An Early Birthday Dinner

Tonight we had Grampa's #59 birthday dinner--a day early. As you can see from the pictures, we had a lot of fun--what else do we have around here if it's not a lot of fun?, especially when the Barretts are involved! Unfortunately, Nate couldn't come because of meetings, but the rest of us celebrated in style. The girls got Grampa all "dressed up" with his crown and sunglasses after dinner. Sarah called at 6:30 to say "Happy Birthday" and Tiffany called at 7:00, so they got to join in. For dinner we had one of Grampa's favorites: pot roast with veggies. Camden surely enjoyed her dinner and made short work of it. She loves roast and veggies, especially with chili sauce on them. It took Riley longer to get through dinner; but she made it through, eventually. Sidney enjoyed eating the carrots and then Lindy gave her some "real" baby food. Grampa and the girls played the new card game (Book of Mormon "Go Fish") that they gave him for his birthday. They could hardly wait to play it. So they played while Gramma and Mommy cleaned up. Then it was time for cake! Gramma scored a hit with the cake she got at Macy's (see picture): white cake with white frosting covered with a chocolate glaze and decorated with pink, blue and white snowflakes sprinkled with some sugar sparkles on top and pink frosting around the edge of the cake. Camden and Riley even had seconds on the cake but couldn't make it through the cherry chocolate chip ice cream because of the "scary" cherries. That was unusual. Usually they can't finish off the cake but like the ice cream. For presents, Grampa got the "Go Fish" game along with "Jesus the Christ" and "Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith" in Spanish from the Barretts, a cute picture of Grampa and Eliza fridge magnet from the Agates, a battery-less flashlight (you just have to shake it to re-charge) from Richard, and some Colgate toothpaste (Grampa's favorite) and Aqua Velva (very practical) from Tiff and Gramma. What a fun evening!

I went to R.S. at the MTC today and found the new sisters in the branch: Sisters Leach and Park. The speaker was Sis. Silvia Allred, a counselor in the R.S. General Presidency. She's from El Salvador originally and reminds me of a Spanish version of Aunt Lorraine. She told a funny story about when she was recently in Nicaragua doing some training, and an elder came up and asked her if she were Sis. so-and-so (her maiden name). She said she was, and the elder said "I recognized you! You were the missionary who taught our family when I was nine years old. When you left you gave my mother a small picture of yourself which she had enlarged and then she put it up in our living room. It has hung there for all these years, so I knew from the picture that that was you!"

After R.S. I attended the New Sisters meeting with Sisters Leach and Park, then I visited with Sis. Park while Sis. Leach attended the coordinating sisters meeting. Sis. Park said she had been kind of afraid to think about going on a mission because she thought she'd for sure go some place where it was hot and there were bugs. She can't stand heat or bugs. But then she decided that it didn't matter, she would go on her mission and go where the Lord wanted her to go. She was eventually called to the Salt Lake City mission. Kind of hot (but not humid) and not too buggy. So she's happy. After visiting with Sis. Park, I went with Steven to district meeting for Districts B and C. They're the two districts that came in at the same time several weeks ago. There were 22 elders scheduled originally, but only 19 actually came into the branch. In the room yesterday there were 12 of the original 19; two have already departed for the mission field (Elder Cummins and Elder Albers), and five have gone home over the past weeks for medical or other reasons. Five is quite a few out of two districts, so it's been an unusual time. And now it's time for Dictrict B to leave. District C will leave next week. For their departure musical number in sacrament meeting, District B sang "If You Could Hie to Kolob," which they had traslated into Spanish themselves. They sang all the verses, and it actually sounded pretty good. So goodbye to Elders Grimm, Blood, Bytheway, Smithson and McCullam. (If Elders Smithson and McCullam had stayed in the intermediate branch where they had transferred to at one time, and if Elders Blood and Bytheway had been able to leave for Spain on time, that would have left Elder Grimm all by himself in the district. So it actually ended pretty well for them to be able to finish up together.) Between district meeting and sacrament meeting, we had lunch in the cafeteria with some of the elders. Elder McCullam was loading up on the rolls before leaving. I thought maybe because he wouldn't be having good rolls for a couple of years; but, actually, he's going to Boston, so he'll still probably be able to have some good rolls in the mission field. He said he just loves rolls.