Spencer In the MTC

Yeah! He made it and is Alive!

Here is his first letter to let us know he made it.

Hello Mother. I have made it here to Ghana Safely. All is going well. They gave us a few short minutes to send a quick email saying that we made it ok. The plane ride was good. Long, but good. I was able to sleep most of the way. We all made it through customs ok. when they picked us up the stuffed all of our luggage into one van and all of us elders into another van. It was super packed and VERY hot in there. it was a cool to see all of the people on the street trying to sell stuff to the cars that went by. It made traffic pretty slow though. but we made it. The MTC doesn't have a lot of AC. only in the Chapel. That is now my new favorite room. :)  I was still a little tired when we got to the MTC but after a nights rest I'm doing well.

 

 It is super hot here! I don't think i have ever sweat so much in my life while just sitting down, or even sleeping for that matter. The meals haven't been too bad so far. This morning we had a hot dog for breakfast with some onions and some sauce on it. I guess that is pretty common here.  And i guess you could have called it a hot dog bun. but it surely wasn't. it was just a big piece of bread that had a slice in it to place the hot dog.

 

My companion is Elder Ihejirika. He is from Nigeria and will be serving there after our stay at the MTC. We all got paired up with elders from Nigeria or Ghana. There is about 5 or 6 of us that will be heading to Sierra Leone together. All American except one, i think. They are all so awesome. They are all so willing to wait on us and serve us. They are really nice and awesome. I felt bad because when we were unpacking our things I have like triple the amount of stuff as my companion.

 

It isn't as sunny as I thought it would be, but that is because of how humid it is. It covers the sky. They said that it isn't always like this. So hopefully I will get to see some blue sky in a little bit. They said it might rain in the next day or so. so i guess we will see how bad it really is.

 

Well, my time is up and we have to go back to class now. I love you all a lot! I'll talk to you soon.

 

Love Elder Jones

Then we got another E-Mail :) (we were told the he would not be able to e-mail us so we are grateful that he can) 

 He told us that he is getting used to the heat. That he got to go to the Temple. and is just doing well. He sent some pictures and I am just so excited for him. I miss him tons and cried when I saw these just cause I knew that he is doing what he is suppose to and is actually there.

LOVE YOU SPENCER! 

 

Elder Spencer Jones

Wednesday the 21st was spent with Me, Mom and Spencer finishing all the last minute things to get Spencer packed and ready to go. We made 2-3 trips to Wal-Mart (we found out that Spencer had a secret love with Wal-Mart or that he was just going to miss having one). They covered Mom’s bed with all of his stuff and his suit cases. Mom worked her packing magic and got everything in. We sent him with 2 things of peanut butter, toothpaste, shampoo, and a lot of other things that we did not have to send DJ with. :)

We got ready and then Went to dinner at Red Robin for Spencer’s “Last Meal” then we went to President Richins office and Spencer got set apart. I had been holding the teas in all day but by the end of the night I just could not hold it in anymore. President Richins did a great job and gave Spencer a wonderful blessing. Mom got to put his tags on him and then we went home.

When I got home I changed into jammies and lost it! Complete sobs as I lay in my bed. So I just pray and prayed and prayed until I felt better. I know that Heavenly Father is going to watch over Spencer as he is in such a 3rd world country and that he will watch over me and my family when he is gone.

I woke up the next morning with my eyes super puffy but ready for the day as much as I could be. I was hoping I could be all cried out. :)  I got ready and then asked Spencer what he wanted for breakfast. He wanted his favorite French toast and some sausage. I headed to the store to get the sausage when I saw an accident. It was the car in front of me so I stopped and made sure they were OK, called the cops and waited until they arrived. In the meantime friends and neighbors saw that I was there and call to make sure I was OK. I told them it was not me but I was grateful they thought of me and offered to help. After that I continued on my trip to Bowman’s for sausage and then returned home. We had breakfast finished a few last minuet things (Spencer took another trip to Wal-Mart) and packed up the car and went to the airport.

We got there and went down to the ticket counter and got him all checked in. A very nice man helped us and gave Spencer some advice on his transfer and how to do some other things. We were doing good on the crying font until Mom started and then we all kind of lost it for a second. We pulled it together and went over to the side to wait for Brooke and Logan to come. When they came Brooke started crying and then Spencer and then it was a cry fest.

We finished taking pictures and then we went up to the security line. We gave our final hugs and Lost it again. We followed him through the line and until he made it through security. There were a couple of other missionaries in line with him so it was great that he had someone with him.

Even though I am going to miss him terribly Spencer is going to be a GREAT missionary! He is going to help so many people and touch the lives of so many more. He will face tons of new challenges and experience’s but he is young and brave and will accomplish a lot.

