Home Again

Well, after a grand farewell and a wonderful home coming, we have settled back into the routine of things. We are so grateful for our marvelous experience of serving the Lord in Mexico City. Our testimonies have been strengthened and we have gained a great appreciation for missionary work, both for us old folks and for the young. There is no comparison between immersing yourself full time in the Lord's work and dealing with day to day problems in real life. We learned so much along the way from the other missionaries and from the sweet members and investigators. Our lives have been richly blessed. As we now celebrate the birth of our Savior with our family and friends we see the light shining a little brighter because of our experience.

Our farewells:

Farewell Dinner with our neighbors, the Gamez's

Farewell breakfast with President Bulloch and the senior missionaries

President and Sister Bulloch

Farewell dinner with other senior couples


Farewell breakfast with the missionaries at the Visitors Center


Our directors, the Garvins

Our colleagues, the Stewarts

And the sister missionaries at the Center


Gifts too!!

Almost ready to go:

Packing for the flight home

Waiting for the office elders and the van to take us to the airport


What great guys. They packed us up, took us to the airport and helped with the luggage

Last picture with all our Zarahemla friends and then goodbye

And our homecomings:

Cute girls with great welcome home signs

Heather and Ella get hugs from Grandpa and Grandma

Grandma gets to meet Miley and Christian approves


Grandpa, Grandma and the DelHoyo kids


Monique drove through horrible traffic to get there and bring Ember,
Sadie, Braxton and darling Jada


Ember and Sadie


All back to our hotel for pizza and lots of hugs


The beautiful reason for our stop in California, our Hadley Brynn's baptism

After the baptism with Jordan, Mo and Braxton

and a couple of pretty cute princesses Sadie and Ella


Our beautiful family at Heather's ward


and just look what happened while we were gone

A quick visit to Pat's house:

Grandpa getting to know his cute little ones

Then on to our home in Salt Lake to celebrate Thanksgiving with Julia, Sean, Pat and families and uncle Roy. Good times!!

Larry, Monique, Braxton, Pat, Jada, Roy, Julia, Vivian and Sean

Cute grandkids, Branden, Emily, Sage, Ryan, Sadie, and Brock

I guess the dinner was a hit!

and time to get to know my little Jada

A birthday for two special granddaughters:

A quick trip to Hurricane (The Ranch):

Randy and Janet for a 100th birthday bash for our great Uncle Homer

And Christmas:

With the Jones' cousins (DeAnn, TJ, Randy, Janine, Kris,

Janice, KC, Sandy, Janet) at Ken's

At the Jones':

3 of our 4 girls

Shannon and Kenya


Kathy

Julia

Mike and Kate

Camille and Elliot

Micah and Janet in the kitchen


Randy, the host

Christmas Eve:

Tony is waiting for Santa

and so were we


with music


and stories


and food


A visit from Uncle Roy


and new pj's

and Christmas Day:

opening gifts

and then family and food, that is what makes Christmas special:

and Grandpa making great use of our wonderful new mixer, a gift from our children:

and the result is:

ah, delicious!

It was so fun sharing our Christmas with the Raphaels and Duffins:

That completes our story of a wonderful mission ending with reuniting with all of our loved ones. We are so blessed with the gospel in our lives and with such a wonderful family to share it with. Through these experiences our testimonies have grown and our capacity to love has grown. We are now looking forward to our next great adventure in serving the Lord.