27 July 2008

Ruth and I went to Yellowstone National Park last week. We left on Sunday the 20th and returned on the 24th. We traveled to Ragbag, Idaho on Sunday and stayed the night. Monday we proceeded to Yellowstone via the Messa Falls Loop. It took about an hour longer to get through that way but the scenery was spectacular. It was well worth the extra time.

We had reservations at the Canyon Lodge area in one of the cabins. I can’t say much for the accommodations. They were quite primitive. The water was just barely warm. We did see a big bull elk in the cabin area as we drove in but we couldn't’t get a good picture of it through the trees.

Our first stop was at the Upper Yellowstone Falls and then the Lower Yellowstone Falls.
It rained and we had to wait for the next morning to get the picture of the Lower Yellowstone Falls . We proceeded down the East side of the falls where we stopped at the Sulphur Cauldron, Mud Volcano and Dragon's mouth. We saw hundreds of Buffalos and a Coyote. We then stopped at Old Faithful area to see Old Faithful go off. There must have been over a thousand people there when we were. Every where we went the park was crowed with people from all over the world. After Leaving the Old Faithful area we continued up the West side of the park stopping along the way at the Middle Geyser Basin and the Paint Pots. All along the way we saw bison everywhere. We saw elk, deer and beautiful wild flowers of all kinds. It was hot during the day and it rained each night about 6:00 p. m. We could not have had a prettier time to be there. The only drawback was the crowds of people.

We proceeded to the Manmouth Springs area where we went to the Yellowstone Park Museum. While there a cow elk walked through the crowd and peacefully lay down under a tree in front of one of the buildings. We didn’t stay long at Manmouth since we wanted to get back to Star Valley that evening, but we did stop at Lewis Fall and took a picture of the Grand Teton
Mountains as we passed. There was a traffic tie up as we passed the grand Tetons, someone had hit a large black wolf and it was laying in the middle of the road as we passed.

We spent the night in Thayne, Wyoming and visited with Ruth's family the next day before retuning home. As always the time went to fast and we didn’t get to see everything we would have liked too..

Dad

(I reformatted this a bit to help it show up better online. -Newel)

One last photo. This is at Big Thicket on the Pitcher Plant Trail.

Vacation notes

Heron on Caddo Lake
James in the water at Gulfport
Alligator at Avery Island
At the Naval Aircraft Museum
At a small historic village near Big Thicket
We're back from vacation. We were gone 10 days and visited something like 5 states.
We spent the first two days at Caddo lake here in Texas, going to church at a small branch. Then headed to Corinth, Mississippi, and visited Corinth and Shiloh battlefields. Then we headed to Gulfport, MS where we went to Ship Island. We got to see dolphins and jellyfish and stingrays. We also played in the water. Somehow, even though I didn't swim, my legs got severely burned. The rest of the vacation, I could barely walk because from my knees down, my legs were swollen and very painful. Still, we managed to go to Pensacola, Florida, where we visited the Naval Aircraft Museum and a small city museum where Craig was trying to find out if an ancestor was in a battle there. The Naval Museum turned out to be one of the best finds of the trip. It was FREE and HUGE! We were only able to spend about 3 hours there and only saw maybe one-third of it. From Pensacola, we headed back to Texas. We went to church at a small branch in Jennings. Monday, we visited several places in Big Thicket National Preserve. Then headed home, making one last, short stop at the State Forestry Museum.

Whew! We got home late Monday night, and Tuesday, James had his wisdom teeth pulled! He is doing well today, complaining that he can't do anything for 24 hours!

Remember to check out the websites Denisa and I sent for the family reunion location and tell us if the second week in June works for you. School is out June 4th for us. We need to make reservations soon.

Samuel's Mission E-mail July 21, 2008

Everyone:
The weather's been pretty nice this week, which is good, given that we've been doing a lot of walking (the mission president has been saying it would be good to save on gas right now). Other than that, let's see...
On Thursday we had planning for the week, as usual, and then we tracted and worked on contacting former investigators. We actually got an appointment with one of them, named Lilia, but when we went to it she rescheduled for this evening, so we'll see how it goes.
On Friday we had our usual district meeting, and then we went over to Lir Torres's apartment to help her clean since she was feeling sick. In the evening we worked more on contacting fomer investigators.
Saturday, we tracted, Elder Bird got his bike dropped off here (Now I'll just have to get a bike somehow and we could leave the car behind...), and we went to the ward Pioneer Day celebration. It was fun--we lost to the Downey 3rd ward Elders at the sack race and stick pull, but our ward (Downey 1st) beat Downey 3rd at the tug-of-war, so I think we still did alright.
On Sunday we had our normal church meetings, we helped take the sacrament to a couple ill ward members, we taught Rosie some more of the recent convert lessons, and we tracted.
Today we had our zone activity, which was mostly a scavenger hunt.
Well, I think that's it for now.
Elder Samuel Stephens

