Missionary Monday!

Brought to you on Monday. :-)

"Hi everyone!
This week has been a week of door knocking and street contacting. I've talked to a lot of people. 
On Friday we had Zone Meeting, and they shared some really cool stuff with us. I don't know if I've ever explained it, but in my mission all the Zone Leaders and the Sister Trainer Leaders will go every transfer to the mission office to have a special training meeting with President Burt. We call it MLC, Mission Leader Council. Then the next week they take everything back to the individual zones for every one to learn the same things. So at MLC someone from the missionary department came and talked about things they learned in a recent survey from our mission and also from things they've learned throughout the world. 
Basically when talking to someone, the first five seconds can and usually will make or break the rest of the conversation or even the relationship, especially as a missionary. People don't really want to talk to religious representatives. So, they told us about two phrases that seem to get people to open up a little. ...one is "We have a book all about Jesus Christ!"
People really appreciate that a lot more. 
I'm a bit over time, but I love you guys!
Jason"

Missionary Monday!

Maybe I should change the name of these updates to "Missionary Wednesday."  ?

Anyway, here's the news from Jason:

"It's been a busy week! Lots of door knocking, and not all in my area.
Before I forget, some people wanted my new address, and I have it.

#110 7425 Shaw Avenue
Chilliwack BC CA
V2R 3C

Note from Mom: If you're reading this, send Jason a letter! ;-)

"I went on exchange with Elder Cloward in Abbotsford on Tuesday, and met a lot of Punjabi people, and on Thursday I was on exchange with Elder Stirland in Mission. Right now I'm in a family history center in Abbotsford with four other companionships. It's pretty hectic. 

"On Saturday we had an awesome conference with Elder Daniel L. Johnson, and that was super good. He does more of a discussion than a talk, but in short the points he wanted to get across the points that making friends is missionary work, and if you open your mouth at all to talk to someone else, God will fill it! Just don't close your mouth when he does! The other point he wanted to get across was that missionaries and members of the church need to be united. I don't know when it was said or who said it, but I heard someone in General Conference say that the work will hasten when members and full-time missionaries come together in a spirit of unity. So those were the big points. 

"Lately (the last few months), I've been working to see how much good I can do independent of my companion. I have, throughout my mission, been one to say that because my companion does not want to move forward or progress in a situation that I do, that I cannot progress. That sounds like false doctrine! So I've been trying to do good regardless of my companion. His bad day doesn't need to affect my good day, and I don't need to wait for him to change my bad day into a good day. It takes a lot of courage though. It's not easy to go forward 'without' as it sometimes seems, any help. But 'Happy is he who hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose Hope is in the Lord his God.' I am not without help, your prayers are heard by God, and He knows what I need. The same is true for you. Help is there, if you'll notice it, and the same as missionary work, He will often not give you help until the moment you need it. So have faith! You need it. And I do too.

"I have to go.
I love you guys!
Jason"

What I Did This Summer part 3

The day after we got Michael home, Bruce's sister Marilyn and her husband James came out to Vernal for a visit. That Saturday (July 25) they took us to the Utah Field House of Natural History. It was pretty interesting learning a little about dinosaurs and rocks/geology, and stuff like that.

But the real fun started when we encountered dinosaurs!

rraaaawwrrrr!

During the next two weeks we worked on organizing our new home.

This is the front of the house; we Norths live upstairs. We all—both families—cook and eat together on the main floor.

This is my new bedroom. My bed is in an alcove (gable?).

This is our living room/girls' bedroom/sewing room. I have the camera and I'm standing in the hallway, facing east. There's a bathroom to my direct right, and to Bruce's left (my right) is an alcove with the sewing and ironing tables.

We also did some gardening with the Rays

And my kids worked on corrupting the Ray kids with their tablets and iPads.

On August 7 we went back to Salt Lake to take care of some errands and appointments, and get the rest of our stuff out of the house. On Saturday (the 8th) we went to Provo River Falls on our way to pick Lindsey up from Camp Steiner (where she worked all summer).

And on Sunday we had an open house/welcome home for Michael. We headed back to Vernal on Tuesday.

The following Saturday we drove down to Ephraim to deposit Lindsey at Snow College. She is excited to be back there and she's excited about her classes. Yay!

Moving into her new apartment.

Then we had a four-day breather before school started here in the Uintah Basin. 

one teacher, three high-schoolers, and two middle-schoolers

It has been one crazy-busy summer!

What I Did This Summer part 2

We stayed in Vernal arranging our things and getting settled for a couple weeks before we went back to get more of our stuff from the West Valley house.

Our first week there, we got to go to a ward activity: a picnic and swim party at the local recreation center. It had been nice, sunny weather until the day of the picnic—in fact, up until the hour of the picnic. Then they were grilling burgers and serving potluck sides and desserts in some cold, cold rain! But the swimming was indoors, and the kids had fun in the pools while we grown-ups visited.

Here's one of the youngest members of our new family,
feeling sleepy and trying to have dinner in the rain.

fun in the pool

A dinosaur in the kiddie pool? Of course!
In Vernal, dinosaurs are everywhere! (Seriously, statues on the main drag of town, pictures on the street signs—even the rodeo is called the Dinosaur Round-Up.) It is my goal to take pictures of my family with every dinosaur we see. 

We also took a Saturday outing to Remember the Maine Park—we got rained on there, too. In fact, it was nice all day and then rained pretty hard every evening for about the first three weeks we were here. Here's a bunch of pictures of the kids playing at the park:

We did other fun things with the Rays, like having family movie nights:

baking goodies:

and picking cherries?

There's someone picking cherries!

On July 15 we were notified that Michael would be finishing his mission in one week, and we would need to pick him up in Orem on July 23. We also got the opportunity to attend the Salt Lake Temple on July 22 with him and other missionaries who were leaving his mission at the same time. The Ray family was also going to be in Salt Lake, so Daniel took a trailer down to help us pack up some more stuff on the 22nd. (Actually Daniel and Bruce did all the packing. Just walking into the house and seeing all the stuff we still had to deal with transformed me into Cranky Girl.)

We went to the temple with Michael on the 22nd, attended a missionary testimony meeting in Orem that evening, and picked him up the next morning.

fireside in Orem, July 22, 2015

President and Sister Killpack of the Utah, Orem Mission 

We had lunch with Grandpa North...

...and visited with Grandma and Grandpa Johnson 
before we went home to Vernal. 

Hi Everybody!

I totally copied this banner after I saw the one my friend Sam had for her son—such a fun idea! And I can re-use it for Jason. ;-)

Well, that's still not everything we did this summer. More next time!