Thanksgiving is a Condition of the Heart

We observed Thanksgiving. Sort of. But not on THE day of traditional American feasting. On Thursday we were up to our eyebrows in good-byes and hellos with eleven missionaries departing and an all-time record of eighteen arriving. Fifteen came from the Provo MTC and three from the Manila MTC. Just put the logistics in your brain: thirty 50 lb. suitcases plus 15 carry-ons. Oh and the missionaries themselves. How are you going to get that many everything to the mission home from the airport? The Assistants had given the whole thing considerable thought, but when we got right down to it we needed another large van for all those suitcases. Of course there was one wanting to be hired on the spot so we did just fine.


Fifteen fine, can-do attitudes helped us stuff all the luggage in the vehicles in no time.


Are these handsome fellows or what? They are smiling bravely on the outside and sweltering on the inside. It was quite a mild day by Cebuano standards, but hey--they came from Provo, Utah where there was snow on the mountains! They'll leave their suit jackets at the mission home for the next 22 months.


There wasn't room for all the luggage in the mission home.



Learning how to direct music their first afternoon in Cebu.

When it was all said and done and all those bright-spirited elders and one sister were oriented and off to their first areas of service, it had gone very smoothly. In fact almost better than our little batches of six or eight. Sometimes having to prepare every minute detail so you don't crash and burn is a blessing.

Now about feasting. We had Thanksgiving dinner with all the stake and district presidents on Cebu, Bohol and Negros on Saturday in conjunction with their coordinating council. Sister Hansen, wonder woman that she is, hosted and roasted. I peeled and pie'd. None of these good brethren had experienced an American Thanksgiving dinner before, so it was our pleasure to teach them why we eat turkey and stuffing and sweet potatoes and pie.

My favorite part of dinner chat came about because of the Jello salad, which we assured them was NOT part of the first Thanksgiving feast, but an American tradition that started in the 60's. One of the stake presidents asked me if I knew where gelatin came from. I was thinking, " ah--horse hoofs?" but just couldn't bring myself to say it out loud at such a fine feast. Then President Mausisa proceeded to enlighten us on the horticulture matter of gelatin. Horse hoofs! How silly is that?!? Gelatin comes from seaweed, and most of it for the entire world is farmed not 15 miles from the mission office! I'd love to go on a field trip as see the whole business. It is apparently a 3-month crop.

About gratitude--we are beyond-words-grateful for you, our beloved family and friends. We count ourselves rich indeed for having so many loved ones who share our path, teach us new and interesting things, inspire us to be more than we would be otherwise, laugh with us, weep with us, hold our hands when we're scared and pray for us.

To you far away in America, if we had our way we'd be able to blink and bring all our Filipino friends over for a get-to-know-you party. You would definitely like them and want to open your friendship circle to include them. We became richer the moment we landed in Cebu.

If you are reading this wondering if you'd be all warm and gushy (sorry-I know I go over the top from time to time) about serving a mission, I have to say the answer is a resounding YES. It's okay to put yourselves in the Lord's hands and take a step into the dark. It's okay to not know every little detail of the path you might be called to walk. It's okay to say, "we'll go where we're called and do what we're asked to do." We're convinced that there are no lame mission assignments because God's work is never lame. Oh you could probably sort of sit on the sidelines and do more watching than serving, but if you jump in with all your heart, might, mind and strength, you will become almost instantly rich with the experiences you have and people you grow to love. This is how serving the Lord full-time works. We know it's true.

We love you! We pray for you regularly! Be well and happy, and don't forget to write.

Elder and Sister Reed
In Cebu

Editor's note: The timing and pacing of Elder and Sister Reed's mission responsibilities makes it impossible to post a report of every interesting experience they have in a timely manner. However, if you take into account the untimeliness of the timing they live with (15 hours ahead of home time--have they accidentally called you at a ridiculously early hour? Eeeeeh with a slight cringe) then a post about something a few weeks back isn't so bad.


A mission is a microcosm of life; you go along pretty regular-like, then all of a sudden you burst into high action. November has been this way for us. We continue methodically with our office responsibilities and piano/English teaching, and the high action peeks out here and there. Actually, high action isn't quite the right word all the time; this weekend was more like high spiritual contentment.

