We went up to Green River for Grandpa Eloyd's birthday.  It was wonderful visiting with family and while Grandpa felt terrible, he ate some chocolate birthday cake and laughed and appreciated all his comfy birthday clothes he received as gifts.   Vinny and Rilee ran KA and conquered it.  Can you tell it was windy on top? Vinny may look like a pro basketball player, but he is still under 6 feet.  Grandma Barbara is just TINY!

We celebrated Eloyd's birthday a day early since we were fasting on Sunday, his actual birthday.  The poor guy wasn't able to enjoy his birthday dinner and party very much, he was just feeling crummy.  But all his sons were there to show their love and support.  We pushed off the special fast until the 29th so we had time to tell Josh and allow him the chance to fast with us as a family.  What a trooper, the sick birthday guy even posed for pictures. Cousin KA run to the top with a LOT more wind than this city slicker, Vinner, is used to... Vincent really is 5'10" even though he looks like a pro basketball player next to his tiny 94 year old Great-Grandma Barbara!  

We were so happy to share in Eric's special temple day at the Oquirrh Mountain Temple.

Josh's letter from week 4! Wednesday - We played sports for awhile today,and then we got to help our new missionaries in our room bring their stuff up. There names are Elder McNeil and Elder Blair. They are both from Utah and they are pretty cool and chill. We got to keep our same teachers, thankfully. We then had to teach our investigator then we just chilled the rest of the night, talking with the new guys. They didn't even get their haircut today and it makes us all mad. There is now 6 of us in our room. Thursday - We went through our usual schedule. We got a new room for our classroom and it has a A/C unit. We turned it way up so that we could wear our sweaters and it was really fun haha. We then had a pop up teaching lesson with 4 students from an English speaking class and we had to go in and teach them and get to know them. It was really cool cause we could actually talk to them. Then we just learned new things in Spanish. Friday -- We played sports and t...

This week at home was a sporty one - soccer and XC for Vinny.  He was able to be a ball boy at the REAL Salt Lake Game with his soccer club.  This was a televised game and we had fun spotting him a couple of times.  They had some rain and delay time, but he had a blast. We drove to Utah County two days in a row.  The first was for a scrimmage that made everyone a little irritated - driving an hour and a half in rush hour traffic only to realize the scrimmage was with a girl's team.  Nothing against girls (I am one - girl power) but it wasn't worth the drive. I drove Vinny and his friends down to Orem for his friend, Haley's tournament game.  Another blowout, but it was fun to support her and we had a fun road trip and finished it off with Swig drinks and cookies for Vin's friends who'd never been there. Vinny's new headset and mic after Octavia chewed the other one that was left on the couch overnight.  Naughty dog!

*Josh confirmed that this is the fruit he loves from Guatemala, they call them "white grapes."  He said the pineapple is great, too.  *He only had a fever of about 99-100 and his companion, Elder Money, was taking great care of him.  Josh said he had a dream that his mom was taking care of him.  I'm glad he got a little love from mom in his fever dreams! * Josh asked for the Alphasmart3000 in his upcoming package. We researched it and it's an old school word processor he can type out his letters on during the week, then connect to the computer with a USB and just download the file so he can maximize his hour each week to write home.  It sounds super funny and we're calling it Josh's Nimbus 2000 (like the fancy schmancy broomstick for Quidditch in Harry Potter).   *Word on the street is that each companionship will have a flip phone in the field.  No smart phone or iPad in the future. *On his package wish list, he request...

Josh's Week 3 letter (7/12/2018 - 7/17/2018) Thursday- Today we woke up and played sports and it was really fun cause we played with the Latinos and it was super fun. Then we had language study and personal study. Later we taught Tyler tonight and it went pretty well. We gave him stuff to read. Later we told stories of what we did back home with our district and it was really fun. Today went well and I feel like I'm learning a lot more. Friday - We did the normal schedule today and then were taught different grammar lessons which was cool. We then had a workshop on the gift of tongues and it was really good to hear. It was a good overall day. Saturday - Last night was hard, because I got a sore throat and kept waking up in the middle of the night. But we had personal study and stuff. Today has kind of been hard I've had a fever and just  have felt weak all day. We did this thing called TRC and got to teach people from the outside, like off t...

Vinny got his learner's permit today!  He opted out of driving straight home and, believe me, I tried... Debut drive to Jordan Landing was a success.  This dude is already pretty decent at driving!

As you can see from the last couple of emails, Josh is a little vague, so I needed more details.  Here are a few of the questions and answers.  He feels that he is growing spiritually and learning the language. 1. Do you have classes with or see the sister missionaries ever?  Y es, I have three sisters in my district and there are lots here at the MTC. But we can't really do things with them. There's this one really cute girl, we call "Satanas" cause she always tries to flirt with us.  But we just say it to each other, not to her. 2. Did you ever meet Kaitlyn, the girl who was entering the MTC the same day that you were going to look for @ the airport?  Y es, but we don't really talk because she is in another district . 3.  I’ve been worrying about you, having nightmares since you said you were stressed multiple times in different ways in your last email. I dream I go down to Guatemala to make sure you’re okay.  Are you really okay? Are y...

Josh's email from his 2nd week: Wednesday- P days are so nice we get to go to the temple in the morning, but it is closed for two weeks, so that kind of blows. But we get to chill, play sports, clean our rooms, write to everyone and there is a store you can buy things from. I have gotten a couple of ties from there. Thursday -  We played sports in the morning then we just have personal study and planning time. Then we have language study and we had to practice teaching. We then had our last lesson with Fernando and it went okay haha.  Friday - We have sports and the rest of the normal schedule. Today they told us we would be having a investigator in the morning and at night. So that is a challenge to plan two lessons a day. I like it though, really fun. The investigators are our teachers but they act like the people and they are serious actors haha, In the mornings we teach Nick and the evenings, we teach Tyler. Saturday - We got up an...

Miraculously enough, we had service on our July 4th hike up near Snowbird and I saw my mom's text that she got Josh's first email.  Amber and I were behind all the guys and stopped at a big rock with a great view and I was able to email back and forth with Josh for about 15 minutes. A few extra's to add to his week 1: *He's getting plenty of food, says that the missionaries tend to lose weight when they get out in the field, so they're feeding them well. *His teacher is awesome and is trying to hook Josh and Elder Money up with inexpensive suits with a Guatemala flag on the lining.  (on DL, wink wink) *He needs us to send him a filtered water bottle and twin sized sheets for the field. *He can't send pictures while in the MTC, I'm not sure if this means he can take them or not. *He's memorized the baptismal invitation, missionary objective, first vision, and Moroni scripture all in Spanish.  They speak Spanish all of the time and he can...

Josh's 1st Week Email Wednesday:  A lot of missionaries were on my flight.  The flight was pretty amazing, the sunset was awesome.  When we arrived in Guatemala, we had to take a bus to the MTC and the traffic here is crazy.  It makes Utah look like nothing!  Guatemala is beautiful and so colorful.  We arrived in the morning, we did not get to sleep that much.  We had interviews, room checks, and identification checks.  Before we got our picture taken, they grabbed some of us and went to a room.  We went in and basically had to get a buzz cut.  I'm still kind of mad about that as well as others, but oh well.  We then had lessons for Spanish all day and a workshop at the end on rules.  I learned as much Spanish in a couple hours then I did in 6 months at school.  Food here is really good, lots of variety and fruit with every meal.  I got my companion who is Elder Money. Thursday:  We finally got to sleep ...