October Surprise!

On Monday, October 1, we did branches at Richmond and Far West.  The weather was nice and we were excited for the cooler fall temperatures.  We worked hard and Steve and I filled the dump truck as full as we could all by ourselves while Mark cut branches from the trees in the cherry picker lift.

This was our load.  That afternoon we returned the lift to Adam-Ondi-Ahman.

This photo was taken on a different day with Dave in the lift at Richmond. 

Loading rusty metal chairs that have been stored in our shed for years. Clean up time!

Staff meeting later Tuesday morning with Jordan from Nauvoo and Josh.

Nice lunch to say goodbye to Briggs and hello to Josephsons.  Mark smoked pork--absolutely yummy!

President and Sondra Cato stopped by to return keys.  They joined us for lunch, photos and some great stories and words of wisdom.  We love these people.

Left to right:  Sondra and Dennis Cato, Anita & Gary Josephson, Steve & Kristen Price, Mark Dinning, Craig & Joyce Chamberlain, Vickie & Dave Briggs, Cheri Battrick

Jordan Bodily, supervisor over the historic sites from Nauvoo, joins us on the left.

Our last zone conference was held at Lenexa, Kansas Stake Center on Thursday.

I absolutely love it when the missionaries stand and sing Called To Serve.

Sprinkler repairs at Far West on Wednesday.

We divided up rounds on Friday so we finished early.  We met Briggs at Cheddars for a late lunch.  Loved it!

Steve sprayed the mission van to prevent the spread of an outbreak of bed bugs.

We drove the van with Briggs, Chamberlains, Josephsons, President and Sister Love to Amazonia, Missouri later that afternoon for dinner and Mark's "Big Burn."

Vickie and I presented Mark and Allison with a quilt we made to say "Thank You."

Mark cooked the meat in his own home made smoker.  It was delish!

These former missionaries, the Burks, drove all the way from Utah for the "Burn."  They served two missions with Mark since they loved working with him so much.

Mark and his sons are very experienced in starting the fire with a few gallons of gasoline.  Only in rural Missouri could you do this kind of a burn.

We LOVED general conference on Saturday.  I was especially happy at the general women's meeting on Saturday night to see Bukasas attend.  Christina is a special girl and I don't want her to get sidetracked from Christ's gospel.  Her mother and sister aren't members YET.  I invited another non-member, Kimberly, and she attended and brought her fiancé's sister.  It was a good night.

Sunday after two more fantastic sessions of conference and the announcement of 12 more temples and the new home centered focus on gospel study, we gathered at Larsens for a goodbye dinner for Briggs.  We will all miss them immensely.  They were the catalyst for a lot of fun gatherings.

Vickie Briggs, Kristen Price, Ann Larsen, and Peggy Forsyth.

Monday morning, Steve erased Dave & Vickie's names from the prayer list.

He took this photo of their two hats with the title "End of an Era." Sad for all of us.

Gary is doing his best to replace Dave.  They both love diet coke.

This is the water retention pond next to the shop/office after 7 inches of rain over the weekend.

Steve teaches Gary how to change his first light bulb in the Liberty Jail rotunda.  Nita records it.

We are all troubleshooting leaks in the house next door where the young sister missionaries live.

The extensive flooding at Hauns Mill shocks us.  We send photos to Briggs.

We drove to St. Joseph's to pick up a table from the church building there.

Tuesday we loaded the straddler and the lift in the rain .  We changed chapel lightbulbs in Clayview and Leavenworth chapels on Tuesday and Thursday.  We had to raise the lift above the pews to change them and it took a crew of helpers to accomplish this task.

We hosted our new elders, Elder Martinson and Bischoff, for dinner Tuesday.  We always seem to get some of the best in our Riverview branch.  These two are top notch.

Sister Chamberlain's cute new hairstyle deserved a photograph.
When Briggs saw our photos of Hauns, they decided to drive back up from Arkansas to see the flooding at Hauns for themselves.  We all met up at Far West.

The water levels were even higher than they had been on Monday.  Briggs said it was worth the drive.  Mark always told us about flooding but this was beyond our wildest imaginations.

Access from the north was just as impossible.  We won't be mowing at Hauns anytime soon.
It was great to see the Briggs one more time.  They chose to drive the northern route back to Utah.

We removed an old heater/AC unit from the Clayview building and consulted how to repair the wall.

Used the straddle and lift at Leavenworth to replace bulbs and brighten the chapel!  It worked!

We did Friday rounds by ourselves while the Josephsons moved into an apartment.  It was raining again!

We stopped at Slivinski's to purchase fritters for the employees at our favorite location of Missouri Star quilt shops.

The rain at Far West caused this bus load of visitors from Seattle to huddle under the porch of the restrooms to hear their guide tell about Far West.  We convinced them to skip Hauns Mill and check out the monument at Breckenridge instead.

Our friends at Missouri Star were excited to get the fritters.  We were glad we brought them when Jen, on my right, presented us with pillow cases she had sewn especially for us.  How nice!

Steve was especially touched that she made his from IH farm equipment fabric. IH is a division of Case.  She didn't know the association.  It was a tender mercy to him.

We picked up sticks at Richmond again in the rain.  It turned cold when it started raining.  The October surprise is that there has only been about two days of autumn weather.  It went from hot to cold and we are making up for the summer drought but with floods.

Anita (Nita) and Gary Josephson are the new FM couple.  They came from Washington State.

Saturday we drove to DeWitt for a presentation on the 180th anniversary of the expulsion of members of The Church of Latter-day Saints from this community on Oct. 11-13, 1838.  Conditions were cold and snowy and saints lost their lives during this terrible ordeal. The saints were driven to Far West and then driven out of there only a few weeks later.  DeWitt is 79 miles from Independence.

A few miles west of DeWitt we stopped to check out this family business.

Their store and storage facility was open but no one was there.  They left a note asking people to leave their payment on the counter.  It was a good thing we had some cash.

We always marvel at the old barns and occasionally we have to stop and take a picture.

This farmer was very clever using his hay bales to create a decoration at the entrance to his lane!

We were very happy that Christina and Neville came to church today.  The mother and sister had planned to attend but didn't make it.  Neville has been afraid to attend school this week as a neighbor chased him with a gun after Neville kicked his dog. Neville was protecting Sarah from the dog while walking her to the bus stop.  These are some of the challenges of Kansas City neighborhoods.  They are hoping to move soon.

We love these kids and hope they can stay strong in following Christ's gospel path.