It started on Thursday with an island tour shared by Brother and Sister Sorensen, the In-Field Representative for 30 missions in our region. Elder Sorenson's assignment is to support the mission presidents in the challenging situations a mission president encounters. They came to Cebu for the mission president's seminar which was the following Sunday through Tuesday. Their home base is in New Zealand and wanted to taste the Philippines for a day or so. You bet! We headed across the mountains to the west side, then up the coast a ways, then back across the mountains to the east side and back down to Cebu.


It was a great day for a walkabout.

The Sorensons are avid photographers. (See our last post--here we are with MORE camera people!) They clicked their way over the mountain and up the coast. Elder Sorenson has "the big gun" and Sister Sorenson has a sporty little point-and-shoot. Sometimes we pulled over and got out for pictures, and sometimes they just put their wondows down, Kevin took his foot off the gas and they click, click, clicked as we drove. You can do that with "big gun" cameras, you know. They were cute together; both interested in the images of the island, coaching each other to "get this" or "get that" image. Elder Sorenson was very good at simply pointing his camera out the window, clicking and getting good shots.

I began the day taking pictures but figured out pretty fast that they had me out-clicked and maybe they'd share.


My fun was taking pictures of the picture takers.

Taburan was on the coast just before we turned inland again. The Catholic church was a stop-n-look:



Our drive back over the mountains was filled with scenic snapshots; rice farmers drying their rice on the side of the road, carabou pulling the plow; Filipinos about the business of life.

We stopped in one little community to see if we could visit with a woman sitting on the side of the road making jewelry. Elder Sorenson gave it a valiant try--he talked, she talked, he talked, she talked--I'm sure they were expressing important things! Only neither could understand the other. As you can see, there is a little difference in their size.


Indeed she was tiny little thing, barely coming up to Elder Sorenson's elbow!

Friday night was a single-adult fireside that we attended by invitation. It was an open forum hosted by Elder Quinten L. Cook, Keith B. McMullin, the Philippine Area Presidency and a few other big guns.

Saturday was a priesthood training meeting for bishops and stake presidents. Kevin, of course, is neither, but he attended anyway.

Sunday the general authorities divided and conquered, each taking a different stake for a special conference.

In three sentances I didn't begin to scratch the tip of the wealth of spirit we experienced over the weekend. How do you like that? We came half way around the world to experience this fine collection of apostles and prophets. Pretty fine.

And Julie Beck is coming the end of January.

I Saw a Mighty Angel Fly

The day finally came. Gold-leafed angel Moroni was installed on top of the temple a week ago! The construction manager (who happens to be in our ward) must have been screened and tested for abundant patience, tact and diplomacy when he was hired. Mel Fajardo is his name--a lovely fellow, and indeed, patient to the many questions about when, when, when.


Mel--do you ever loose your cool?


Originally Angel Moroni was on deck to be installed in August. It was here, made it through customs (no small feat) and was waiting patiently in its shipping container on the construction site. The hold-up was in the steeple. Some of the granite--4" thick slabs that are pre-cut and fit together like a perfect puzzle was missing and that caused the delay. Not all the granite, of course, just the pieces at the top of the steeple.

I think if that was the most trying challenge of the construction project everyone would be jumping for joy. As it is, things are pretty much on schedule, but still no firm dates for the open house or dedication.

Our weather-reading skills have been honed to a high degree these last eight months, and November 5th was a nearly perfect day. Perfect here is not a bright, sunny, cloudless sky, but big, billowy ocean clouds coming and going, or even fine, gauzy clouds that save us from the searing sun. Cloudless is brutally hot.

We chose the 10-minute walk around the corner to the construction sight and knew other walkers headed toward the temple site as well. Meanwhile, traffic was vrooming along like usual. Kaikai came too, bringing his "big guns". I like camera people. I think I'd like to be a camera person some day. In the mean time I'll be happy to be the lackey of a camera person. They usually have a magnificent bag of tricks that captures images.

We had our point and shoot.


There were folks who came specifically to watch, and folks who happened to be passing by.


The construction workers were all doing their thing, but there was definitely added attention on the upper reaches of the temple. We watched the crane intently. At about 3:00 it dropped it's line with the attached belt, then slowly brought up Moroni. This is it! I wanted to shout and sing and clap.


UP

UP

UP


We weren't the only ones tickled and joyful; even our mailman said he saw Moroni go UP


Elder Bernal--caught by surprise, Elder Deiparine and Elder Curtis (the president's assistants and our neighbors); Elder Clark.


