Now tell me, how many times do you wake up to a herd of elk in your front yard?
This morning at sunrise we woke up to an amazing sight of about 70 visitors on our lawn. Would you believe elk? When we first saw them some were sitting down just lounging around. Our only question is how long had they been there? Oh the beauties of living in the country!
Post mission is lots of fun with grandkids! We have so far been able to have almost each family to ourselves while Mom and Dad get some alone time. We have only Trevor and Gretchen to visit after Christmas and we will have made the rounds. It has been more than wonderful to connect with family again. What could be better?
We drove to Arizona and visited family. Then we drove to Texas for Thanksgiving. We even made it over to our old stomping grounds Port Neches. It was fun to stroll down memory lane and see more family and friends.
I'm not sure whether they all like us or the four wheelers?????????
What do you do when you get home from your mission?
You play with your grandkids while their parents are away.
We ALL had an unforgettable time. How wonderful to be home again!
The girls worked and played
The boys played
The grandkids worked
The boys worked
WOW!!!! All of our sweet grandchildren greeted us at the airport! All of our children dressed them in true "all red style". We were overcome with joy!
Area advisers for the Caribbean now - the Castros will continue with family history 
Before we left our mission we shed a few tears. We will miss the saints and those we have grown to love. A few had a surprise party for us and told us how much they appreciated our dedication.
Is it True?!?!?!?!? We are about to finish our mission. The other senior missionaries have already had a little going away get together for us and then the leaders and directors that we work with in family history had a surprise party for us too. It finally hit us and we cried to have to say goodbye to friends we have made that we may never see again. This is a bitter sweet time. Many of the compliments we received was that there has definitely been an increase in family history, we have patiently taught them how to do family history and they were grateful for our example of dedication and our love for family history. We also had our interview with President Johnson and he thanked us for all we have accomplished. We have loved our mission and it is a bitter sweet time with lots of mixed emotions. We hate to see it come to an end but the best is yet to come and that is to reunite with our dear family and friends. We long to hug those grandkids once again.
We have spent the last week training a new couple missionary to take our place. When we explained all of our job description and what they had to do it sounded a bit overwhelming even to us. But the Lord has called them and knows they are capable for the task and will bless them as he did us. They are wonderful people and we are so excited to have someone carry on the work with the members. The garden of family history is fragile and needs lots of care to continue to grow and bring forth fruit. Many ancestors are waiting patiently to be a part of an eternal family with God. Our prayer and a piece of our heart will always be with the members in the Caribbean that we love so. They have been an example of faithfulness. The gospel is only about 30 years old and they are the pioneers of this area. They carry large loads with their callings because they are few in number. Many of their ancestors have been ripped away from family and homeland. They have a history of slavery and abuse. They have not had the wonderful blessing of family and many do not know their fathers. My heart aches for what they have suffered in this wicked, selfish world. But the members embrace the gospel message of truth and the plan of happiness. They are grateful for the restoration of the gospel and the scriptures. They know God and Jesus Christ love them. They are wonderful people that will always be an example to us. We love them so.
Serving a mission in the beautiful Caribbean Islands has been beyond description. We have been blessed to serve right near the shadows of the temple. We have many examples of faithful senior missionaries that we have made friends with. It has been a privilege to serve under the direction of the area president Elder Johnson who is also a cousin. He and Clyde have a loving bond of family and friendship. We will always hold a special place in our mind of the beautiful waters of the many islands. We have indeed experienced the best.
We have learned to love each other and appreciate our eternal union. We have learned to appreciate more the promptings of the Spirit. We have gained a greater appreciation of the Savior's great atoning sacrifice. We marvel at the power of sealing blessings to families that the Lord has offered His children. We love the examples of the great prophets in the scriptures and our modern day prophets and leaders. They devote their whole lives to the cause of the Lord and His members. May we ever be mindful of the Lord's out pouring of blessings upon our head. He loves us and answers our prayers of supplication to Him. We testify that our Father in Heaven and His Son live. The Book of Mormon is the word of God and the gospel was restored by the Prophet Joseph Smith. We love the time that we have been privileged to be about our Father's business. We honor Him and will continue to serve Him.
