Hello family and friends! Kristin & Joe closed on a home this week and will soon be moving from our house. We've had a great week. Too hot to walk outside M-TH so we wore our iPods and listened to scriptures while walking in the house - around the rooms and up and down the 16-step stairway. We can't walk at the same time or we would run into each other! We got to be the members present while the Elders taught a YSA female investigator the law of chastity lesson. The Elders are remarkable. What a great experience for us.

Yesterday was our first Senior Missionary gathering - held quarterly at the mission home. It was great to be with our friends President Kent and Sister Connie Collins again - and to meet and get to know the other 21 seniors (all older than us). We had delicious chicken grilled by President Collins and the rest was "pitch in" as they say in Indiana: Salads, Rolls, Fruit, Baked Beans and Desserts. The food was good and company was delightful. There were some amazing and faith promoting stories told just as everyone introduced themselves! The mission home is in a lovely forested area. It looks like a 2-story house from the front but is really 3 stories tall. It works great as a mission home. They have

a bunch of single mattresses and sheet packets that the young Elders use to sleep in this big room the night they arrive in the mission (a new group every 6 weeks) and again at the end of their mission, the night before they fly home. It is used for zone leader training and other meetings too. The young sisters have a bedroom on the third floor. President & Sister Collins are doing a fabulous job. They take good care of the 154 young Elders and Sisters in the mission and love them like their own. Of the senior missionaries, four single sisters and one couple are digitizing books at the Fort Wayne Family History Library (2nd largest one in the world). Most others are Member and Leader Support missionaries -

helping in wards and branches to visit the less actives and help them come back. Two other couples serve at regular institute buildings - but they have full time church employee institute teachers there. Our calling is unique in the mission and we so happy to be where we are! We got to go to Costco before heading home!! This was a busy food and teaching week. Besides a potato salad for this gathering, we had Creamy Black Bean Salsa Chicken over rice for one lunch (10 people), tuna sandwiches for another (only 6), hot dogs for district meeting (6 hungry Elders and 4 senior missionaries), and little pulled pork tacos for Intitute refreshments (27 people). Gary taught Tuesday lunch on the Savior calling his 12 Apostles and Thursday night on "Selecting and Becoming an Eternal Companion." Brenda taught Thursday lunch from the New Testament on fasting - inspired by Ryan & Chelsea's ward fast last Sunday. By the way - we will be looking for rain this week after participating today in an area fast for the drought to end. The nice rain storm on Thursday was not nearly enought to help the crops. We were able to watch the Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra Pioneer Day Concert last night - from our computer on BYUTV to our big screen TV. Very enjoyable.