Our missionaries (missionaries who have served in Lacey 2)

I was going to write a blog about who we saw, but decided to do one on our missionaries first.
Anyone who knows us well, knows that we love our missionaries! We love the ones in our ward and the ones serving. The ones in our ward we have become close to and have them over as often as rules allow. We love having them over for Christmas & Mother's Day when they can call home. We love having them over any holiday. We love having them over to teach our friends and family, too. A few months ago, they started calling me, Mama Shoop. I love this! I feel like an extra mother to them.

This is one of my most valued Mother's Day gifts from a couple of our missionaries, it was a collage of several of the missionaries on it with this note, "A mother who has many sons! We all love mama Shoop!  "There is no greater good in all the world than motherhood. The influence of a mother in the lives of her children is beyond calculation" - James E. Faust"  Isn't that awesome of them (mostly Torres did this) of course I cried, I think that is what he was aiming for..

I have so many pictures of awesome missionaries that have served in our ward, I know I haven't got all of their pictures and I'm missing a few. In my picture files, I have many folders of missionary pictures! Here are a few of my favorites.. well I can't put all of my favorites on here.. they are awesome blackmail pictures!

We have also been "groupies" going to the missionary firesides to hear them sing. Talk about AWESOME! The spirit is so strong! And then we got to see some of our missionaries that have served in our ward. We also have gone to a couple of missionary transfer meetings to hear their final testimonies before they leave.

Here is our family (and Aurora) and Elder Price, the day before he goes home.

Elders, Green, Kearney, and Waring

 Kearney and Price

 Price and Keagan.. Oh Price, you and your silly faces! 

We have sooo many of that face!

 This is one of my favorites of Price.. it always makes me smile! In fact I used this picture as his picture for him on my phone.

See that face.. again, Price and Oliphant doing yard work in our yard and at a ward service project.

 
Mormon Prom.. We had them over for dinner that night and they were there before Melissa got picked up. hahaha

Torres and Muir      and     Kearney and Cichoski

 Elder Green's companion.. and Elder Green. He was in our ward his very first transfer. I have kept in contact with his parents and whenever I see him, I take a picture for his mom. (At the Chehalis missionary fireside)

Elder Harward, me, Melissa, Elder Green, and Aurora. This was at one of the missionary firesides. Elder Harward was in our ward right before Christmas time. He gave one of his first blessings to Ray when he was sick. That was a really neat experience. Then he just happened to be serving with Green when we saw him!

 We had these 3 over for Christmas! Soo much fun! We loved how they loved their little dollar store gifts! Chicoski, Sharp, and Torres.

 They had helped in the kitchen, so they all had on aprons.

 Elders Fuller, Bell, Lovel, and Kearney.. I have several of this day.. Silly missionaries!

 Kearney and Fuller

Kearney and Lovell

 Kearney

I stole this one from someone else, this was an awesome transfer, and for some reason I don't have many pictures of these guys.

Elders Cox, Bishop, Green, and Anderson

For a long time whenever the missionaries came over, we would hurry and have dinner and then have massive Nerf wars for about 15 mins and then a lesson. They put on sunglasses to protect their eyes.

Dennison

 


Waring, Bishop, Green, and Kearney summer of '13

 Sabin, Anderson, Majors, and Smart

 Majors and Keagan

This is from our 2013 calendar.

We love our missionaries and love to keep in touch with them when they go home!!

Utah part 2, temples

Utah and the surrounding areas are so blessed to have so many temples! When we stayed with our friends, the Reddings in Meridian, we saw the Boise temple when we were leaving. We were in such a hurry to get to Logan, that we didn't get out and take pictures. If you want to know more about temples, click here. We love temples! They are beautiful and we believe that we through temple ordinances we can be forever families. We tried wherever we were to stop and see a temple if we saw it in the distance. There are so many in Utah, I know we missed a couple. These are the ones we saw.

On our trip we saw 7 temples,

Boise
Logan
Brigham City
Ogden
Bountiful
Jordan River
Salt Lake City

The Boise Temple

(I got this picture from lds.org)

The Logan temple

 

The Brigham City Temple 

It is one of the smaller temples, in fact Melissa said, isn't it cute, it looks like a polly pocket temple. It is beautiful, like all temples!

We thought it was cool that the reflection of the temple was in our car window! 

The Ogden Temple

It was recently renovated, remolded, and re dedicated. It was beautiful, too. I don't think the pictures do it justice because it was starting to get dark.

Can you believe this is what it used to look like?! They did a lot of work to it! I think it was closed for 2 years.

The Bountiful Temple

It is quite a drive up a hill/mountain to get there, it is very steep and has a beautiful view!!

(part of the view from the top, I wish it could do it justice!)

The Jordan River Temple

(The gates were closed, so I could only get one angle of it, through the gates)

AND

The Salt Lake Temple

We were blessed to have beautiful sunny weather, too!

Utah part 1

Our trip was too quick and lots of driving. It was awesome! It was one of the best and most emotional weekends of my life! We were lucky to have Aurora, our niece come with us. I'm so glad she was able to come! Our main points of the trip were to, drop Melissa off (sigh), go to conference (that was decided before she even picked then to leave), take Aurora with us to see Utah and the sights, and to see our returned missionaries.

We were barely on the road when we saw this cool car!

Our first stop of many, the rest area in Eastern WA, near Yakima.




Aurora was so excited to see Utah and get her picture with the sign.




Melissa getting ready for her new adventure!

This is one of my favorite reasons to go to Utah, to see this boy.. I know he tells me he is a man, but he is like a son to me, so therefore, he can't be a man, right?! Our returned missionary, J.C. Price. We practiced saying his "real" name the week before. haha I loved our texts the week before, one week until we come, I'm so excited, etc, and then on the day of , Have you guys left yet? It was a little weird at first seeing him in his "street clothes" and being able to give him a hug, but that didn't last long! He lives close to the Logan temple, so he took us to go see it. We got to see him Friday afternoon for a couple of hours and then all day Saturday and Sunday! So Fun!!