Our farewell Sacrament Meeting

March 26, 2014.

Sunday, March 23, we spoke in Sacrament Meeting.  I spoke about why I was serving a mission.  I spoke about how I have felt the hand of the Lord in my life and I know that he loved me because of His guidance throughout my life.  Because He loves me, I want to serve Him and one way to do that is to serve His children in the Philippines.  Norman also spoke how the Lord orchestrates our lives to accomplish His purposes.  We received many tender mercies from the Lord over the past couple of years that have enabled us to be able to go on this mission.  Things like being able to buy our home in American Fork so that we had a place we could afford to live in after we retired and being able to have Linda's family move into our home until after we return home.

We are excited now to be on our way to the final steps of getting to the Philippines.

Getting Ready To Go

We are in the final stages of preparation to go to the Philippines.  The Tagalog language is coming very slowly.  Going this morning to the Social Security Office to take care of a problem with receiving my Social Security.  They called and said there was a discrepancy with my place of birth.  It was coming up as unknown so I need to take a copy of my birth certificate to their office.  Everything got straightened out and I am now ready for retirement and collect my Social Security.

Things have been really hectic trying to get Norman's business transferred to the new owner and getting the accumulation of  things for over 50 years of marriage sorted, discarded and packed into the moving truck. That was a huge job but is finally done.  The truck is on its way to American Fork, UT where we will store everything in our home there until we get home.  Linda and her family are living in the house right now and we will store our things in the basement.  I hope it won't inconvenience them too much.  As we backed our suitcases and things into the care to stay with Mark and Kaylene for a few days, Norman said well I guess we are really homeless now and living out of our car.  We will begin the drive to Utah in a couple of days.  Need to re-cooperate a few days.