A Big Big Big Surprise!! A Loving Family!!

This week we received a big, big, big surprise that merits a blog post all of it's own.

We think we mentioned before that Elder and Sister Moon, our humanitarian couple, have been working to  get a cargo container of wheelchairs through all the red tape.  We will tell you more about that in our next post.  Anyway, Tuesday morning we were working in the PEF Center when Elder and Sister Moon brought a missionary couple, serving as specialists helping with projects like this wheelchair project, in to meet us.  They were introduced as John and Marcia Dow. 

We were happy to meet them and they started to explain that they had been in Heber and attended the baptism of our grandson, Trevor.  It took a little more explained to help us understand the big picture, but we learned that they were there attending the baptism of their granddaughter, Madelyn Tanna Hardy who is Trevor's cousin.  As it turns out, our daughter Gina and their daughter Sarah married two brothers, Aaron and David Hardy.  It turns out that they were in Gina and Aaron's home eating and helping while we shared in Trevor's baptism over Face Time.  Little did we know what was going on behind the scenes.  We were truly grateful for technology that allowed us to participate even this much in the first big family event that we miss on our mission.  We were able to visit with Trevor and congratulate him and tell him how proud we are of him.  We could tell that he was happily playing with all his cousins.  We then were able to visit with Gina, Britt, and Kara for quite awhile with some of the other family sticking their heads in.  We were so grateful for that time because we didn't feel quite so separated on a big day for Trevor.

Our children found out that they had served a mission in Mozambique, Africa and were now serving a mission from home as specialists to travel to different locations where the church has wheelchair projects to oversee the training and distribution of the wheelchairs and that they were going to be in Kinshasa, DR-Congo.

Well, it didn't take our kids long to know that this gave them an opportunity they didn't want to pass up.  We assume the Dows asked if there was anything they wanted them to take to Kinsahsa.  They quickly put together a package and actually had to mail it to the Dows who then put it into a bigger box containing tools and training booklets that they were bringing.  After they told us the connection, Elder Dow asked if they could leave some of their things in our office.  He brought in his big box and opened it.  He pulled out a smaller box and we saw that it had Britt's name and address on it.  We weren't sure what to think.  He handed it to us and we opened it revealing the big surprise.

 

We remember the kids asking us what we were going to miss most.  Although we don't remember exactly how we answered, Laraine said she would miss her black licorice and we tried to let them know how much we appreciated the trail mix they gave us for our flight over even letting them know that we were hording what little we had left.  We told them that we were being very careful not to eat too much at any one time so what we had would last.  They came up with a great care package that we didn't expect.  What a great surprise and what thoughtful kids we have.  And knowing that we now have some more trail mix, that night I actually ate more of the old trail mix than I had eaten at only one time since we arrived.

They also took time to write us littlle notes and even the grandkids wrote notes and drew pictures.  How neat it was to sit down later and read them together.  How lucky we are.  And now we will have them taped to the wall over the kitchen table to remind us of such wonderful children and grandchildren.

We wanted to thank the Dows for the extra effort they made to bring us something so special from our family so we invited them and the other four specialists coming with them to dinner at our apartment.  We didn't serve them something authentic from the Congo but we sure had a wonderful time and got to know them and the others better. 

We give a big thank you to our children and grandchildren for their love and support and for such a great big surprise.  THANK YOU!  WE LOVE YOU!  And thanks to the Dows for bringing the surprise, but especially for the service they give in travelling all over to oversee these humanitarian projects.