Sunday, March 29, 2015

We attended one Zone Conference this week down in Douglas, GA (part of the GA Macon Mission).  The GA Macon Mission tends to spread their Zone Conferences out over several weeks instead of all in the same week.  Makes it just a little tricky for us to get to them but we do what we can.  We LOVE driving down in the south part of GA.  Driving on the back roads allows us to have some different scenery!  LOVE the pines....remind us of the pines in Finland.

We were hoping we would be able to 'find' our little roadside stand on this trip.....and sure enough, there she was.  Just as pretty as you please!  LOVE this place!  Bought some more T.O.E. Jam!  It is sooooo good.  And the F.R.O.G. Jam is good too!

The owners of this fruit stand are so sweet.  They have been married about 1 year.  This is the 2nd marriage for both.  Their first spouse had passed away very close to the other.  They decided they would get married.....and here they are.  Running their little fruit stand!  Being just as friendly as anybody could be.

There seem to be a LOT of run-down building along these back roads.  Don't know why....there just are.

A little layout of our travels getting down to Douglas, GA.

We LOVE being at the Zone Conferences.  We decided to do a little selfie while we were all prepared for the 'official' Zone Conference photo to be taken.  The missionaries behind us seemed to enjoy it as well.

Back home at our apartment in PTC (Peachtree City) I got my new FitBit band in the mail.  I like this little design.....my summer band I guess!!

SPRING has really sprung around here.  Just gorgeous-ness all around.  

I got another doily made this week.  This one is for a new convert couple who went to the temple for their own endowment this week.  The will be sealed next week.  How sweet Brother and Sister Pickles are.

I got in the mood for a good WEDGE SALAD this week and since we were home I got to make that for us.  AND I got to use our pretty dishes from Finland.  Love them.

It doesn't happen very often but Elder/Dr. Allgaier was available to go out with the Zone Leaders who live here in our apartment complex.  Elder/Dr. enjoys going out with them.

I treated us a little bit this week by ordering some spring tulips and cute little 'boot' vase for our apartment.  Just needed to spiff things up a bit.

What a beautiful day it was to be at the temple on Saturday morning.  The temple closed early today because of the Women's Broadcast live from S.L.C.

We snuck in a little walk on this beautiful spring afternoon.  And then Elder/Dr. Allgaier went out with the missionaries again.

Low and behold......Elder/Dr. Allgaier made me a cross stitch pattern for a SMALL Atlanta Temple.  I got it made Sunday morning before church (we are on the 1 p.m. schedule).  I will be making a few of these as gifts.  I will be putting it in a round wooden frame/hoop.  Stay tuned on this one!......

Another great week......NO Zone Conferences coming up this week.  That is a rare week for that to happen.  We are going to take a little road trip this coming week....we hope, if all goes well with our schedule.  Stay tuned on that one too......LOVE OUR MISSION!

Sunday, March 22, 2015

On Sunday afternoon, March 15th, I picked Elder/Dr. Allgaier up at the airport in Charlotte and we headed on our drive down to the Georgia Macon Mission to Savannah.  We had promised President and Sister Cottle that we would attend their Zone Conference on Tuesday, March 17th in Savannah and give a powerpoint presentation.  It was a LOT of driving but we had a commitment to keep.  We did not want to disappoint them.

It was a great little drive down.  We drove as far as Columbia, S.C. and spent the night, to continue the remainder of our trip on Monday.  We stopped in a little town of Walterboro, S.C. to see a S.C. Artisan Store.  It really didn't pan out to be much but we did find a couple of other interesting things to see.  The picturesque churches were neat to see.  This is one of them.

This is another of the churches that we thought was nice.

We 'happened' upon this swamp park with a very nice, very long bridge which had been erected.  We really didn't have time to walk much because we didn't have the time.  We will have to go back when we have more time.  It was really neat though.  Walterboro....we will be back!

