NMFM Week 44: January 13 – January 19, 2013

Dear Family, I hope that by now most of you have received the January edition of "Linda's Lovenotes" that I sent out last week.  Maria reported to me that the polishing stones (from Grandpa Roundy) I took to Payson the week of June 30 are still in safe keeping at their house to be distributed among grandkids when we complete our mission.  Many of you will have the day off tomorrow to observe Civil Rights Day and we will be thinking of you as we busily prepare for our big road trip that we plan to begin on Tuesday.  We will tour a good portion of the mission delivering items needed for our next transfer when we will have an influx of LOTS more missionaries coming to our mission.  We will have 6 going home and 30 coming in!  We will see how long it takes us to complete our errand -- it always takes longer than planned because it is so much fun to stay a little longer and visit with those we go to see.  I think the plan includes sleeping in our own bed on Hunt Road Tuesday night. .  We send our love, Elder and Sister Hunt

Sunday:   Kirtland 5^th Ward was our meeting of choice when we left our apt.at 10:30, but as we walked into the stake building as sacrament meeting was about to start, we realized that it was 4^th Ward – they had not traded meeting times at the beginning of the year.  We enjoyed their sacrament meeting, then drove to attend sacrament meeting in 3^rd Ward.  Mitchell was the only Payne there as the others were home sick – we were disappointed we didn’t get to see all of them.  The Yazzie family was there and Brother Yazzie was to be given the Aaronic Priesthood that day.  We came home and rested before meeting Jared at the church for organ practice.  I even practiced the hymns I will be playing for our Jan 30 Sr. Zone Conference.  We missed George and Joanne’s Sunday dinner and visit, but we are happy they could have some R&R in such a nice, warm place.

 

Monday:  The highlight of our day was our visit with Dr. Aurelio.  He got all of his charts up on the computer and compared the 3 PET scans that I’ve had done in Farmington and then said, “Linda, your recent PET scan is negative and shows no ‘uptake’.  It looks like it is time for a ‘chemo holiday’ for you!”  I will see him one more time before we leave the mission.  I felt like dancing right out of that office – but instead hobbled out holding onto Dennis’ arm (due to my recent slip on the ice).  After we left the mission office at 5:30 we went to IHOP with Maren to celebrate our good news and I indulged in their strawberry/banana crepe again -- it was even better the second time.

 

Tuesday:  It was Zone Training day for the Farmington/Bloomfield  Zones so we got to visit with missionaries that live farther out that we don’t see quite so often.  It was a good day to pass out treats – new GPS, new cell phone booster, etc.  Several baptism forms came in with the elders, so it was a good day for me.

 

Wednesday:  My leg and foot were a dark blue and I had a bad throbbing on my shin bone where the skin had been broken.   By afternoon I decided I better go get it checked out, and since my favorite Dr. was in Hawaii, I saw his PA.  PA Mark thought we should have some pictures done to make sure there wasn’t a fracture, which was my main concern.   And there was no visible fracture, so I knew I just needed to “buck up” and get on with recovery.  Ouch!

 

Thursday:  Several baptisms came in that I needed to enter and I also worked on referrals.  After we left the office we drove straight to Flora Vista to talk to the owners of the little “loft” apartment that we had been made aware of.  The owners are Catholic, but seemed pleased with the prospects of renting to Mormon missionaries (boy, we hope they don’t let them down!)  We now have a signed lease agreement and elders will be moving in soon (right now the Flora Vista elders are living with the APs).

 

Friday:  We spent part of the day planning a trip to deliver beds, etc. for our next transfer day.  We will be having missionaries at locations where they haven’t been before:  Many Farms (2^nd companionship),  Zuni, Ft. Wingate, Joseph City (sisters), Bluesalt, Ganado (2^nd companionship),  Sanders (2^nd companionship), Sheep Springs, Flora Vista.  Elder Hunt helped me update my referral spreadsheet that I use for follow-up calls and texts.  He wasn’t feeling well so we came home in the early afternoon to regroup.  I invited Maren to come have stir-fry with me so I wouldn’t have to enjoy it alone as Elder Hunt was “off his feed” – it DID taste better because Maren was here!

 

Saturday:  It was another shopping day for us!  We went shopping for household items to set up three new apartments:  Flora Vista, Zuni, and Ft. Wingate.  We also went to the Mattress Outlet to see if all of our 30 beds are in now that we ordered -- they are in storage waiting for us to pick them up.  We will be picking up 12 of them on Monday to deliver to some of the areas mentioned above.  I also did a little sewing and it was fun to have my Bernina out on the table again.