The sister missionaries (on the left) with their investigators.

The hymnist expresses my feelings the best this time:

I saw a mighty angel fly
To earth he bent his way.
A message bearing from on high
To cheer the sons of day.
Truth is the message which he bears,
the gospel's joyful sound,
To calm our doubts, to chase our fears,
And make our joys abound.


Temples are the gateway to eternity.

Gone Batty

Do you ever wonder what you might be missing by sleeping late in the morning? Not too long ago we happened to get out the door earlier than usual--by maybe 7-8 minutes. We often experience those few magical moments of pre-dawn "dusk", but rarely have walked from darkness through pre-dawn dusk to daylight. This particular morning's darkness offered us our own National Geographic moment as we walked up Woolbright St. There were bats returning to their roost, a wood power pole on the side of the road, whose top is hollow.

Now for those of you who have lived around bats you might be thinking, "yeeeeaaaah, and the big deal iiiiisss?" Well, the big deal is that bats are under rated and under appreciated in their ecological role as bug eaters. They are my heros, not being that fond of bugs, yet knowing that they are part of our mortal existance. Frogs are my other hero for the same reason. Besides, bat guano is exceptionally good organic fertilizer.

Once we became aware of the morning bat landing we started watching for them, counting the bats that came home to roost, observing them as fast as our eyes could. They flit around for a moment, then swoop in and are gone from view. You really don't see much, like, for instance, when a dog walks by. Nevertheless, very interesting.

I suppose most walkers eventually look for diversion. Some become runners. Others look at the flora or inspect the home projects they walk by. Or plan a video shoot of bats coming home to roost.

Kaikai--we will miss him when we return home. He is a friend indeed, with many interesting talents, including photography and videography. We showed up early on the appointed morning with our little point and shoot camera, and he showed up with his video camera and all the trappings of a professional. It seemed like success was guaranteed, thanks to Kaikai.


We were there in plenty of time; didn't want to have all the the bats zwoop in while we were setting up. Kaikai kept adjusting everything for a perfect shooting as it began to grow light. We talked quietly and waited. And waited.

One bat zwooped in, then






nothing.







We'd watched them as we walked by for a week--there were always eight or nine or ten. What's the deal here? Better question--how did the first one let all the others know that there were UHC's (unidentified human creatures) lurking suspiciously outside their roost? Skunked. Totally skunked. We hauled all our equipment back to the car and walked and planned our strategy for the next morning.

It seemed evident that our talking was troublesome to them. Actually, there are people walking up and down the street all the time; cars passing; regular city activity. I guess "passing" is the operative word here."

The next morning we set up early and were completely still. Didn't dare leave any equipment unattended, but did all we could to not spook the bats. This was on October 30th by the way.

As Kaikai's video owuld show if we could get it to load into our blog (RATS!), we met with success, seeing 10-11 bats zwoop in. Say it fast, okay? That's just what they do. You see them and then they're inside. Hopefully we'll figure this technical difficulty out and get the footage into this blog.

As a companion to our bat exploration, I'd like to recommend a book to share with your favorite---hmmmm---I almost said little people, but it's such a charming story I think anyone would enjoy it. It's called "Stellaluna", by Jannell Cannon. It's about a baby fruit bat and has themes of the love of mother and child, and being lost, then found. And don't forget to use your voice to make the characters alive. This book is very inviting and easy in this way.

I'd love to know whether there are Bats around Boise; we've lived there a very long time and never encountered any. Bye for now, and hopefully more bat adventures in our future.

Plant of the week: Zamioculcas Zamiifolia, aka ZZ plant.


Although this is definitely a landscape plant here in the tropics, it's a great, forgiving, tolerant houseplant. A potted version will be a miniature of this one; isn't it a beauty? And set off very well by the wall and gate.

It was quite a week in Lake Cebubegone, our temporary home town. The good news is we made it through with patience and humor, and now it's Sunday night, getting ready for another week.

It's a truth that when we're in the heat of the fire we usually don't stop to take pictures. Sorry about that--but just think on one of your very busy, challenging weeks and project it into the Philippines. You're probably close if not right on. I tried to put the events to words but it just came out sounding whiney, so here's a 30-second run-down and then we'll do some pictures of our morning walks.

