April Arrivals

We planned on welcoming 27 new missionaries to day. 

 Dinner in the crock pots 7:00 AM

 Sisters at the airport ready for work.

 Elders at the airport

Gathering luggage for 27 new Missionaries. This was the time we learned about the bombs in Boston and did not yet know how Will, Karen, Bryan and Shauna were. Very difficult time

 Feeding the 27. We now have learned that our children are all right, but we are all very distraught over those who are not. It was too close to home.

 After dinner and interviews we put them to bed to get ready for the big day tomorrow.
We got them up early. Fed them breakfast. Put dinner for those going home in the crock pot and gathered up lots of towels, sheets and laundry to get done magically while we are at the church training the trainers and trainees so the home can be ready for the returning missionaries tonight.

 The 27 at the church ready to meet their trainers.

The trainers ready to meet their trainees

They are on their way!

Boston

So Grateful that our sons and their wives are safe. William was finished and his fan club had left shortly before the bombing. We were in the airport picking up our new missionaries when we heard the news. It took forever for us to get a text that all was well. Our relief was clouded by the fact that other mothers were not so fortunate. There is so much work to prepare for a marathon and so much emotion...it seems impossible to comprehend the range of emotions.

Grateful

Preparing for our New Missionaries

Setting the tables for 27 New missionaries, 6 Senior Couples, 2 AP's, and 3 Office Elders

72 Sack Lunches. Putting all the non perishables in the sacks tonight. We will make the sandwiches and add them on Tuesday when we send them on the way. We had some Elders over this afternoon for their exit interviews so I put them to work opening brown bags and putting in the chips etc.

We are excited to receive our new missionaries.

St. Pete Missionaries at St. Pete Stake Conference

Elders Hargan, Simonsen, Chamberlain (our first 18 yr old), Sholler, Langi and Farnsworth

Hermanas Rasmussen, Rodriguez, Turley and Gillett

Transfer Calls

Saturday morning before transfers the Assistants and President make the transfer calls.
President calls the new Zone Leaders and Trainers and the Assistants call the rest.

Elder Cornia and Elder Jackson. Elder Cornia is being released as an Assistant and will go to Immokolee to teach in Haitian Creole. Our Haitian speaking missionaries are losing more than missionaries than we are receiving so Elder Cornia will go down to take Elder Titmus' place. We have requested more Haitianaries as more will be going home in July.

Our Office Elders above Elder Woodard and below Elder Hendley make sure everything is in order for us to receive our 27 new missionaries on Monday

And a repeat of a photo from a couple of days ago. Elder Junk and Elder Cornia. Elder Cornia trained Elder Junk and now Elder Junk will come into the office to replace Elder Cornia as President's new Assistant.

Elder Taveras and the Plant City Burger

Yes that is a Krispy Kreme donut. They have these at the Strawberry Festival every year and if a missionary is lucky? enough to serve there they can have one. We go there for fresh strawberry shakes or strawberry short cake. The shakes were granted the #1 strawberry shake in America. The strawberries are waning now but it was sure good for a few months to have all the fresh Florida grown strawberries we desired. We are still blessed with fresh squeezed OJ every morning.