Samuel's Mission E-mail July 16, 2008

Everyone:
Well, this was a fairly standard week. As you've probably guessed, today was our temple day, so I guess that was out of the ordinary, but not much other than that.
Let's see... On Tuesday last week we did some tracting, and we started trying to contact some former investigators (so far we haven't had any luck picking any back up). On Wednesday I was on companionship exchanges with Elder Monita. We tracted, did service for the care home, and had our correlation meeting.
On Thursday we planned, tracted, and worked more on contacting former investigators. On Friday we had Zone Conference (another out of the ordinary thing) and called more former investigators. On Saturday we tracted for a while and worked on contacting those former investigators we can't contact by phone.
On Sunday we had our normal church meetings. The Bishop asked us to visit a couple people, one of whom was a person who just barely moved into the ward. His name is Gordon Steward, and it turns out his daughter just got baptized in their other ward so they'd still been going over there for her confirmation and such. We also taught Rosie (who is still awesome).
On Monday we just had a normal workday. We tracted and worked more on those former investigators. On Tuesday we tracted and tried to contact more former investigators, and we also taught a referral named Mary Ann. She seemed interested, though we'll have to see if it's just curiosity or something more the next time we visit. And today we went to the temple.
Well, I guess that's it. We're just working on finding people to teach, for the most part.
Elder Samuel Stephens

Busy Month at Newel's House

We have had a busy couple of weeks. First, Isaac and I attended an all-Indiana LDS Encampment near Indianapolis. There were lots of fun events for the boys to participate in, and we had a nice 3 days with 700 or so other scouts and scouters from all over the state.

Then last week, Isaac went to EFY and Mariana went to Girl's Camp, so Carolyn and I had an empty nest for a week. We decided to take advantage of the time together to do something romantic. . . like Tile The Kitchen! It turned out to be a big job, so I wasn't quite done when the kids got back, so Mariana helped me place a few tiles.

On the 4th of July weekend, we decided to go to the Cincinnatti zoo. They had a new giraffe exhibit that Mariana enjoyed, and Isaac got to hold a snake, which he enjoyed. The weather was cloudy and breezy, but it didn't rain, so it turned out to be a great day for walking around the zoo.

Now I have a whole week of actually having to go to work each day for the whole day. It didn't take long to get used to vacation days.

--Newel

Samuel's Mission E-mail July 7, 2008

Everyone:
Well, this week was a little bit different, for reasons that I will proceed to explain. Starting Tuesday, Elder Bird was down with the flu, so we didn't get out much. We did visit the Villanueva family, who are a family in the Downey 1st ward that stopped coming recently. We went over and the sister said she'd been questioning some things recently, and asked us a couple questions (which we answered), but which didn't really seem to be her concern.
On Wednesday, we had a bit of a meeting where our zone talked with President Blackburn about what's going well in the mission and what needs to change. Elder Bird was still sick, so we didn't do much else. On Thursday we had weekly planning, and Elder Bird was still sick.
On Friday, we had a Ward Pancake Breakfast in the morning for the 4th of July, we helped the Larsens (a family in our ward) plant some flowers, Elder Bird was feeling good enough that we did some street contacting, and in the evening we played some games with our zone.
On Saturday, we helped the Saylors (another family in our ward) out with a yard sale and tried to pass out some pass-along cards during it. In the evening we taught Rosie (she's still awesome!) and did some tracting.
On Sunday we had church and tracted. Today we don't have much of anything going on.
So, I'm hoping that I didn't catch Elder Bird's flu (oh no, the Bird Flu!). I'm still feeling well, so that's a good sign.
Elder Samuel Stephens