--ZLC Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday
--Fingerprinting for many of the foreign missionaries on Wednesday--a nice opportunity to see some of the missionaries from off-island who don't come in the office very often.
--Behind, behind, behind due to the above two items--work like mad on Thursday and Friday to bring some semblance of order to my realm

Wow! That brief report is much easier to handle than spewing out every gritty little detail. Maybe I should quit looking so closely at the events of life that frustrate or worry me and give minute attention to all that's beautiful and pleasing and inspiring. Hmmm. I thought this was going to be a week-processing blog entry and instead it's a little personal revelation. Nice.

We've talked quite a bit about our morning walks. We have considerable concern about our lifestyle change, going from active, physical jobs to desk jobs and having our back sides spread to the width of the Mississippi River. Kevin and I need outdoor time. It's more apparent since we get less of it here; we didn't really think about it before because we had it every day.

All these shots were taken yesterday morning--Saturday--when we slept until we awoke instead of getting up to the alarm clock at our week-day time of 4:40 and heading out the door by 5:10. It's completely light and bright at 6:30, and of course, warm. I usually don't wear a hat but thought my brain would fry if not covered this late in the morning.


This is one of the side streets of Beverely Hills Subdivision that makes a horse shoe around a nature area and goes out to a point overlooking the city. This lush, green, shady stretch is very appreciated by sweaty walkers.


Walk on for a few minutes and look to your left. Your ears will tell you that you've come to the home of the Roosternacle Choir. Oh my! Such a cacauphony of cock-a-doodle-do's living in all those houses up on the hillside! In my book, no fine view would make up for their incessant ruckus!


The end of the horse-shoe road has a few houses, including this one. As you can see, you can't see. All houses have walls and gates; this one is particularly pleasing. As we walk if we aren't discussing the affairs of the mission or world we talk architecture. If only these folks knew that there were free consultations happening about their homes every morning!


Many of the walls are functional only; then there are walls like this one--a work of art. Of course I approve of the planting beds built into the wall, but recommend something with a shiny green leaf and perhaps a good bloom--more contrast either way. See? A free landscape consultation.


There are "unclaimed coral walls that are perfect hosts to all kinds of interesting plants. Some are just "green plant things", others are recognized friends, like about 5 varieties of ferns. I harvested a handful and will see if I can get them to grow in my office entrance plant collection.


This is almost the end of the nature road. As you can see, still green and lush, and almost no cars. Well, this is proof that somebody drives down this road!


At least a frog a day doesn't make it across one of the streets we walk up; this morning we also saw a tuko (feisty lizard that you hear more than see--what was this shy fella doing in the street?) and a rat (good riddance).


Back on Woolbright Ave., we head to the top. This isn't a bad incline--well, not bad now. It was pretty challenging for me in the beginning, but now it's just fine. I don't think we do anything (in these walks) that challenges Kevin, my beloved mountain goat!


At the top guard station we loop around and walk to the bottom, turning left on 2nd to go back up--the most challenging section of our route. Mt. Borah has nothing on 2nd Ave., except for loose shale. Some days I go pretty slow, but it's all easier than a couple of months ago. I figure by the time we return to Idaho we'll have climbed Borah at least once, if not twice in this steep part of our walk.


This residence was the mission home at one time. There is a basketball court to one side, and it's reported that all the missionaries on the island would congregate there every Monday to play basketball. That, of course, was when the mission was smaller and the areas were less spread out.


As we approach the taoist temple (red on the right) I have to move into mental mode--recite something memorized in my mind. "It's killing me!" "What are we doing this for?" Just keep the Proclamation on the Family going in your head, Ann. By the time you're finished you'll be back on Woolbright. Again.


Back on Woolbright, the end is in sight. We've done almost 5k of serious up and down hilling. All that's left is a martial arts moment with Kaikai. Did you miss him? He has a Saturday schedule with other friends at the IT Park. We're always glad for Monday and Kaikai. And his martial arts routine feels good after the taoist temple hill.

What's on the docket this week? A newsletter tomorrow, as well as sending out a bunch of correspondence. Kevin has bills to pay which means at least one trip to the mall. We've just about got our Christmas goodies ready to send home to the grandkids, and we're making plans for Christmas on Bohol with two other senior couples.

Life is good in the mission field, and I know we would say that no matter where we had the opportunity to serve. The gospel is true. We know that in the depth of our beings, and that is what has us out here doing what we're doing. Love you all--pray for you--thank you for your love and prayers. Don't hesitate to drop a line. It's a great comfort to us.

