August Fun with the Family

. One of the special things about this mission call was the fun that we have had with our kids and family in the first month

The Dunfords held their annual family reunion party at a park in Sandy.  Bryan and his family came, plus Rob was able to be with his siblings and their spouses.

We enjoyed the soda machine that Rob's nephew Tom ran.  We are wearing the t-shirts from the first Robert Dunford family reunion...

Everyone just hanging out in the family room

sThe second week we were here, Bert and Chris hosted our kids for Sunday dinner with their children JD and Bryan, their spouses Monica and Natalie, and their grandchildren.  It was the first time that these seconds cousins had ever met, and they got along so well together..

Catherine with Jane, Kate, Duncan, and Jasmine

Even more fun

In fact, Catherine has ended up doing babysitting for JD's kids a number of times. She and her cousin Kate (also a Katherine) really bonded.

Duncan blowing out his birthday pie!

Duncan and Clay - great friends plus cousins

Duncan had not been able to have his favorite birthday pie earlier in the summer, So Heather invited Bryan's family and us down to celebrate.  It was nice to be able to celebrate with him, even if it was a little late. 

Our First Weeks

When we arrived in Salt Lake City, we settled into Jill's brother and sister-in-law's home, Bert and Chris Wonnacott, where we are staying in a basement "apartment."  They are so great to have us, and we have been having a lot of fun with them.  This home belonged to Jill's parents when they were alive, so it was nice to be back in the family homestead.

Monday, August 8th, we left bright and early for a 7:30 Devotional and the beginning of two weeks intensive training in Family History, even though that is not what we will be doing on our mission.

Our mission president and his wife, Warren and Suzanne Tate, are actually old friends - he and Rob went to MBA school together and he and Suzanne were in the musical Finian's Rainbow in high school.  They are great people and do an amazing job managing this large group of missionaries.

Our first Monday morning mission devotional where we were

introduced with other new missionaries.

We were assigned to a group of 18 other senior missionaries, 4 sisters and 8 couples in all, from Arizona, Utah, California, Oklahoma, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.  We have joined the largest mission in the Church, around 1200 full and service missionaries, including about 100 young Elders who have disabilities that would make it difficult for them to serve in another mission.

For the first two weeks, we received instruction on Family History in the training zone and learned so many things that we hadn't known about FH research that we hadn't known before.  Even though we were not assigned to the FH Library, they want everyone to know about how to do it because we are to spend four hours each week doing research or going to the temple.  We each had a great trainer.

And here we are in our new, but temporary, office.