It is going to be weird not to have him around and I am going to miss his since of humor and a great friend and brother.

St. Patrick’s Day/ Spencer’s Farwell

Wow what a weekend! The 17th and 18th were so crazy! Saturday the 17th Mom and I spent the whole day Cooking, cleaning and running around like chickens with our heads cut off. :)  We made cookies, brownies, Oreo balls, and 28lbs of pulled pork. It was fun and yummy but so exhausting. I did get some laundry washed, dried and PUT AWAY! (That is a miracle) but by 9:30 I was ready for bed and was asleep by 10.

Sunday we got up and got ready for church, finished up the last minute things and off we went. Spencer spoke on Obedience and did a great job. Dad sang in a double quartet and it sounded great. Bonus Dad did not cry! :)

We had about 52 family members show up, lots of new and old friends, and neighbors. It was a packed house but it was so wonderful! Another Bonus we DID NOT run out of Food! Yeah!!! At DJ’s homecoming we ran out of food. It was crazy. This time we did not want that to happen so we prepared for the masses.

It was so nice to see so much love and support! Thanks to everyone how came!

Chloe and the Family

Spencer and His Friends

Gratitude

I was asked to give a talk in sacrament meeting on the 11th of March. I was excited but nervous at the same time. My topic was a blessing in disguise. My topic was from the For the Strength of Youth Pamphlet on Gratitude. I found so many wonderful things on gratitude. There were quotes, stories, life experiences and many more wonderful things. I am not sure if anyone else learned anything but I did. My testimony of Gratitude grew even more than what it was. I did find this one thing that is so wonderful. It is a Gratitude Challenge. It is so wonderful you just have to do the list below

• Write 10 living people you are grateful for.

• Write 10 people who have died you are grateful for.

• Write 10 physical abilities you are grateful for.

• Write 10 material possessions you are grateful for.

• Write 10 things about nature you are grateful for.

• Write 10 things about today you are grateful for.

• Write 10 places on earth you are grateful for.

• Write 10 modern-day inventions you are grateful for.

• Write 10 foods you are grateful for.

• Write 10 things about the gospel you are grateful for

I have learned so much as I do each of these.  I am truly grateful for all that I have and all the many blessings that I have received.

San Francisco 2012

We started March out with a bang. Me, Mom, Dad, Spencer and Skyler went on a road trip to San Francisco. We had so much fun!

We got up early on Thursday morning and left the house about 7 am. We stopped at Maverick in Farmington to get gas and Mom saw Casey from Chanel 2 new doing a report and went up to him and was on TV. It was funny because she was in her jammies. We had to give her crap since she would never let us out of the house in our jammies and she was on TV in them. :)   Then we just kept driving. The weather was not the best on the way there. We stopped in Winiamucha to get gas and lunch and there was a sideways wind/hail storm. It was crazy! Spencer had some super high winds Dad started driving after Reno so he could drive Doner’s Pass. It had snowed over the pass and they were requiring chains on all cars. So we pulled over and put chains on (a first for all of us) and drove 30mph. it was so crazy. We did not even need the chains. We left more snow in our driveway than what was on the road. We even asked them how much snow was on the road to see if we even needed chains and we told them we were from Utah and drive in snow all the time but the just said that Chains were Required. Oh well, we made it. We saw some way cool animal life along the pass also. We got in to California and found this farmers market and they told us of a great place to eat dinner. Oh my it was so so good. It was an Italian restaurant. We all loved it.

Then we drove some more and finally got to our hotel. It was a nice hotel. We had all of us in the same room. We were a little squished but I was still wonderful. We had a Great view from the room. We could see the Bay Bridge, Golden Gate Bridge and a lot of other places. That night I did not sleep much. Dad and his snoring kept me up. I then learned for the next nights what to do (sleeping pills and ear plugs ) then we got up really early and got ready for a fun day of adventure In San Francisco.

We started out our trip at Alcatraz. We were on the first tour. As we were standing in line Dad ears perked up. We looked at him and asked what’s up. He said that he think he hears Swedish. And he did there was a group tour and he got to talk to a lot of people in Swedish. It was fun for him and for us to see him use his Swedish. It was also great to see him explain about the church and why he was there and how he learned Swedish and to tell them that Spencer was going on a mission to Africa. It was really cute to see him have so much fun.



On  The Boat over to Alcatraz



 At the main entrance on the island. now a hike up to the jail. it is not bad i just remember the first time we came and we had grandma and grandpa with us and they could not do it very well. :) we all did just great! plus there was such a great view out to San Fran.

