April 3, 2016

This week has been a week of COOKING!  We took a meal to the mission home on Monday night for 4 missionaries leaving the mission.  We had chicken and rice, fruit salad, rolls, vegetable and chocolate cake.  We repeated the same meal on Tuesday evening for 4 new missionaries coming to the mission.  We always go when they come and give an introductory portion of the meeting following the meal.  They always look so tired!  They get up around 3:30 a.m. at the MTC to catch the plane in Salt Lake City.  They are tired! 

Transfers!  Almost 2/3 of this 'stuff' belongs to one missionary.  He doesn't know how to cut back!

On Wednesday the President took the new missionaries to the Sacred Grove and other places and brought them to the office for lunch.  We made chicken rolls ups, salad, and ice cream sandwiches.  They liked that.  We went to the Temple after work.

We got the day off (from cooking) on Thursday and we prepared ourselves for next week.  We are having ‘Specialized Training’ 3 days next week at the Whitmer farm in Fayette.  There will be 2 zones each day and we are having a cooking event there.  I hope it goes well.  We have tried to think of everything we need to buy to have ready for the training. 

On Friday we had MLC (Mission Leadership Council) at the office from 10-4:30.  We made pork roast, cheese potatos, salad, and strawberry shortcake.  It was really good.  I bought applesauce and put it out by the meat.  One of the elders knew what to do with applesauce and pork roast.  President Francis saw him and mentioned to me that he would follow that elder’s example with the applesauce.  I asked him if he had ever had pork roast with applesauce and he said no.  I told him to try it.  He did, and he liked it.

We went to Sam’s Club after work to get some of the supplies for the training.  We got everything we think we will need for the first day.  Hope this works!  (we also have to feed everyone lunch—bonus!)

Yesterday we went into town and found a garage sale—yeah!  It had some nice things and we bought a couple of them.  It’s so much fun to get bargains.  However the best bargain we found was at the Goodwill.  I have wanted to make a recipe JoAnn Randall has for ice cream, and needed to find an ice cream freezer.  We have looked several times for one.  I went in and Elder Merrill stayed out in the car talking to one of the Elders on the phone.  When he came in he looked at me and said—no—I was able to tell him YES!  We got a freezer for $5.00

He is so happy with his new treasure!

Here is the ice-cream recipe.  Sister Randall made it for us when we went camping out to Kilgore.  We ate outside and it was really getting chilly.  She passed out bowls of ice cream and it made us colder—but we couldn’t quit eating it.  It is that good!

Lemon Custard Ice Cream (no custard involved)

1 qt. cream

3 c. sugar

1 ½ t. lemon extract

1 c. fresh lemon juice (4-5 lemons)

Milk to fill container to the 4 qt. mark.  Mix and freeze!  Delicious!

Conference was wonderful!  I hope everyone enjoyed it.  I have notes that I will post next week.  Elder Holland really knows how to wrap up things, doesn’t he?  I love his talks! 

I have been thinking a lot about repentance.  The mission slogan is now ‘Teach repentance and baptize converts’.   I have been thinking about repentance in the wrong way.  People don’t want others to tell them they are doing the wrong things and point out their faults.  That doesn’t work.  When we teach repentance we invite people to make course corrections that will turn them toward Christ.  They may have turned from Him, but in teaching them the truth about Christ and His doctrine, they turn back around and make corrections to come unto Him.  There you have repentance!  That really is a beautiful thing!

He rescues all of us!

We woke up to 2 inches of new snow today.  What a sense of humor—April Fools! 

Happy Birthday Mya, Jex, and Grandma Merrill!  We love you all so much!