Smith's Situation

We left our family in Pennsylvania and flew into Salt Lake City on October 27th, arriving at 10:18 in the morning.
Thousands of mixed emotions!!!!! We have the best of several worlds! People we love in Grenada and family and friends we love at home. How lucky are we?!!!!

The big WELCOME HOME party that began at the airport in Salt Lake City

Rasta Jed!

Our grandchildren showing off the necklaces that Ryan made in Grenada out of native seeds, shells and coconuts

Papa with Johnny

Russ with his broken arm. At least it's easy to do a "thumb's up"

John and Jared

Julia and Nyla

Easton and Samantha

Hayley and Harper

Rhett

Parker, Wyatt and Rhett

Jackson and Russell

Micah

Papa with Harper

Jane and David came to visit!

Hayley played us a tune or two

Adam's selfie

Wyatt, Easton, Spud the dog, Parker, Russ

Plus, we got to celebrate Jed's birthday! Happy birthday!!!!

Then the fun begins!!! Unpacking our belongings......

........and hauling.......(with all of our Rassmussen buddies).....

....and doing a little bit of what we LOVE in between the packing and hauling

This is where we are living, Neola the beautiful!

Kent was driven around by 7 year old Sai. He's a pretty good little driver!

Love this guy! It's so good to be with dad again! His generosity and love are overwhelming!

I have a family here on earth.

They are so good to me.

I want to share my life with them through all eternity.

Families can be together forever

Through Heavenly Father's plan.

I always want to be with my own family,

And the Lord has shown me how I can.

FAMILY IS EVERYTHING!

AND SO ANOTHER WEEK COMES TO A CLOSE.

Time is moving so quickly, we need to slow down for a moment and enjoy the ride!

Our time in the WEST INDIES MISSION has come to a close. We have consecrated our time and talents to the Lord and His missionary efforts for the past 18 months and we have been strengthened and carried by the enabling power of the Atonement as we have served. We now look forward to being home with friends and family. Our service has brought great blessings to us and to our loved ones. We thank all for your support and prayers during our time away. We will always hold our mission memories close to our heart....especially the young missionaries with which we served. You are the greatest force the Lord has ever sent. We love you all and we love the Lord and His great work.

We are now in Pennsylvania with our son Nathan and his wonderful family. We will leave Monday morning for Utah and our family there!

Our last District Meeting together before transfers.
Us, Elders Pierson, Leany and Bingham, Sisters Smith and Lamb, Elders Naylor, Dearing, Roger and Ramdhanie

Elder Ramdhanie finished his mission on Wednesday and flew home to Trinidad. Elder Dearing was transferred to Guyana

Matthew came over to the Elder's apartment bright and early to say goodbye to his friends!

Elder Ramdhanie with the violin that we gave him

Elder Dearing with his blankie that he almost left behind!

Saying goodbye at the airport

And they are off!!!

Wednesday we picked up 2 new missionaries.....another Elder Smith. Wish we could have served with him!

We also picked up a brand new missionary straight from the Provo MTC, Elder Padilla (at the end of the table next to Elder Smith)

So, for one whole day we had 4 Smiths on the island again. Fun!!!

Wednesday evening we went to our last cottage meeting on "the roof." We are going to miss this place! We roasted hotdogs after a wonderful lesson prepared by Ryan. There were 19 people attending!!!!

Sabrina Deokaran

Sabrina with Sisters Smith and Lamb

Our new Zone Leaders, Elders Smith and Leany

Saying goodbye to our dear friends, Ricky, Akim, Matthew, Roger, us, Jemin, Ryan

After 3 hours of sleep, we locked up our apartment for the last time and said goodbye.

Sure do love these terrific Elders and Sisters!

We boarded our plane for Miami, ON TIME, and taxied down the runway. Just as we were about to take off, we hit a flock of birds and had to turn around and park the plane.

A few hours later, a mechanie arrived from Trinidad via a Liat plane.

10 hours later, we took off and said goodbye to the beautiful island of Grenada. We saw our house from the air. It's the house in the bottom left hand corner, red roof with a pool behind it.

We watched the sunset from the airplane and made it to Nathan and Nicole's house in Pennsylvania at 3:00 a.m. We had been awake for nearly 24 hours, but we were excited to see family!

Beautiful Pennsylvania that day after we woke up.

Kent immediately hopped on the lawn mower with Carter and mowed his little heart out!

Carter was his big helper.

Cami with the newest addition to the family.......a cat named Batman!

The game master, Catherine.

Carson is now a Senior in High School. You know how old that makes us!!!!

We carved pumpkins

Carson is a genius artist

Carson's pumpkin. Awesome!

Chillaxing in the hammock

Nathan and Nicole fixing the roof at their rental property

Carter being a wild man!

Our son, Nathan, is working on the George Washington Monument in the Mount Vernon area of Baltimore.

This is the 1st monument dedicated to George Washington from a state. It was dedicated in 1815 and had the same architect, Robert Mills, as the Washington Monument in Washington DC. Nathan's company has been doing a preservation project on the monument since January 1st and will be finished in May.