Kevin and Ann in Cebu

PS--Still not short.

The Legend of the Lion

Plant of the week: Yes, it's a repeat--the traveler palm, aka Raveala madagascarensis. We like them very much even though there aren't many that reside in full glory like this one. I wonder if one of my horticulture associates would be so good as to send a plant list from Floriculture? It would give me great pleasure to know (remember) the names of everything I look at every day.


Jeepney of the week:


As you can see, it's not a jeepney at all, but a multi-cab. This is also a popular vehicle on Cebu, and this spunky little pink bomb grabbed our attention!

Now for a story...

In a far away land, in another time, a husband and wife were blessed with their first child. A boy--an answer to prayer--perfect in his mother's eyes, as he ate and slept and rarely fussed. As he grew the mother delighted in his toddler antics; he was a happy child, and tidy too!

One evening as bedtime approached, when day was not yet finished, but happy playtime had passed, mother and child longed for a car ride to help the boychild prepare for sleep. Wise father knew just the place: the Utah Stake Capitol to see the giant cement lions, and maybe a song or two on the way.

Such delight for a little boy! Daddy's singing and those giant lions. Again, Daddy? Maybe tomorrow.

The tomorrows came and came, and for many months this was the going-to-sleep ritual--drive up to the capitol to see the lions; sing 76 Trombones from "The Music Man".

The years passed. The little boy grew into a fine man who married and had sons of his own. He never lost his love of cement lions and has his own gracing his castle stoop today. He watches for them as he travels the world over and stops to acquainted. Sitting on a lion for a picture brings out a boyish remembrance of his toddler days.

Every boy should have a lion to call his friend.


Lions that live in hot, humid cllimates have their own beauty challenges.


We learned about a place of historical significance on our last trip to Museo Sugbo with Kevin's English Class. It is Argao (pronounced ar-gow, like ar-cow) about 2 hours south of Cebu City. It's the only town with a Spanish layout that survived WWII, and that because the railroad didn't go there, which meant it wasn't distroyed by bombing.

Planning an outing is about half the fun. (Parents: are you chuckling at this, knowing that my planning pleasure began when I was 5?) We started talking about driving down to Argao at our Friday night dinner with Elder and Sister Watkins a couple of week ago. At the last minute we decided to include a stop at Carbon Market, and found a willing and able market ambassador in Evelyn, one of Kevin's English students. She is a lovely woman, a fine student, and of course, a speaker of Cebuano, which meant shopping success for us in that mystical retail setting. (See a previous posting for more Carbon details.) We didn't want to monopolize her entire day, but she was delighted with the idea of a field trip to a part of her island she had never seen before.

We headed out at about 8:00; 2 fellas in the front seat, three gals in back. It only took a few minutes to get to Carbon on Saturday morning (remember--it's close to the post office which has been inspiration for more than one mournful blog entry), and Evelyn knew exactly where to park (right here is fine for a few minutes) and which "store" had our desired items. What a different shopping experience with a Filipina guide! We had a great time, mostly because of Evelyn. She put the merchants at ease for us foreigners; they were friendly and chatty--as chatty as one can be when there's a language barrier.

It sprinkled on us, which wouldn't have been bad, except that the road grime turned to road slurry, a mysterious layer of black slime on the bottoms of our shoes. Just let your imagination go wild about the slurry ingredients and you will probably be correct.

Drizzle or no drizzle, it was a lot of fun, and we will return! Carbon market carries most things if you know where to look. Thanks, Evelyn.

Sorry, no picts of Carbon this time. I feel sensitively about this kind of place being people's LIVES, not a Disneyland experience. If you've been to a developing country, you can imagine it. If not, still imagine it. Sort of Indiana Jones-ish.


Kevin's getting pretty good at holding the camera out and getting a good shot! That's Elder and Sister Watkins in the back and Evelyn next to me, then our photographer.

On to Argao. Our drive was very much like going to Bogo, with beautiful vistas once we got out of the city traffic. No sugar cane fields going south though, just jungle forest, mountains, and of course, the ocean. It was a beautiful day with an ever-changing ceiling of interesting cloud formations, which kept us from overheating. For being a sunshine person, I've grown to appreciate cloudy days; straight sun with high humidity is almost suffocating.

We didn't know exactly where we were going once we got to Argao, but that's part of the fun of adventuring. We drove around for a bit and found a nature park that we wandered through. It was completely under a canopy of trees, so it was comfortable as long as we didn't move too fast.