Samuel's Mission E-mail June 30, 2008

Everyone:
Well, we had transfers on Wednesday. I'm back to just covering Downey 1st with one companion. His name is Elder Bird, and he's from Orem, Utah. I've been joking around a bit with him about how I'll just go over from BYU and pester him after the mission.
As for our week, Tuesday was a very strange day. Elder Chadwick and Elder Gathro were helping with moving everything out of Elder Gathro's old apartment because they were closing it (Elder Gathro is in a different apartment now, but still covers Bell Gardens). While they did that, I was with Elder Otis and Elder Roark, the bike Elders in our district. Fortunately I had the car, which they appreciated greatly, so I didn't have to try to keep up with their bikes on foot. In the evening we made preparations for transfers. Elder Chadwick went over to the Inglewood/Hawthorne area (If you want to know where that is, a map is probably better than any discription I could attempt).
Wednesday was spent in getting several different elders settled into their new companionships. We also tracted for a bit and had our normal correlation meeting.
On Thursday we had weekly planning, we tracted, and we stopped by a couple members and less-actives to introduce Elder Bird. On Friday we had our zone meeting, we helped some neighbors of our district leader (who lives in our area) move apartments, and we gave a blessing to the non-member friend of one of the members of the ward because she was in the hospital after falling down and breaking some bones. That was an interesting experience, especially given how thankful she was for us coming over. We also visited Lir because she had been ill.
On Saturday we decided to try a bit of an experiment by walking to all of the places we wanted to go and talking to people in the street on the way. Elder Bird ended up with some blisters on his feet, so we decided against doing quite so much walking in the future. We did, however, do some tracting and teach Rosie (who is still doing great).
On Sunday, we introduced the revised Downey 1st Ward Mission Plan during the 5th Sunday combined Priesthood/Relief Society meeting, tracted, and had dinner with the Bishop, which ended up turning into a conversation about people we might be able to visit.
Well, I believe that's everything. Elder Bird and I get along very well (he's another fantasy/sci fi guy, so I may actually drop by his house after we get back home. Mariana would be interested to know that he also likes to draw.), and we're hoping to be able to do some good here.
Elder Samuel Stephens

Samuel's Mission E-mail June 23, 2008

Everyone:
Well, transfers are this Wednesday, so we'll have to see what happens. I don't have my planner with me right now, so I'll have to see how much of what we did last week I remember.
Tuesday, we tracted for a while and we had our English class. On Wednesday, we had our correlation meetings with our wards. We've been revising the Downey 1st ward mission plan to include more specific, measurable actions. That's so important to have in a ward mission plan--if it's not specific and measurable, there's a 90% chance nothing at all will be done about it. It also needs to include things that the general membership will do, and not just the ward as a whole.
On Thursday we had our weekly planning, as usual. On Friday we had zone meeting and we taught Rosie one of the recent convert lessons. She's doing really well, despite the distrust her father has for the church. He was apparently baptized at some point but is rather disaffected with it right now. Apparently he believes someone is making a profit off of it.
On Saturday we did some service for the Taylors, as well as visiting several other members as part of a program we're doing to make a ward directory for the missionaries that will help with missionary work. On Sunday, Elder Chadwick and I taught the Downey 1st priest's quorum. We also did some tracting with one of the youth in Bell Gardens.
Well, I think that's it. I don't think anything else major happened last week. Today we had our zone "Olympic Games", which were fun.
Elder Samuel Stephens
...The time passed away with us, and also our lives passed away like as it were unto us a dream...
Jacob 7:26

Pictures

Craig finally downloaded pictures from his camera. The first is from Rachel's May recital. Next is Elaine in her new glasses, (worn only for distance). And Lynette in her "horse show" She got a third place and a fourth place ribbon. Then James being camera man at Lynette's American Girl performance of "Kirsten". She played the part of "Mattie," Kirsten's best friend that dies. She enjoyed dying!
Lynette is really getting into drama. She is practicing all summer for a part in a homeschool production of "As You Like It". Right now she is at a summer camp for the arts put on by the city. We'll get to see her perform for that tonight. I'm thinking about trying to get her into some community theater, but it's hard to find one of those that doesn't either practice or perform on Sundays.

Mom, you'll be glad to hear that you have one grandchild at least that enjoys the piano. Lynette is playing everyday and thoroughly enjoying it. She has even done prelude for primary on Sundays. We are going to see if she can do some accompanying for the primary program this fall. It's so nice not to have to nag her to practice. Everytime I ask if she has practiced, she says yes! Now she wants to take violin lessons, and since we have always told the kids that if they played piano for at least a year without having to be nagged, we would pay for any other instrument they wanted to learn, we are in the process of finding a violin teacher. She won't quit piano, of course, but just add violin. She is going to be one busy child this coming year!