Here is my Project Life page of some of the bridge.....loved it!

We got checked into our Hampton Inn Hotel long enough to leave our bags and headed over to TYBEE ISLAND.  We had been there once before and wanted to go back and see the lighthouse so we could climb to the top.  It was a great view up there....although a little scary for me!

We got some great view from up there......

One thing that Elder/Dr. Allgaier has been asked to do at most of the Zone Conferences is give a powerpoint presentation to the missionaries about staying healthy in the mission field.  Don't know if it helps or not but we keep trying!

 President and Sister Cottle treated us to dinner after the conference.  We went to the Ruby Tuesday's close to our hotel.  

Because it was St. Patrick's Day while we were there, and because Wayne forgot to bring anything GREEN to wear, the hotel clerk went out and bought some 'green things' to give to the customers.  This is what she gave to Wayne.....a green clip-on hat tie tack!  It is so cute!

This was probably one of the ABSOLUTE WORST NIGHTS EVER staying in a Hampton Inn.  We stayed there 2 nights.  The first night was ok but the 2nd night was AWFUL!!  We got very little sleep.  There was a smoker in the room next to us.  About 10 p.m. we started smelling smoke like the people were right in the room with us.  It got bad enough about 11 p.m. I called the front desk.  They apologized but said there were NO empty rooms!  We expressed our dismay.  Had we known there were smoking rooms on that floor we would have requested to be moved to another floor!  At about midnight we called again and told them it was just unbearable and that we could not sleep.  Short story......we got the night FREE!!!  However, that still did not resolve the fact that we didn't get any sleep.  We had to get up at 5 a.m. and start driving back up to the N.C. Charlotte Mission so we could be there by 11 a.m.  It was a 4 1/2 hour drive.  It was indeed a SLEEPLESS NIGHT IN SAVANNAH!

 We finished up in the N.C. Charlotte Mission with Zone Conferences on Wednesday and Thursday.  All went well.....although we were very busy.  Thursday night President and Sister Craven invited us to dinner.  The next day was a full-mission conference with Elder Kopischae, of the Presidency of the Seventy, and one of the counselors of the NorthAmerica SouthEast Area was there to be a guest speaker.  He spoke for 4 1/2 hours without taking many breaths!  It was absolutely wonderful.  A very inspiring meeting.  To the left of Elder Kopischae is President Baker, the Stake President in Charlotte, and President Craven on the right, mission president.

We drove back down to Peachtree City after the meeting.  We were completely exhausted but it was a good exhaustion.  On Saturday, we went to the Atlanta Temple.  It was a great day to be there and good to be back.

I had somehow lost one of the PINS that Wayne bought me on his 24-hour trip last weekend.  After much searching he finally found it.....and was ready with his hemostat in case he needed to get into a small space!  He is SO GOOD!!

We were able to go on a much needed walk in our neighborhood again!  The beauty of spring was all around....and especially with the trees.  The spring is turning out beautiful here!

The beauty of the Atlanta Temple Grounds was evident!  I made a Project Life layout with the fotos that I took.

It has been a quiet Sunday.  Nice and relaxing....we needed that!!!  And we are preparing for another short trip this coming week.  We surely feel blessed and grateful we are able to serve on this mission!

Sunday, March 15, 2015

This has been quite the week!!!  We knew it was going to be a busy one....we just didn't know exactly HOW busy.  We headed to the North Carolina Charlotte Mission by way of HELEN, GA.  This is a great little Bavarian town in the mountains of north Georgia!  And there was an INDIAN MOUND just outside of town.  It surely reminded us of being in the Fussen area of Germany.

The 'red-roof' buildings are very indicative of Germany.

As we traveled on down the road toward our destination of High Point, N.C. today, look what we found.......a really cool BAR-B-QUE SMOKER in the shape of a GUN!!!  Who would have thought!

 My 12 x 12 layout of our trip through Helen, GA. and on in to N.C.