There was also good sitting for two duffers whose first missions were to the England Birmingham Mission, only about 10 years apart. They break into Britishtalk on a regular basis!


Across the street from the nature park was this lush rice field. Rice is GREEN. It looks cool and inviting, and apparently the birds do all they can to help harvest the rice grains as they develop. Some rice farmers have huts out in the middle of their fields with a cord connected to all those strings that you see with little flags attached. When the birds are particularly bothersome they sleep in their hut and just yank the cord from time to time, which wiggles all the strings, which scares the birds away. Scarecrows take on new meaning in the rice field setting. I'll probably have to do a photo shoot on them in the future.


Grandpa and Grammi in the nature park by a ficus tree. You all know them as weeping figs. Note my flat hair, Mom. Does it look like a problem? You really can't decide on activity by its effect on your dead protein cells. Whatever! Sister Watkins, on the other hand, who has beautiful curly hair...the effect on her dead protein cells was quite the opposite. Do guys ever think twice about their hair? Twice is about all anyone should have to think about their hair.


Finally we found the town square. The rest of Argao had grown up out toward the main road, and the town square was down toward the ocean. We had a guided tour, which was most informative and enjoyed walking through the square--beautiful pastoral gardens--and through the church, which was built in the early 1800's.


The walls were easily two feet thick, which made it cool and refreshing inside. Birds darted and swooped through the open windows.


I get a sore neck just thinking about painting on a ceiling. The whole church took longer to build than the Salt Lake Temple.


A PIPE ORGAN SITING! Be still my heart! We learned that there are three pipe organs on Cebu. I wonder if the other two are playable. This little gem--heartbreaking to see it in complete disrepair. They use a little electronic console instrument for their services now. A wealthy benefactor?


The bell tower was magnificent--all 158 steps begged to be climbed, but unfortunately the person with the bell tower key was away for the day. We were informed that the bells ring to announce daily mass, plus funerals and marriages. Too bad--we had to be back in Cebu before we could hear the bells ring at 5:00. Church bells ringing is one of the items in my what-makes-me-happy book. We hear them often when we're walking early in the morning, but they are far away.


Evelyn and I enjoying our wait to see if we would be able to climb the bell tower.

Our outing took place the first Saturday of October while many of you were eagerly anticipating General Conference. When you're far from home you can actually adjust your inner General Conference clock by a week and feel just fine about it. Of course we could watch it over the internet, but the pleasure of listening to the words of the prophets with the other members of the Cebu Stake would have been missed.

And it was all pleasure yesterday and today. I know, I know, you've all already discussed their messages and resolved to live more Christ-like lives. Our resolve is only hours old instead of days old but much the same as yours.

I had dear, remeniscent thoughts about the Boise North Stake Choir as the Tabernacle Choir san "O Divine Redeemer" this afternoon. I all but sang with them--knew every word and where the altos come in--thanks to 30 years of really fine musical experiences with Dale Ball, Doug Lemman, Marion Reed, David Young--and these are just the directors and organists. I have learned from--with--so many of you and am rich because of it. Thanks.

I also thought back to the days of gathering as a stake to watch the live broadcasts before General Conference was on TV. I confess I like "lazy feasting" too, where you don't have to get up and hurry on those two Sundays a year. BUT--we sure miss out on the spirit of our stake by being separate in our own homes! Greeting our friends here, sitting with them to hear the words of the prophets, singing with them--it was was a joy! It filled my soul in a whole different way than general conference itself.

The hymns of General Conference were another testimony of the power of music in our lives. They invited the Spirit immediately--I mark my hymnal like I mark my scriptures when the Spirit testifies of eternal truths to me, and I have several new markings, including cross references to other hymns and scriptures.

Dear friends and family--we know the gospel is true. We know it is God's map for us, his children, that we may have a successful mortal experience and return to Him, having learned and grown, and prepared to live with him eternally. We think of you regularly--sometimes even dream about you! We pray for your health and happiness. If you have a worry that we know about, we are praying for that worry. If you have a joy we know about, we are giving thanks for it. It isn't chance that we share this mortal trek; if we didn't need to help each other along the way, we could have each received our own planet, or at the very least, our own continent. As it is, we are greatly blessed and enriched by you and hope we can add to your life in some small way also.

Bye for now,
Kevin and Ann

PS--No short blog entry yet.