July 7, 2015

What another action-filled week and a half!  Don't know where the time goes, but some how it slips right through our fingers!  I'll try to quickly recap:

We decided to head up to Chattanooga, TN for a couple of days....with our 'office (phone)' in hand!  And computer, of course.  We have passed through this area a gazillion times and have seen things that we have said we would come back and see when we were not in such a hurry.  This was the TIME!!  Elder and Sister Hardgrave joined us this time.  We always have fun traveling with them.  Along our route north, we stopped at this Church historical site.  This is where Joseph Standing, a missionary in the late 1800's, was shot and killed.  We had heard about this site and that the land had been donated to the Church back in the 1950's.  It is maintained by the Church even today.  It is a very remote site, but one with a lot of meaning for members of the church.  So worth the stop!

We got checked into our Hampton Inn Hotel on Monday late afternoon, situated just 5 minutes from the sites that we wanted to see.  On Tuesday, we spent the day seeing 3 areas:

Rock City was just so cool!!!  Worth the trip to the top.

You can see 7 states on a clear day.  It was kind of a cloudy day when we were there.....but just grateful it had stopped thundering and lightening!!  And not raining!!

Lovers Leap was quite the 'height'!  Elder and Sister Hardgrave and we are standing on a ledge (carefully I might add!) with Lovers Leap in the background.

From the Rock City we headed over to Ruby Falls!  It is a part of the same mountain area at Rock City.  Only this is going in a cave inside the mountain.  So neat!!!

The climbing, which is very easy, is about a 30 minute walk to get to the FALLS!!!  Named Ruby Falls because the guy who discovered it back in the early 1900's had a girlfriend whose name was Ruby.  He named it after her.  How sweet.  It was indeed beautiful!

The 3rd part of our touring on this day was to the World's Steepest Incline Train in the World!  It lived up to its name!!!  BUT....duty calls, first of all.  Elder/Dr. Allgaier got a few calls.  Then Sister Hardgrave got a call.  We are never in a hurry where we go because we can always anticipate these phone calls which take priority over anything else that we do or see.  We are, after all, on a mission!  We are NOT tourist.....these are our P-Minutes since we don't get a P-Day!!

There were 2 trains which would run at the same time.  One going up....one going down.  

This was so cool!!!!  I don't really like heights but I was able to do this with no problem.  What a GREAT view from the top.  If anybody comes to visit us and wants to take the time to visit Chattanooga with us, we would totally be up for this trip again!!  Just saying........!!

We went to a Logan's Steak House with the Hardgraves.  We never got our bucket of peanuts at our table, but we took a foto anyway!

We ate at Cracker Barrel for one of our other meals.  Got to love their rocking chairs!  I wanted to bring this one home with us.......but we really don't have room.

 A few months ago we mailed 2 books to Jimmy Carter, former U.S. President, to have him sign them for us (really for Wayne).  We FINALLY got them back in the mail this week.  How fun to have them signed by a U.S. President.  Especially since we had been to one of his Sunday School Classes that he taught himself.  It was an interesting experience.

Our 3 new mission President's and their wives arrived this past week.  We went to 2 of the 'Meet The President' Zone Meetings with the Georgia Atlanta Mission.  President and Sister Foote will be awesome for the missionaries and for us to work with.  We love them already.  Elder Pherson is one of the A.P.'s.  They are setting up for a Zone Foto.

After the meeting, they had the missionaries line up so the Foote's could shake ALL of the missionaries hands.  Great idea!!  Just like a receiving line at a wedding reception!

July 4th was a RAINY day.....but that never stops a good parade in PTC!!!  And the parade went on just as planned.  Lots of umbrellas and lots of soaked participants.

 After the parade was over we headed over to Newnan with Elder and Sister Burnside, N.C. Raleigh Mission.  The Burnsides have become good friends over the course of our mission.  We have had fun doing things with them as we have traveled in that mission.  They just completed their mission and came by to visit us as they began their drive home to Arizona!  That was so sweet of them to do that.  We drove over to Starrs Mill, just south of PTC.  We have fallen in love with it because it is so picturesque!

 The Hardgraves and Burnsides had a light dinner at our apartment with us prior to going to watch the fireworks.  We didn't get a foto of all 6 of us until Sunday evening after a July 4th Patriotic Fireside was held.

YUP.....that would be Lucy-Goosey having just jumped up on top of our cabinet in the kitchen!  That little rascal!

I asked Elder Facey if he would take a foto of the 6 of us.....he was happy to do that, only after taking a few selfies first!  Got to love it when you have your camera/phone to the Elders to have them take fotos for you.  And even Elder/Dr. Allgaier photo bombed their selfie!

Tender Mercy of the day, Sunday, July 5th.  We got a text from Kevin during the Fireside telling us Ele would have a 7-hour layover in Atlanta at the airport on Monday (the next day) as she travels on her way to Europe with about 330 people in a choral group who would be performing all over Europe.  He wanted to know if we were in PTC!  YES....indeed we were.  We stared thinking quickly how we would be able to see her because she was not allowed to leave the secure area.  That meant we needed to figure out how to get PAST security to see her.  Literally as President Corbridge, member of our newly called Stake Presidency, walked off the stand I pointed to him (because Wayne and I were standing in the front) and he saw that 'pointing finger'!  He asked if he could help with something.  I explained our situation with wanting to see Ele and asked where President Kennedy was (he was previously our Bishop in the Whitewater Ward prior to his being called to serve in the new Stake Presidency.  President Kennedy is a Vice-President of Delta!  He told us 'HE IS YOUR MAN'!!!  He gave us his personal email address and phone number.  He was traveling and out of town but we could reach him.  He responded within 20 minutes of our email and within about an hour we had secured our 'security passes' so we could see Ele!!!

What a COOL thing that we were able to see her.  We had a meeting on Monday with one of the new mission presidents and his wife so we were not able to get to the airport until about 3:30 pm but we were still able to spend about 2 hours with her!!!  We love the TENDER MERCIES of our mission.  We feel so blessed.  The timing for ALL of that to happen was impeccable.

When we finished seeing Ele, we needed to make a house call to see an Elder about an hour east of the airport.  President Foote was concerned about him and needed Elder/Dr. to make a visit.  We did, and that, yet, was a tender mercy the way things turned out with that as well!  And President Foote was so grateful we had been able to visit with him.

And, so we continue our week!!!  We are hoping for one 'slower' day this week so we can catch up.  We will see how that pans out.