Wow! Barbados was a gorgeous place to end our island tours. As I looked over the beautiful waters I got so sentimental to think that all of this is coming to a close. Our mission has been such a blessing and we will really miss it. Each place we visit we fall in love with the people and their culture. These wonderful people had everything ready for us. They had a new built in table for the computer. And YES the computer was there!!!! We did have a little trouble with the internet but after Elder Allred gave his magic touch (he has become the computer pro now) it worked. It always amazes me how much time it takes to solve computer problems. This one was an all day one. Another wonderful thing was they had all their consultants and director called and we had a great training. I could help with the teaching because they all speak English. Hurray! We finished in record time and had a day extra to see the beautiful sites. What a wonderful time we had. Another place in my heart was touched by the faithful few saints. I admire the island members. They are few in numbers but have strong convictions of the truth. They are the true pioneers of the Caribbean. We have truly grown to love them all. We pray the Lord will continue to bless them in our absence and their love for family history will grow and flourish. We pray that their families will be united forever.
Suriname is a small country in South America. They speak Dutch but thank goodness a few understand English. We went to set up their first family history center. Unfortunately the computer was on back order and arrived the day of our departure. We used our laptops instead and purchased a desk and chairs for when the computer arrived. There was also another disappointment that the Internet was not installed yet. We still carried on with our training in the hotel where we had Internet. President Johnson called a new West Indies family history adviser and we were able to meet with him and his wife to teach them. The best part of the whole trip was the food his wife fixed for the missionary zone conference that was going on the same time we were there. It was a delicious buffet of Oriental and Indian food. Many of the members there are from Oriental background but they speak Dutch. I kept expecting them to speak Chinese or Japanese. Their ancestors came to work as servants for rich landlords. It is sad to see how families were ripped apart and sold from their homeland just for the comfort and ease of the wealthy. Also they have different cultures and religions such as Buddhist, Muslim and Christianity. The church is very new there and they were so anxious to hear about family history. It was wonderful to feel their spirit because we could not understand Dutch. We enjoyed our stay and their open arms for our visit.
We took our last trip to Puerto Rico. We checked all the equipment, upgraded the computer memory and trained directors. We visited all of our family history centers which had us sleeping in a different bed each night. It was back to work and plenty of it! Each day was full and we would drop into bed late at night. We did get a chance to kiss Susan and Stan good bye. It is always so fun to see them and we talk non stop about all our common work. They are wonderful mission presidents and a fine example of dedication. They begged us to come back to their mission. Now we have lots of offers to come back as President Johnson wants us to come back to the Caribbean. Our family history trainers want us to come to South America. We are grateful we have had the privilege of serving. When we got back to our temple home, we found out one of the couples had to go home. The wife had an emergency and they had to rush her to the states. The husband just cried because he loves the work here and hated to leave the people. It will be a bitter sweet time when we have to leave too. We have learned so much and are so grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Savior's love for all of us.
Just about when we could stand it no longer, we got to go to St. Kitts to set up a new family history center there. We were so homesick for those grandkids hugs. We had a great time with Adrian and Beth and the kids! Who would have ever thought that our mission and their home would all be wrapped up in one. St. Kitts is the favorite place of our mission because our family is there plus it is the most beautiful island. We set up a new center there, but the computer never came ( it is on the slow boat to China ). We taught the members the importance of family history using 12 lap tops to help 25 members to sign up on new family search. Adrian is the family history priesthood leader in his branch so that was fun working side by side with him. We taught and sang about family history. We love sharing the plan of happiness with the members. They get so excited to know they can be sealed as eternal families. Adrian helped a sister send her father's name to the temple. She was so grateful. We love serving and it always brings such blessings. Beth and I had a fun day furniture shopping even if it was only computer table and chairs for the new family history center.
Of course we spent a couple of extra days enjoying the beach and the beautiful island! Brennan and Payton still think they are the luckiest kids in the world to have their own private pool and ocean to swim in every minute of the day.
Thanks Adrian and Beth. We love you.
We love the children here. They are so cute with their braids and smiles. We love our grandchildren and are so anxious to be with them again. Hopefully they have quite a collection of pennies as we near the end of our mission. Family is so important and the Lord has blessed us to be an eternal family. We love each child that brightens our day!
I love serving in the temple. When we have a little slack time I go to the laundry and fold clothes. There is such order in the house of the Lord. Even the clothing is folded neatly and stacked ready for the next person. Last week I was assigned to the Celestial room and spent about 20 minutes all alone in there before any one came in. What a privilege to have the blessing of feeling that peace for the moment. Then this week I helped in the nursery while the children waited for their turn to be sealed as an eternal family. The children got so excited when we dressed them in their white clothes. It is a great day for these families because it may be only a once in a lifetime experience. It is very expensive to fly here with your whole family. It is so wonderful to be able to walk across the parking lot and have the blessing of the temple so close. What a wonderful time of life for us. We are so blessed to be on a mission.