I just LOVE sunsets!  This was a beauty tonight.

Have I said how much we LOVE attending Zone Conferences and mingling with the missionaries.  This great elder showed me a pen that my cousins (Polly McNeill) husband (Wayne McNeill) made for him.  I told him I had made a couple of pens.....hence, the foto!!!

We absolutely never know who we are going to run into at these Zone Conferences!  This is Elder Pottle.  He is a great friend to Toni Chase (a gal who works for Becky's company).  He was so excited to get a message from someone back home.  And Toni was so excited to get this message on instagram!  Small world in the church gets even smaller through today's technology!

 Our Zone Conferences this week were in Greensboro, Winston Salem and High Point (my old stomping grounds)!

Nothing like lining up for food at lunchtime.  These guys are always hungry!

In downtown High Point is this ginormous DRESSER.  I remember this as a child.  And fun to see it still around as an adult.  The argyle socks have been added since my childhood.

We got to spend one evening with Faye and Ronnie.....including being in their home.  Wayne and Faye were having fun doing tech stuff.....not sure who was teaching who.  But it was fun to watch and listen.  Got to love us Senior Citizens!

Part of what we do at Zone Conferences is teach good health practices......including taking good care of those toenails so as not to get ingrown toenails.  We have been seeing quite a few of those.

Kind of fun to visit the many different chapels and see how things look at each one.  And the 'line-up' of the mission cars!

I was able to finish two more doilys as gifts.  The while one on the bottom if for Polly and Wayne McNeill as a remembrance of their being sealed in the temple this week.

In the meantime, back home.....Steven is ready to run that marathon race in D.C.!!!!  And the weather forecast is calling for rain the entire race time!  Bless his heart!  What a trooper.

And we are having our own rain here in Raleigh as well.  Even so, the Raleigh Temple was very cool through the rainy windshield of our car.

What a super special, long awaited day for Polly and Wayne.  We are so excited for them.....finally after all these years of Polly patiently waiting for Wayne to join the church so they could be sealed.

We got word that Wayne was needed to accompany a missionary back to his home for medical reasons in Colorado Springs, Colorado.  As soon as we finished at the temple we headed to the Charlotte Airport.  President and Sister Turner met us there and hand-delivered the missionary to Elder/Dr.  I have to say that it was a very tense flight and Wayne said he had never prayed so hard that he could just get him home without any 'incidences'!

Meanwhile, I headed up to Mt. Airy, N.C. to spend the 24-hours Wayne was gone with Elder and Sister Burnside (office couple from the N.C. Raleigh Mission).  It was a packed 24 hours too.  I never tire of seeing signs of 'MAYBERRY' around Mt. Airy.

Anna even brought some locally made pottery to the Hampton Inn and sat up a card table right in the parking lot so we could 'shop'!!  She used to have a store downtown but closed last month because it was just too much for her.

She had some beautiful things too.

And yet another gorgeous sunset.  Why do I never tire of seeing them.

I went to the Mt. Airy Ward on Sunday morning with Elder and Sister Burnside.  I always love attending church here.  It just feels like home here!

I took the Burnsides by the Quarry so they could see it.  I always enjoy seeing this place too.

When I left Mt. Airy and headed south to Charlotte to pick Wayne up at the airport again, I ran into some really slow traffic (due to an accident) which gave me a chance to take a foto of the beautiful flowering trees along the highway.  Spring is really springing down south already!

Gorgeous shot of the Knob on Pilot Mountain!!!

It was SO GOOD to get Wayne back to Charlotte!!!  That was a very quick, but extremely hard, 24-hour turnaround trip.

And I put together another 12 x 12 layout for the 24-hour day of activities!

We are still here in the N.C. Charlotte Mission.  We will have a couple of day diversion.  You can find out about that next week for my entry.  Let it be known that it has been a very CRAMMED week!!!  I think we may feel justified in feeling completely pooped!!!  :-)