Memorable week to be sure! Many highlights - and a few lowlights as well. Two baptisms in one week - Trevor on Tuesday and Marley on Saturday! They will both be great members. Hard to miss the grins on the faces of those Elders! Kevin & Dacia and family came for Marley's baptism - she used to be their babysitter. They stayed for the rest of the day and hung out at the Institute with us. We got to see them again Sunday morning when we made a quick visit (2 hrs each way) to attend their Primary program. They weren't sure we were

coming and our grandchildren's reaction when we walked in was worth the whole trip. Feels good to be wanted! (They did a fabulous job of course - under Dacia's guidance as Prim. Pres.). We have some beautiful Halloween artwork on our walls and doors thanks to our grandchildren. Saturday we got a heavy box delivered in the mail. We will be making some awesome Halloween cookies - thanks to Julie W - and Gary will stay warm in the new BYU hoodie sweatshirt that she and Mom M. sent.

Brenda taught Institute this week and did a couple new things to involve the students. She made a worksheet that required looking up specific sections in the D&C to fill in the blanks, and she made a puzzle - one for each student - with a portion of the lesson on it. We may try telecommuting our power point lesson slides instead of driving to Marion and having no students show up. Gary taught the Friday NT lesson. Friday night was Movie & Games at the Institute. The Elders encouraged everyone to bring a friend - to watch "The Best Two Years" and participate in the ping pong tournament and other games. We had a big group and they all seemed to be having a good time.

Monday & Tuesday were Fall Break - we took advantage of having no students here and went on a bike ride Monday morning. We saw this field and many others like it. The drought this summer meant just corn stalks - with no ears of corn to harvest. Farmers have started to chop up and plow under these fields of dead, dry corn. The path we ride on was strewn with fall leaves and just before getting back to the station Brenda ran over a snake - partially hidden by the leaves. (probably a garter snake - but it gave her the creeps). The trail has these nifty milepost signs every half mile. The station where we get the bikes is at mile 103.0 so we rode for 7 miles and then rode back. We had some great weather days this week before it got cold.

The lowlights were that 3 carloads of our YSA kids were in an accident of the way to a regional Halloween party and dance Saturday evening. Thanks to air bags, seat belts and a prayer for safety before they left, all the kids are ok - but two of the cars are in pretty bad shape (and belong to kids who just turned in mission papers). The witnesses and policeman were amazed at the quick forgiveness and lack of anger shown by the victims. The 4th YSA car was able to avoid the collission - but they stopped to help and ended up giving one of the policeman a pass along card! Gary woke up Thursday with a very sore back - for no reason. No driving or moving tables or chairs or raking leaves since then for him. Brenda filled 9 big black leaf bags with the leaves that blew into our yard from the trees across the street!