Strong Daughters

My home is torn up, walls are missing and I've been worried about my family living there. I received a very inspiring message from my daughter that made me think about all my daughters. You know I have raised some very strong women whom Im very proud of. Where do they get this when you are raising them, I never thought about teaching them to be strong. You know I always joke about my P. Blessing that the main thing it tells me is that my life will be hard, many tribulations, trials...... I used to think wow I should just quit now if it is going to be that tough. But now I look back and see that when I was going through all the trials I had these little girls standing by my side watching. It never dawned on me that they were learning along with me. I know the future is going to bring many more struggles in all our lives and I'm thankful that my girls have the strength to endure life's tough times. I was going to post a pic of Chrissy in front of what used to be our living room wall smiling giving us the two thumbs up sign. She and Blake helped Carrie remove all the furniture from the house and helps her out everyday. I can't find the picture but it expresses my thoughts today perfectly, the house may be falling down but we are together and everything will be fine. How I love my family.

Our first Monday(P-day) the Elders took us hiking up Pinnacle Mountain , the sign on the trail said strenuous hiking and they were not kidding. I was so proud I made it up and the views of Little Rock were beautiful. We sang High on a Mountain Top with a slight lyrical change, "The sisters beat you up we're telling all the world" The Sisters made it up to the top before the Elders, OK they took the more difficult trail.

A very Full Day

We left this morning at 8 and just returned home at 8. We visited two wards, one confirmation, one YSA planning meeting, one pot luck, and visited the Arkansas mental hospital. The institute teachers had us over for lunch after our meeting and then invited us to go with them to visit a young man in the mental hospital. He has had a tough life and had anger issues. He used to come to their gospel principle class and after about a year he came in and said this was the first time he attended and was not high or stoned. He has muscular dystrophia and is in for hitting a doctor and some other things. He is such a sweet guy, we had to come in as ministers, then put all our dangerous stuff in a locker( keys, watches, pens, purses....) then we had to go through a metal detector. We spoke with him in a group room for about an hour then visiting time was over and we needed to leave. There was a young girl in the group room visiting her parents and she started crying and saying she loved her mom and come and see her tomorrow. It reminded me of when Caitie was in the treatment center and I started to cry , we walked out into a hall and I gave the Mom a hug and said we had to do something similar with our daughter and we both cried a little and the dad said he thinks it saved her life. It is so hard to be parents sometimes. I think we will be visiting the young man again, I told him I would teach him how to do sudoku's. There are some great youth here in Arkansas. Love to y'all

The Flood

Does the devil have power over water? In our life he does. Since leaving on our mission we have experienced several major plumbing problems mostly at our Apartment complexes. But now he is really trying to get us. Our home had a major flood. The supply pipe in the upstairs master bath broke and for aprox. 1 1/2 hours water poured out into the master bathroom, and bedroom, then down to the living room and dinning room then down to the basement and was actually pouring out of the foundation outside of the living room. Paula came to work and found it and she knew how to turn the water off to the house so she stopped it . Carrie called the carpet people and there are 7 fans ( the massively big ones) blowing air to try and dry it out. The carpet had to be ripped up and the padding removed, thank goodness Carrie knows the routine.(She manages apartments and this happens often in apartments) We tried not to worry the morning she called us but this morning Malcolm woke up and said he dreamed about the house flooding and I had dreamed about it too so we must be unconsciously worried. It's just a house, poor Carrie and her family living with 7 blowers in the house then all the construction to repair it. Hey look on the bright side, when we have to put up new ceilings we can have them done without the popcorn junk on them. Love to all & keep the devil away from your water!

the bike

We went looking for a bike for me to ride and we didn't want to spend much money. The first place we found was a nice bike shop and the cheapest bike was 400 we were discouraged and thinking I would have to go back to that walmart again(help) Just as we were leaving the owner aproached us , no one had talked to us since we entered ( we had our name tags on and our mission cloths) we explained that we needed a bike that was cheap and thanks but we will leave now, just as we were leaving he said wait i have something up in the top level that might work for you. We followed him through the door and up the stairs and there was this old bike, rusted a bit with no petals. He said it needed a good home and he would fix it up for me and we would just pay for the parts. It has 7 speeds and is purple, navy and pink brand Raligh. We picked it up today and it works great and I ride it around the lake while Elder Wall runs. Love the Lord and yall too,