Jan. 27, 2010

Hey, sorry I couldn't e-mail on Monday. Things just got pretty busy with the new arrivals. We had nine new ones coming in. One of the missionaries mentioned the first night in conversation that his mom was obsessed with the Tennessee Nashville Mission now and was looking up people's blogs and was talking with someone's dad, then I remembered what you had written me about someone contacting you about it and it made me smile and then I let him know that it was my Dad.

Another thing we did last week is a member visit with the Tolk family. She is a professional pianist and he is a chemist for Vanderbilt, and their son is a professional painter. We talked about how the gospel has blessed each of our lives and Brother Tolk talked about how he was never very mentally active in the church and never intended on going on a mission. Then when he was in college he had 2 very influential institute instructors whom he visited with one-on-one quite often and they eventually influenced him to go on a mission. Those two teachers were Henry B. Eyring and Truman G. Madsen!! They're older and very successful; just to judge what kind of home they live in, Garth Brooks was their next door neighbor a few years back. Brentwood's crazy!

Today was a little weird. We took the departing missionaries to the airport and in the group was Elder Calkins and Elder Cornado, who were both in my district back in Hendersonville. It was really weird to drive them to the airport and watch them go through security. It wasn't really sad for me or anything else, it was just really bizzare. In the back of my mind I know that they're going home and they're going to resume life as normal, but it just seems like we're sending them on a really long transfer or that we're sending them through this gate but no one really knows what happens on the other side. I don't know how to explain it but it was a strange feeling. We took them to the airport this morning at 5 a.m., so we were loading up their stuff at 4:30 a.m. then at 8ish I did my trailer certification, where we hook up the trailer to the van and I drive it around. For the certification it only requires a half hour, but we don't like using the trailer unless it's really needed. So we loaded it up with old furniture and took it down winding country roads to the dump and then drove out to Linden to help a senior couple move, then back to Brentwood to pick up more stuff then out to Lebenon, so we got back home about 7. So now I feel alright about driving with the trailer.

I'm really sorry about the memory card, I have an envelope addressed and ready to go, but my original plan was to wait until I got the pictures from this Saturday on it because we were planning on burning the altar from zone conference and roasting hot dogs. However with some situations that came up, President couldn't be there and Elder Cornish of the 70 came for a regional meeting and was staying at the mission home, so we thought it not wise to start a fire in the back yard until a later time.

I think that's pretty much all. I love you and hope that your having a wonderful week.