The Work Coninues

We’ve been busy. House #1 is getting gutted and getting an outside face lift as well. Yesterday and today we’ve pulled down most of the siding. We have most of the 1^st floor gutted, walls have been removed and sheet rock torn down. This is hard business for four old people. I’m the youngest one but you would never know it. Shaw’s are amazing, hard workers and then of course there’s Randall, 66 and still works like a youngster. OK, so maybe I’m the only wimp. Hopefully this is going to make me buff, or not. I’m putting in quite a few photos to show our progress so you can see our amazingness. The work continues.

House #1 when we first arrived. What a mess!

Living room looking into kitchen and bedrooms. Nothing done yet.

Master bedroom without carpet, doors, closet.

Elder Shaw being busy.

Living room without walls so you can now see into the kitchen, dinning room, bedrooms. The sheet rock has all been removed plus walls.

Master bedroom and bedroom without several walls and sheet rock removed.

Randall is starting to remove the siding.

Look ma, no siding, storm windows or awnings. See my and Sister Shaw's awsomeness, no weeds, the lawn is mowed? Look'in good!

The boys demolishing the upstairs bathroom. Soon it will be see through like the other rooms.

Ulysses it is!

Randall and I went to the ward in the city of Ulysses today. We had decided to make the Garden City Ward our home ward, but wanted to see what the Ulysses ward was like. We both came away with the same feeling; we needed to go to this ward. Randall said it wasn’t what he wanted to feel and I had to agree. 

We wanted to stay in the Garden City ward; we already knew and liked the members. But something was telling us maybe we could be useful in Ulysses. Ulysses people are again, like all the people in Kansas, very nice. It reminded me of our ward in Mackay, more like family, small, working hard to fill positions, everyone knows everyone. I came away not really knowing anyone, but feeling like I already knew and loved them (I didn’t even hide in nursery, SHOCKER). Spiritual or crazy moment?

I know Armando and the people who work at Deseret Cattle Feeders would like us to go to Garden City Ward, but I think Heavenly Father has spoken. Ulysses it is! 

This church house in Ulysses has the craziest floor plan I have ever seen. 

There are over 8 different churches in Ulysses (that I counted driving down 2 streets), two being right across the street from the Mormon church, it must be a religious place. I didn't see any bars, only 2 liquor stores.

Wow it’s been quite the week. Randall has torn out all kinds of stuff in house #1. I’ve mowed about 3 acres of grass and weeds.

 Once Elder and Sister Shaw arrived, Randall and Elder Shaw started working on putting a washer and dryer in what we call,“The Lodge”. It has been a process since they had to drill a hole through the concrete floor to tie into the sewer. Sister Shaw and I have been working on weeds up around the houses and pruning trees.

We met the new ranch manager and his family on Friday, Aug. 19. They are the Seth and Tiffany Anderson family and have 5 munchkins. They have given me the assignment of taking care of their cat which has made me very happy. They call her KeeKee. 

I keep thinking of the pioneers crossing the plains and leaving everyone and most of their possessions behind. I thought it was tough to leave family, friends, animals, home and all the things I love. At least I’m coming home in a year, they were tough people. I did bring some things to remind me of home and make me feel better about being gone.

So Begins Our Adventure

I’ve been wondering how to start this blog. First I guess I’ll say that I’m writing this for Randall and I as a journal (we’ll see how long that lasts).Second I want my posterity; kids, grandbabies, great grandbabies, son in-laws and daughter in-laws, to be able to read it in the future. Friends and relatives can read along if they like, but I’m giving forewarning, this may be hazardous to your health if you have a hard time with; misspelled words, incorrect punctuation, run on sentences or grammatical errors of any type. That being said I will start at the beginning.

We were not planning on going on a mission until later in life, if at all, so when Bishop Teichert called us into his office in May 2016, I was stumped (didn’t have a clue) of what he was going to say to us, Randall knew with his 6^th sense. Bishop said he had been feeling he needed to call us on a senior mission for several months and he finally decided to act upon it. I have to say I was really surprised. I wasn’t even a senior citizen and he was calling us on a senior mission. Randall yes, me no.

I decided if Heavenly Father was asking us to go on a mission he must really want us, so I told Heavenly Father, if you want us to go you will need to make everything work out. And he did. Maybe not the way I wanted it, but he did make it work. Our calling was an interesting one. We were called as Agricultural Church Service Missionaries for the Farmland Reserve Mission. If getting our mission papers in had gone smoothly we would have been called on a different mission and missed this mission call. This call was made for us; we will be remodeling old ranch houses, no proselyting. And best part ever, I don’t have to wear a dress every day (I still have to wear them to church and some functions), but can you believe it, no dresses! So finally, after many doctors appointments (mainly for me), picture take over’s (mainly Randall), farming out our animals to friends and family and getting the house so we could close it down, we were ready to go by August 1, 2016. Yahoo, finally!

Then my mom passed away. We were supposed to leave for Garden City, Kansas on August, 1. Mom died July 30. Randall and I went to Las Vegas to help with the arrangements. Her funeral was on August, 8. It was a blessing she passed when she did because she wanted to go so badly to be with dad, Uncle Errol her brother and her mom Alice Niven. This way we could be with family and go to our mission after everything had been taken care of. Again Heavenly Father came through.

P.S. something else happened while we were in Las Vegas; we were able to meet up with Elder Steve and Sister Julie Teichert. They were called to the Las Vegas Mission a month before we received our call. We called them up and they took us out to lunch one afternoon (surprise since this is Elder Teichert we’re talking about). They also came to Mom’s funeral. They are amazing people and are doing awesome on their mission. Elder Teichert is alright even though his spider died of heat stroke! Right now they are working on reactivating members, tough job but they are doing great.

So we are finally here, just outside Garden City, Kansas. Flat, flat, flat, and did I mention it is really flat here? However, the people are so nice and friendly it kind of makes up for it. Our kind of boss, Armando, is a great guy. He is excited for us to be here and is willing to help anyway possible.

We’ve seen the three houses they want us to work on, a lot of work to be done there (basically gutting them). We were told it would take about 4 to 6 months, but we don’t see that happening. We set up our 5^th wheel trailer at the work site after electricians worked till 9:00 PM on our arrival day to install power hookups (did I mention the people are really nice?). It is hot but the worst part is the humidity. If you are moving you are sweating. Elder and Sister Shaw (our co-conspirators) are suppose to get here Wednesday, August 17^th.

We traveled 30 miles to the Ward in Garden City to attend our first Sunday meetings. They have an average Sacrament Meeting attendance of around 175 but a lot of them leave after that. They have four full time Elder Missionaries and two Sister Missionaries assigned to this Ward. I ended up in nursery (surprise there) and Randall went to class and Priesthood meeting. He learned a lot about the basic ward culture and people (did I mention the people are really nice?) who was who that sort of thing.

We miss our family, friends, Mackay, animals and our mountains and wonderful weather. Love you.

So begins our adventure

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So begins our adventure!