is the Holy Ghost that they have been feeling bearing witness to them that they are on the right track now and can succeed.
Missions are wonderful blessings!!
We are so grateful to Heavenly Father for giving us this opportunity to serve Him full-time.
What a joy it is!!!!