 Inside one of the Jail cells. It would be so uncomfortable to have to stay in one of those everyday for years.We all really loved the tour, the history and the fun guy we met that told us all sorts of cool stories that were one part of the audio tour. he told us that it is really possible that you could swim across to San Fran. so maybe some of the escapees actually made it to freedom. :)

 Here are some of the sea lions at Pier 39. They were so much fun to watch. We ate lunch here at the pier and window shopped. I got scared by a bird as it jumped on my table and gave me this scary look to  give it my food. everyone around me laughed as i jumped and screamed but they were all on my side and Spencer helped me scare it away.

We then walked up hill a few blocks and caught a bus. to take us to the Exploratorium. When we got on the bus it was not super full but then 2 stops later a whole school field trip got on. it made it super crowded. we rode the bus to the end and got off to walk the rest of the way. We have decided that we LOVE walking in San Fran just to see all the houses. They have so much character and they are so beautiful and interesting.

We get to where they said the Exploratorium is at and we did not think that it was it so we started walking around and we found this wonderful collum thing. it looked like we took a trip to Rome. It was beautiful!

 We Finally found the Exploratorium. OH MAN! We LOVED it! It was so so COOL! It is a whole thing full of science experiences that you can play with. Totally hands on and we all had fun (even mom and dad)!

 This was in a section of the museum about violating social norms. it was so much fun.

 We Played with the bubbles for a long time. it was so much fun and we got some really big ones :)

 This was so funny of Skyler. I don't remember what the propose was but it was funny!

After we played for a while, we caught the bus back down to the Pier and went to the Aquarium and played and watched some fish. Then we went back to the hotel and went to bed.

On Saturday, Spencer and Dad went to the Oakland Temple to do a session and I drove all by myself(well with Lola the GPS) to Martinez to get my car fixed. then I picked the boys up and we got mom and Sky and headed into SF and we went to Golden Gate Park. We rented bikes and rode around. It was a great Idea but we were out of shape and SF is up hill both ways. then we went to a science museum. we saw some penguins being fed and we went into the rain forest section and we were all grateful that Spencer was the one going to Africa. humidity is a killer.

Then we went to dinner. I was able to pick one restaurant while we were there. I got online and did some research and picked a restaurant from Diner Drive-in's and Dives. and i found one that was good priced and the food looked good. We went and LOVED it! It was so so yummy!

After that we rode the trolleys/cable cars all around SF and we stopped at China Town and did some shopping. We were really tired and did not stay long but we did have some fun riding the trolley/cable cars. I think we took them everywhere they they could run. It was a lot of fun. We learned that the breaks for the Trolleys/Cable cars are nothing but wood.(2x4's) and they change them out every 5 days. At one point when we were stopping it smelt like a campfire. :) We really enjoyed learning about them. When we were done with went back to the Hotel.

The hotel we were staying at had this "Gateway"ish mall across the street. I saw a store from the window that I had heard some friends talk about and wanted to see what it was. So, me, mom and dad went over there. Spencer and Skyler went to the pool to play.

The store was called H&M and oh my we LOVED it! and there were some other fun stores there also. but i was getting late and we were hungry so we scoped out what they had there. Spencer and Skyler got some hot dogs, Dad got a shake and onion rings, mom got a salad and i went to this little Italian place and got the Yummiest things Ever! I got a Butternut squash ravioli in a brown butter sauce with crispy sage. HEAVEN!!! seriously i could eat it all the time. no one else would touch it, they were totally missing out!
Then we went back to the hotel and crashed.

We all slept in on Sunday and then got everything packed and ready to go. We took a trip over to the Temple to get some pictures and see the visitor center(Spencer wanted to see the cute sister missionaries.)  They had given us directions to Fentens, which is the ice cream parlor that is on the movie UP at the end when they are counting red and blue cars. :)

It was fun to see this.

We then went back to SF and got some pictures of us in front of our favorite places and on Jones Street. :)

After that we drove across the Golden Gate Bridge and went to Muri National Forest to see the Red Wood trees. On the way up there we got stopped for a little while for traffic to go down the mountain but then that got backed up. we were so confused and so were the construction workers. and then we found out a semi was trying to go up this very small very curvy road and blocked traffic.once he got out of the was and the traffic cleared up we were able to make it there. it was so beautiful and quiet and the temperature was just right. The trees were so tall and beautiful. We actually bought a Sequoia tree and brought it home. I am hoping it will look like the trees we saw.

We then started the drive home. We got to just outside Reno when we decided to stop and spend the night and drive home in the morning.
The weather was much better on the way home. we did not have any real problems excpt that Spencer ended up with a speeding ticket.We felt so bad for him. but it won't effect him to bad since he is leaving for Africa and by the time he comes home it wont be there anymore. :)  We got home about 4-5 pm on Monday. we shower and put stuff away and then went to bed.

It was a Wonderful Family Vacation!!