Here it is almost the end of April 2010. We have been in the mission field a year, and we are this weekend welcoming the new missionaries for this summer. Where has the time flown to?

Terri and her boys came to visit us at the end of March. It was fun to see them all. Scott is now going to military school in Sarasota, Florida. Tommy has just found out he will be able to graduate from High School next January (a semester earlier than planned.) He is anxious to move back to Colorado and plans to attend the Arapahoe Community College.

Rodger and his family stay busy in Flower Mound with their jobs and school and sports. Britt now seems fully recovered from her tonsillectomy. Brandon is now driving and loving it.

The Temple was closed for the semi-annual cleaning and maintenance last week and next week. Last week, 15 couples of us went to Kirtland Ohio to tour the Church Historical Sites there. We started out by going to Detroit to tour the Ford F-150 truck manufacturing plant, then over to Kirtland. Elder and Sister Butterfield took such good care of us and made sure we saw all the sites. We spent time at the Morley Farm, The Quarry, The Temple, the John Johnson Farm and saw the home where Eliza R and Lorenzo Snow were born. We had lunch at an Amish home and got a tour of the home of Joe and Sarah Miller. We returned through Shipshewana, Indiana and saw beautiful furniture, among other things.

Tomorrow is our last Monday P-Day. On Tuesday the training for the new missionaries begins, then the following week the Temple is open for the Summer Schedule. At that time, our P-Day changes to Saturday and we will work Monday through Friday mornings.

We are excited for our new schedule and will enjoy the return to morning shift assignments.

Well the winter is supposed to be the slow time in Nauvoo, but I seem to have been just as busy as ever. A lot has happened since I wrote in September.

October found us saying goodbye to the missionaries who were going home. There were 17 couples asked to extend for another year and there were others who were already called to be here through the winter so that we ended up with about 25 couples who were to be here all winter.

After detemining that we would be here for another year, we decided to sell our house and not have it sit there for Rodger and his family to take care of for another year. We listed the house with Lucy Bangerter and it sold immediately. We had planned for it to sell and close hopefully by the time we would go home for the break in November. Well with the quick sell, we had to make a quick trip home to get everything in storage. With much help from Lucy and the ward members and our family there, we were able to get everything in storage and get back to the mission.

Tom's younger sister Barbara passed away in September so we went to the funeral then just dropped over to Texas to get the house cleaned out and everything in storage. It was great to see family and friends both in New Mexico and in Texas at that time.

In November, we took advantage of the Temple Maintenance time to once again visit family and friends and got to see granddaughter Natasha Ringlein graduate from Basic Military Training at Lackland AFB in San Antonio.

November and December had us celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas with the Temple Missionaries and with the Site Missionaries, so that there were over 200 people at each of those dinners. Quite a gathering.

The winter was cold and lots of snow. Locals tell us it is the worst winter they remember in many years. We feel like we have now survived it. It was not as bad as Minnesota winters were back in the '60s when we lived there.

January brought the Eagles and we have developed a new love and appreciation for that bird. It has been fun to watch them as they fish and feed. Most of the Mississippi was frozen over, so we have pictures of them standing on the ice. We have them in trees and in flight. They really congregate down by Keokuk where the dam is and the power generating. The water does not freeze there, so they are able to feed easily.

The deer have been plentiful now too. In fact some missionaries have met up with deer on the highway. Fortunately we have not met any there.

We have enjoyed visiting the historic sites here while it is not so crowded and have spent many nights going to Rendezvous (a musical production about Old Nauvoo put on by the site missionaries.)

We have toured the Keokuk WaterWorks, the John Deere Tractor Cab Assembly Plant in Waterloo, and have planned a trip to Kirtland, Ohio to see Church History sites there. We commemorated the anniversary of the founding of the Relief Society in the Red Brick Store wearing pioneer clothing. What a treat that was!

I will try to post some more slides out on this site as well.

We are now gearing up to have about 40 new Temple missionary couples arrive for the summer.