Mother's Day and Adam and Lisa come to visit!

This week we were anxiously awaiting the arrival of Adam and Lisa, Jade, Brigham, Lily, and Lincoln.  We hadn't seen Lincoln since the day after he was born, so we were pretty excited!  This was also the week before transfers, which, along with the week after transfers, is our busiest weeks, so we had a lot to do so that we could enjoy Adam and Lisa's visit without having to get our transfer work done. We learned that we would be getting eight (!!!!!) visa waiters along with our regular transfer on about Wednesday, so I had SO MUCH extra work to get done to get ready for them!  Ahhh!   We stayed later at the office to get things done each night, and it paid off, because we were able to get them done at about the exact moment that they drove in to the office!!!  

We had Mother's Day dinner at the Chapman's, and as usual, it was a beautiful dinner.  Elder West and Elder Manning were there, along with Zina and the Chapmans, so it was a smaller group than usual, but much cozier.  I loved hearing about Elders West and Manning's skype visit with their families.  

Elder West handed me this note at church--can you believe it?  He is such an awesome missionary.  It was SO sweet! Two sister missionaries also sent me notes in the mail which were so sweet.  They meant a lot!  

When we came home I was able to talk to all of our kids, which I was very grateful for.  The feelings that come on Mother's Day are so interesting and cause such reflection.  But our children sent such sweet things to me, and I appreciated so much their thoughtfulness.  And I really loved that the grandkids sent such darling cards--thank you so much for them!!!!! They meant so much!  I just adore children's artwork.

On Monday night we had Senior FHE at the Blacks.  We had a wonderful dinner and then Glen and I taught the lesson on trusting in the Lord, using the story of Hezekiah and the Assyrian army.  We also welcomed a new senior sister to the mission--Sis. Houseman, pictured above, 2nd from the left.  She is a sweetie pie and will be a wonderful addition.

We have ten departing missionaries on this transfer, and here are eight of them who were meeting at the office to go on their departing temple trip to the Las Vegas temple.  This is such a valiant group of missionaries to leave--eight of them were zone leaders and two of them were assistants!  We will miss them so much!

On Friday afternoon, Adam and Lisa and the kids came!!!  They camped at Zion's on Wed. and Thurs. night and then drove straight to the mission office--it was SO awesome to see them!  We had an office full of missionaries and Pres. and Sis. Black were there, so it was pretty crazy for a while, but oh, so good to see them.

We weren't able to give them the full mission office tour until Saturday because of all that was going on, but we wanted them to see everything that we had been experiencing for the past 10 months--the transfer board, the pod, DI, etc.

We took the grandkids to the Mini-Grand Prix here in Las Vegas and right off they wanted to drive these little cars.  Since Lily was tall enough, she wanted to drive one, and we thought we would die laughing--Jade and Brigham immediately started driving their cars around the course perfectly and Lily straightaway drove hers into the center tires and was stuck.  An employee had to get on the car with her and do the steering.

And afterward they awarded all three of them their official drivers' licenses!  

Then we went to the bigger cars where the adults do the driving.  Here are Glen and Brigham, Lisa and Lily, and Jade and I.  

Then we rode on the big slides with gunny sacks---many many times.

And then pizza and arcade games!  It really was a blast.

Then we went to the Silverton Hotel where they have a live mermaid in a big aquarium.  The kids were able to put their hands on the glass while the mermaid "touched" their hands from the inside of the glass.  It was darling!

We capped the day off with swimming at the pool.  So much fun!

This morning we went to hear Elder Lee speak, which was perfect because the ward met at 9:00 and it was right on the way back to Layton for Adam and Lisa.  (Our ward meets at 1:00.)  While in sacrament meeting, Lily put on my extra nametag and proclaimed, "I'm a missionary!"  It was so cute! 

Thank you Adam and Lisa, Jade, Brigham, Lily and Lincoln for driving all the way here to visit!  It made our week--month--year (!) to be able to see you!  We miss you so much!