If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear

I have decided to try talking about our mission experiences on our blog site. We will have computers and internet in Africa, but they are supposed to be about 20 times slower than here. So, sending group emails with pictures is pretty difficult. We will blog about general mission life stories and then send an email to family and friends letting you know we have a new blog.

We are trying to get life in order so that we can head out on Aug. 29. We will spend five days in the MTC and then be off to ???????????????????. We got travel documents for Douala, Cameroon. That seemed strange since Camroon, although in our mission, is 1,5000 miles from the city where we will live--Lubumbashi. Then we were told that we probably wouldn't go to Cameroon after all. So, it's just another question about what our life will be in the months to come.

We found out that we will spend our mission in a city that is in the far South DRC (that's what you call the Democratic Republic of the Congo when you don't have all day to write or talk). It's called Lubumbashi. It is a city of over a million and half people and one of the two or three of the fastest growing areas of the church in the world. We hear that the people are open and embracing the gospel in amazing numbers and the retention is also amazing, but they are all very new to the church. They love to talk about Christ and respect religion in general.
Lubumbashi is over 1000 miles from the mission home and also from it's temple, which is in Johannesburg. Much of the rest of the mission is in the Ghana temple district, but not Lubumbashi. However, travel to the temple is not within the reach of most of the people of our mission,even many of the young missionaries (120 of them-17 of whom are not African) have not had the opportunity of going to the temple.

Thanks to the Wassums, a missionary couple who lived in Lubumbashi, we have pictures of our new city already.

This the guest house on the property.

They called it the little cozy house.

This is the big house.

You can also see our truck in the driveway.

This is our guard/gardner, Robert and Sister

Wassum at the "barrier".

We are going to be living here for the full 18 months, although we will be doing some traveling.

Here are a few more pictures to give you a feel for the city.

A great bakery in town. They have French bread and

pasteries in Lubumbashi. It will probably be one of our

favorite places.

Nice little fruit stand in Lubumbashi. You will notice that woman do not wear pants in the Congo.

Gas station/restaurant

We are in for quite an adventure. We are packing all kinds of things that are not available in the

Congo, even a suitcase of "travel food" for when we have to travel. It's a good thing that we know the Lord wants us to be there and of that we are sure. Going to a new world is exciting and frightening too.

I just try to remember that everybody who's gone to Africa has called it the most wonderful experience of their lives. So, we are excited and eager to move forward.

And I just keep saying "if you are prepared, ye shall not fear." So, this is our time to prepare!

Can you say CRAZY!

We received a mission call today. It's a pretty long story that began right after Dad died in Jan. Brent and I felt a great urgency to look at the possibility of a mission and began to work on going. We first contacted the mission president in Geneva who we met two years ago. He had told us that when we put in mission papers, we should contact him. He said that he had a 90% chance of getting a couple to his mission if he requested them. So, we contacted him. He told us that he needed a senior couple in Lyon, France for the Institute outreach program. Quite a stretch for me to learn French, but sounded good. It looked like something just right for us. So, we sent in our papers with our request, his request and letters from our Bishop and Stake Pres. to go to Geneva. I started studying French seriously. The other thing that I forgot to tell you was that the mission Pres. told us was that "if the Lord had other plans" then we would be part of the 10% who didn't get the call to that mission.So, we should be prepared for that. Well, we weren't.

To made it short, we report to the MTC on Aug. 31 for a mission to The Democratic Republic of the Congo Kenshasa Mission (that's Africa). This mission covers 6 countries. Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Burundi,Gabon and Cameroon. We are stunned and excited and willing and we hope able and TERRIFIED. We don't have a clue why we are going there and not to Lyon as we thought, but we know there is a reason we're in the 10% and it's very reassuring.

We will go and do... whatever..... We know we are in for a great adventure and hope to be up to the challenges! But mostly,we know that the Lord is in charge!!

The Farewell Tour

It's funny how things all become important

when you are going to be leaving them.

So, you have to say farewell to many things.

Sat. night we had the farewell tour of the

GRATEFUL DADS!

We all had a great time!

Even the "Moms" showed off their dancing skills!

Eva was amazed by it all!

So, we packed the drums away and we're heading out!

