What a great preparation day we had this week - a trip to South Bend, Indiana (in our mission) to Notre Dame for the BYU game! What a thrill! We drove up with our Branch President and his wife (the Jacobsons), walked much of the campus, and felt the excitement. The only thing that could have been better . . the BYU offense - and a BYU win for the 80,000 fans in the stadium! (at least the 14-17 loss wasn't embarassing). Too bad Mormon Notre Dame player Manti Te'O wasn't playing for BYU! He had an incredible game.
We really were smiling this big the whole day! Since the day we watched "Rudy" we've wanted to go to South Bend and be at Notre Dame. It didn't disappoint. There were tons of BYU fans on campus too - and in this famous gold-domed administration building we even saw someone from our home stake! Can't beat attending the game with our kids! Bryson might just be the biggest (not in size) BYU fan around - and Kaitlyn loved dancing to the band in her BYU cheerleading outfit complete with pompoms. Bonus treat was having David, a nephew from Washington DC, sit with us for the second half of the game. The view from the top row was awesome - and we had a seat back! The gold helmets of the Fighting Irish were pretty stunning even from the top row!
As they scanned our tickets the helpers said to each person - with gusto, "Welcome to Notre Dame." We might just want to come back here someday! Notre Dame has a huge band and they were great all through the game. The famous "touchdown Jesus" mural on the library overlooks the stadium. Since dark blue is the color of both schools, it was easy to feel right at home.
Sunday night was the monthly "Why I Believe" meeting - one hour long with converts telling their conversion story and why they joined the church. One was just baptized Saturday and confirmed Sunday! There were 70 people there. A similar meeting was held at the same time in a city in the western half of the stake. Very inspirational.
Had fun Monday evening after a FHE activity on family history logging in to new.familysearch.org and then downloading a cool chart on createfan.com. Try it! Easy to see where you still need to do research. That was also hair cut and color night. Tuesday Gary started raking the leaves that blew into our yard from the trees lining the fraternity house lawn across the street. He taught the lunch lesson and we fed 10: spaghetti and meatballs, canned fruit and chocolate cake. Brenda wrote letters to the 13 missionaries serving from our Branch 5 of whom we know because they left since we've been here.
Wednesday we met the new missionary couple in our district - the Ulrich's from Blackfoot, Idaho. We love them already. One of the girls in our Marion class got her mission call this week to Peru. Thursday we had a long and beautiful walk along the river - good except for Gary's allergies that flared up later. Only 27 were at Institute Thursday night, but one was the non-member classmate of an investigator!(some must have left early for fall break) Gary taught our class. Friday we raked more leaves, had 12 students come for Munch & Mingle and Brenda taught the lesson. That afternoon 20 of us traveled to Columbus, Ohio (in the rain) to the temple for baptisms - leaving at 3:15 and getting home at midnight - with an hour for dinner at Fazoli's before the drive home. Except for a health set-back for our daughter at home it was a great week.
