Apr 2-12 2008

April 2-12, 2008

Robert saw a new rheumatologist on Thursday, April 3, here in Logan. He’s at the Budge Clinic, on 1400 North, so it’s very close to our house. Nice to have a doctor so close. His name is Corey Walker. The “Corey” part is a good clue to his age…very young. But we liked him. His philosophy seems to be very similar to Dr. Walsh in Tucson. It was nice to have someone who approaches things like she did because we liked her so much. For the last month Robert has been bothered more by his arthritis than ever before. Dr. Walsh had warned him that the Paquenil he’s been taking might not be enough. Dr. Walker agreed and added a new medicine to take in addition to the Paquenil. It will take several months before he’ll know the full effect of this new medicine. We have another appointment in 1 month, and Dr. Walker said he’ll have his office get us into an Internist in the clinic because most of them won’t see new patients without a referral.

Bonitos arrived in Salt Lake on Friday to translate for Conference again. Before we left CBQ they gave us tickets for the Saturday morning session, but Robert was adjusting to the new medicine and we are both tired of driving right now, so Andi and Cade went instead. They drove to Provo Friday night and stayed with CheLyn Fullmer (Crapo), Andrea’s friend from St. Anthony, and her husband, Landon. The Saturday morning session of conference was the solemn assembly where the new church presidency was sustained, so it was a great session to get to attend. This was the first time Andi had been to general conference and she said she loved it.

Cade and Andi saw Bonitos for a few minutes at conference, then picked them up after the afternoon session on Sunday and brought them to Logan. We loved seeing them again and catching up on everything back in CBQ. However, we were very disappointed when they told us that no one even opened the church in CBQ for the members to hear Conference. We had such a great experience in October. It’s hard to believe they could just drop it and not do one thing for Conference after we left. We were more disappointed in the Stake Missionaries than in the Apaches. They should have done something to encourage the members to hear Conference.

Monday we took David and Maxine to USU and Cade and Andi showed them the library on campus. We all had lunch together then Cade and Andi went to work and we took a drive up Blacksmith Fork. It was beautiful and we saw a lot of deer. Unfortunately, there were many dead ones on the mountainsides. Robert says they probably died of starvation because it’s been such a long, snowy winter here. We had a nice steak dinner at home, cooked for us by Cade and Andi.

Tuesday David and Maxine had to go home. We left early enough to have lunch at Maddox, then dropped them off at the airport about 2:00. We really enjoyed their visit and were sad to have to say goodbye. After leaving the airport we had dinner with Joan and George Conklin. Joan cooked a lovely dinner and Brent and Tanya and their kids, Bailey, Harper, Chloe and Damon, also came. It was really fun.

Wednesday we went back to Idaho. Andi was asked to be a judge at the District 7 Rodeo Queen Contest, so of course we all had to go with her. Robert and I needed to pick up our taxes from Julie Haws, our accountant, so this provided a good opportunity to do that. We met Larry and Janelle at the new Applebee’s in Rexburg for dinner and had a great visit with them. After dinner Andrea went to judge the pageant, which was at the AmericInn, and Cade had studying to do so he took his computer into the hotel lobby to work. Robert and I thought we might go to the Temple, but it was after 6:00 and we decided to drive up to St. Anthony instead. The Internist Dr. Walker referred us to can’t see me until June 13. I didn’t have enough of my prescriptions to last that long, so we went back to good old Falls Drug and Paul filled them all for me. We came back and bought a couple of magazines and sat by the AmericInn fire reading until Andrea finished. Andrea enjoyed judging the pageant and said it was good experience for her.

Since we got home late Wednesday night we actually stayed in Logan the rest of the week. Last week we joined the Sports Academy here and Thursday we finally got to use the membership. We’ve gone over for the past 3 days and loved it. It’s a little better quality exercise than the figure eights we did in the church in CBQ for 18 months.

We are now caught up and the MISSION BLOG is officially complete. We’ve been home for a month now. It’s such a good feeling to know that our mission is finished. We grew so much during that mission. Sometimes learning new things is hard, but the Lord knows our needs and provides opportunities to teach us things we need to know. We’re grateful for His love and for the experiences we had in the mission field. Please continue to pray for the people of Cibecue. Their lives are hard. We will always love them and care about them.

Thanks to all our Blogger Fans for your love and support. We have been blessed with the best family in the world and you kept us going when the mission was difficult for us. Thanks for all your phone calls, Blog comments, cards, letters, packages, visits, and a million other things you did for us. WE LOVE YOU!