Packing an Enormous Load

Today I packed an enormous amount of stuff into boxes. I wonder what would happen if I took half of it to Deseret Industries without even opening the boxes. Would I miss the stuff that I have? I did not remember that I had even half of the stuff that I have. Wow. I didn't feel bad though because Kerry has 4x more stuff than I do. How do I know this? Well when I packed my office we used about 5 boxes and when I went down to Kerry's office he had 15 boxes packed. When I go into the garage Kerry has 80 percent of the cabinets and I have 20 percent and the stuff in my cabinet belongs to some of my children. Hmmm. Did I marry a packrat? I am sure that if we had a contest to see how much that we each had and piled it up Kerry would have the most presents. Talking about presents we didn't have enough paper to wrap the dishes in so we used Christmas wrapping paper. It will be like I am having Christmas all over again when I unpack the zillion boxes that are leaving this house on Tuesday.

Memory of a Family Reunion in 2004

I was going through some old pictures, getting ready for the wedding when I found this video. Our family sang to my parents this song and then we sang it again at my mother's funeral. It brought good memories back of the reunion that we had. It is one song that helps me to remember my Mother and her testimony of the Savior. I hope that you will take time to listen to us sing. We are not the Mormon Tabernacle Choir but we sing with feeling.

Me and Elevators

I have this thing with elevators. When Dad, Jan, and I were in Anchorage we stayed on the second floor of this hotel. It was the day before we left and I got into the elevator. Suddenly the steel fire doors closed and the alarms went off. I was trapped and could not get out until the elevator went to the first floor. People were being herded out of the building when the elevator doors opened and I went out too. My Dad and Jan were waiting in the parking lot. Then the fire engines came around the corner and the firemen ran into the hotel. Wow. What was happening?

When I found a fireman I asked him where the fire was. He said, "Oh, the elevator motor caught on fire and we have it out and under control." So the elevator was on fire when I was in it?!?

Earlier this year I get in the elevator in the temple to go to the third floor from the basement and the elevator stops. The elevator is broken and I'm in it with Sister Gunn. We had to call for the engineer to get us out of the elevator because we were stuck between floors. The elevator was out of commission for a couple weeks while they repaired it. So I happen to have challenges with elevators.

Kerry told me a joke once about elevators. It goes like this:
"There was a couple who went to New York for the first time. They had never been to a large city so they were really nervous about being there. They had heard a lot about people being mugged and how unsafe big cities were. The large hotel was also a little foreign to them. One night during their stay the husband went down to the lobby and was going to meet his wife for dinner. When she got in the elevator to go down to meet him three big men got in the elevator with her. She was very nervous because they were strange men and she couldn't help but think of all the stories she had heard about getting mugged. She nervously turned around and faced the doors. One of the men said to her, "Hit the floor lady." Quickly she got down on the floor spread eagle just waiting for the mugging to begin. "Lady, I meant hit the button." Later, when they went to the front desk to pay their bill, the men had paid it for her and left her a note. "Lady, that was the best laugh I've had in a long time."

Back Home Again

Kristen is out of town, traveling in California with the Phillips this weekend. She is meeting Bryce's relatives for the first time. I hope she passes their approval. Invitations should be coming in the mail because they were sent out this week. We hope that people will come out for the wedding. Kristen really has gone to a lot of work.

This week I had a melt down. Kerry has been living at this house in Olympia while it has been up for sale and the house was sold this week. He has to go back to living in the hospital now while he is at work. When he told me that I sat a cried and then had an especially frustrating day the next day at work. My emotions got the best of me. UGH!

Today we had four trees planted in our yard, three flowering crabapple and one red bud tree. They will have beautiful pink blooms in the spring. The volunteers who planted them did it in the middle of a rainstorm. The thunder was really loud and Sophie took off running through the house. I have never seen her run so fast. She disappeared for the rest of the day.

Chieti, Casoli, FrancaVilla, Pescara, MonteSilvano, Roma, Lanciano...tutta d'Italia!

Wow we've traveled a lot this week!!

General Conference

This weekend we had a feast when we were able to sit and watch General Conference. The repeating themes of the talks seemed to be Love for God and Neighbor, Service, The Book of Mormon, and Having the Spirit. I was impressed by the music and preparation of the brothers and sisters. I took notes also. President Holland's talk impressed me as he bore testimony of the Book of Mormon. He quoted his great-grandfather George Q. Cannon who said, “No wicked man could write such a book as this; and no good man would write it unless it were true and he were commanded of God to do so.” I also believe this is so.

President Bednar asked that we tell our family members that we love them and that we treat them with respect. I would like to tell my children that I love them. They are really important to me and I wish them the greatest happiness in life. I also love my husband who has been good to me. I respect and love my parents. My father and mother have done many good things for me throughout my life, which I appreciate.

YEAH CONFERENZA GENERALE!

Hello all you people in my life!

Well, another week has flown by. I can't keep them straight anymore, it's making me dizzy!Right now my companion has the flu, so i've been in hibernation mode. She wants to work, but we also don't want to make all our investigators sick so we have to sit at home. I cleaned everything.

This week we've been really trying to help the members. We've realized how neglected some of them have been recently, because they live about 2 hours away from the church and no one goes out to visit them. So we've been trying to make an effort and the members are SO happy! We've been seeing some good results from our efforts too. When I came into this ward the members didn't work with the missionaries at all, and now they're going up to our investigators and asking for appointments! We've really discovered that praying to find the right members for our investigators is extremely important. Some of the people that we thought wouldn't go well together are perfect fits.I'm excited for general conference...are you?

The times here are kinda crazy, we watch the saturday morning session at 6 pm, and then the saturday afternoon session on sunday at 2 in the afternoon. Sunday afternoon session is out of the question! Almost all of our investigators have been wanting to hear a prophet speak so they can gain their own testimonies. We are very excited and hopeful. I've realized how much of a blessing it is that we can hear the prophet speak. I was reading an ensign article yesterday about the martin and harris handcart companies, and how those pioneers gave up their lives in the hope of seeing the prophet. I was reading in Mormon 1 today about when the people went into apostasy and the Lord took away the apostles and prophets. It's a testimony to me of how much God loves us by giving us a living prophet.

Nino is making some awesome progress, as always. Before, his wife had to beg him to come to church with her, and now he's making HER come to church! haha he's so great. He's reaching out to the members and they're reaching back. I think he's going to be the next bishop. :)

So one last story and then i'm off. This one is about sincere prayer, and involving the Lord in all our decisions. So the other night we were trying to find some old investigators, and we finished early so we had an hour to do finding before we went home. We were sitting on a corner, discussing what to do, and neither of us had any idea. So I said a prayer and asked the Lord to lead us to where he wanted us to go to find the elect. I opened my eyes and waited for a response, and I felt I needed to stand up, and then I would know what to do. So I stood up and waited. Then I felt I needed to cross the street to throw away the piece of paper I was holding. We were staring down a dark and deserted street and my companion looks at meet and says "now where?" I said, "We need to walk down that street and do surveys." Yeah, random. We usually only do surveys at the park, and especially not at night in the dark. So we start walking and we spot these two girls who were hidden behind some trees and we go over to talk to them and they were both incredibly interested and both asked us for book of mormons and want to meet with us again. God does answer our prayers, even the most simple ones.

Lots of love to you all! Vi voglio un sacco di bene (I want for you all a sack of good) :)

Sorella Jenessa Miles

The pictures are from pday last week...it was my companion's birthday, and two sets of sisters showed up in Pescara to get their permesso's taken care of! We ate yummy pizza with french fries on it.