Sunday, January 17, 2016

Our Monday morning found us headed from Corbin, Kentucky (where we had spent the weekend) back up to the Louisville area.  AND, of course, when we are anywhere near the Louisville Bat Factory we just have to stop in.  We LOVE going there!!  We will miss going here when we are not on our mission.

And that Louisville skyline!  There are 'certain' skylines we have grown to love and look forward to seeing....this is one of them.

When we stopped to fill up the gas tank, interesting how they had the salt bags stacked up.  You would have thought SNOW was expected!

And sure enough.....SNOW was expected.  We got to stop by the Kentucky Louisville Temple again.  Unfortunately, it was closed so we didn't get to participate in any ordinances this time.  Hopefully the next time!

 It was indeed a pretty snow when we woke up on Tuesday morning to head over to Zone Conferences.  

While the missionaries were enjoying the warmth of the inside (and getting instructions from President Brough on how he wanted the missionaries to look for the foto about to be taken!).....

Elder Bailey is outside in the snow and cold weather checking those missionary cars.  I guess he gets extra blessings for having to be in the COLD!!

Elder Parker Irwin came up to us and said he had been to our home in Maryland.....even been to one of our bonfires!!  We knew he was legit when he talked about the bonfires.  As it turns out, he and his family moved into our ward at home (Monocacy Ward at the time) while we were on our mission in Finland.  His family moved to Washington State shortly after our return from Finland because his father passed away and that was where his mother felt they needed to move to.  We had a nice little reunion with him.  

We had a nice view of one of the many bridges over the Ohio River from Indiana to Kentucky in our hotel in New Albany, Indiana.

Elder/Dr. Allgaier got a BAT for Christmas.....one that he would pass around and let 'special' people sign for him.  A nice way for him to remember so many great people we have met on our mission.  Here Elder and Sister Boettcher are signing.  Sister Boettcher is the mission nurse for the GKLM!

This is the sign we hang outside of the 'Doctor's Office' in the church buildings we meet in.

Elder/Dr. Allgaier LOVES his rocks....and there are some mighty pretty ones up in the Kentucky/Tennessee areas.  The ice makes it even prettier!

Now, this was an interesting turn of events when we went to check in at our Hampton Inn in Bowling Green, Kentucky!  I had not gotten around to e-check-in for us.  We decided to take our chances and see what kind of room we would get.  Well, we got our king study BUT it was only on the 2nd floor.  We like the higher floors so we can leave the curtain open to let the natural light wake us up in the morning.  The 2nd floor just doesn't cut it for us.  They had no rooms on the higher floors.  We decided to keep driving on down to Chattanooga, TN and get a Hampton Inn room there....and we did, on the 5th floor....and a suite too!!!  By the way, Bowling Green, as you might recall, is where the Corvettes are made....hence, the Corvette in the parking lot of the hotel!

As we drove on down to Chattanooga we passed these crosses.  They were impressive in the dark.  Even though it is terribly blurry, you get the idea.  We see these crosses ALL over the south as we drive around.  These southerners have their faith and they are not afraid to show it!!

Well, we finally made it back to PTC after being gone for 2 weeks!  And the inside of our car showed we had been on the road that long.  Not a good representation here, but you can only imagine how packed the car was!!

The elders were sure glad we were home too!!!!  Bless their hearts....they are so good at collecting our mail for us when we are gone.  YES, that is Tigger in the corner by the window.  One of the 3 neighborhood cats that like to come visit us.  Tigger was inside before we could get in!

 I was able to finish one more afghan while on this trip.  This one was for Elder Parkin.  He was excited t get it.

Dad has his quarterly eye check-up on Saturday morning early.  All is well....and we like it that way.

We headed up to Rome, GA after the eye appointment.  We had a sister missionary in the hospital ER and we needed to help out with the situation.  Bless her heart.  She really needed to be admitted to get further treatment (possibly surgery) but it just didn't work out quite that way.....at least not yet.  There need to be a couple of more hoops to go through.....and hopefully!

We were able to sneak in a quick trip to the temple on our way home from the northern parts of this mission.  It will be closed now for the next 2 weeks.  Glad we could get there.

We attended a special NorthAmerica SouthEast AREA Conference today.  It was great.  AND, all of the hymns were in the Finnish hymnbook!  We like that.  We sing in Finnish every week.

 And that concludes our 2-week road trip.  We hope to be 'home' for this coming week.  We will see what that brings us.  Y'all have a GREAT week....love you all.  Love our mission!!