Haven't had the heart to blog since Jan, but I do have to say

THE '52, OLD BLUE IS REALLY COMING HOME. YEAH!!

So, blogging is a place to vent!! Here goes.

Our dream car is our antique 1952 Chevy deluxe. It is just like the car that Brent owned when he was 18 and and sold at 19 to go on his mission. We bought our "new dream car" 16 years ago, when Brent found it parked outside his work and for sale. Seemed like a little gift that was returned to us. We loved it because it was a great car and looked just like his original and because of the memories it held for us.

Two years ago, it was stolen from the driveway in front of our house in the middle of the night.Because we didn't understand how to insure antique antique cars and never specifically told our insurance to raise the coverage, State Farm, payed us a fraction of what it was worth and required us to sign it over to them if we wanted any payout at all for the car.

Two years later (last month) through the great police work of Phoenix PD, our car was recovered. We, and the police, have positively identified it through lots of
pictures we'd taken and the vin number. Can you imagine our joy and surprise!! We were thrilled and so were the hard working police officers until we talked to State Farm Insurance.

The problem was that State Farm Insurance refuses to sell our car back to us in return for the money they had given us and any handling fees they may have incurred.
They said it was just their policy never to give cars back to people who have them stolen.

We pursued this with every level of the company and eventually found somebody who would at least talk to us and we have been talking for a month.

Now, after working for a month with State Farm, they have agreed to a "private auction" with us to get our car back. Again they raised our hopes to get our dream car back. Again we fear that they are going to dash those hopes.

This is why. They told us this week that they are planning to do an "auction" for the car first, where others bid on it, but can't really buy it. Then they will sell it back to us at the price of the highest bid, which I'm sure will be well over the payout they gave us when the car was stolen and most likely out of our reach.

Somehow this doesn't seem fair at all. We paid insurance premiums and then because we took a payout, which they forced us to do if we wanted anything for our loss. , we now are in a terrible position to have very little chance to get the car back. We can't think of anything that would cause them to be this way except that State Farm seems only concerned about getting all the money they can out of our car. Certainly they are not representing our interests or acting in good faith to us, as their clients

We feel like the thief robbed us once and State Farm is trying to rob us twice.

Our dream car story has turned into a nightmare and we don't know what we can do about it. We also don't want anybody else to have this terrible experience. I guess that the only thing we could have done to prevent this problem is not ask the insurance to pay us when the car was stolen. That didn't make much sense to us since we had paid premiums for 16 years to them. We are just caught by the insurance company in an impossible situation. Pretty lame, huh!?!?

So, we only have pictures of our dream car and the hope that somebody, somewhere will come to their senses and make this right.

Keep a good thought for us and "Old Blue"!! We're not done yet!!

Blessed indeed!

Today we celebrated our 39th anniversary. It seems like we have always been together. I have wonderful childhood memories, but I have to think twice to remember that Brent was not a part of them. We celebrated the day by being together all day-dinner, poking around in a store or two and a movie. Dating is still fun for us, but the best part was coming home and curling up in front of the fire under our big blanket, which was given to us last Christmas and represents the six wonderful families who we love most.What more could you ask for in life. Thank you to those of you who share this wonderful merry go round ride with us and especially thanks to my best friend, who is the kindest, gentlest, best man I know.I am blessed indeed!

Alzheimer's Memory Walk

Today was the annual Alzheimer's Memory Walk. Our family has been participating for several years now to honor Mom, who suffered from this terrible disease and Dad, who was her constant support and taught us much about love and devotion and many more things during Mom's illness.

We had a smaller group this year because Ryan's family lives in Utah now and the Tassainer kids weren't able to be with us. We sure missed all of you, but we still had a great experience.

Looking at our group as we congregated after the walk Brent said that Mom must probably be in Heaven someplace smiling down on this great group of people and so happy we were there together.

Only Chandler was brave enough to try the

tambourine this year, but represented us well.

Go Chandler!! Sure made us miss the Jamesons. They could have used you, Doobies!!

Isaac was trying to play escape artist and had to be in time out by the trash bin. But he sure was adorable there! Can't stay mad at somebody that cute for long.

A good time was had by all and it's a great tradition. Thanks for starting it for us, Jamesons, and thanks for setting it up this year, Em.