Our Grandchildren at Christmas

We don't get to see these three very often, but our daughter posts pictures of them regularly on her blog, for which we are very grateful. We did actually see them in action on Christmas morning through the miracle of Skype technology. Zoie is holding Chase and Tobin is giving us his cheesy smile. Oh how we love our three little munchkins!

We have People Coming and Going

These missionaries flew home to their families right before Christmas. I can only imagine the joyous reunion they had. We will miss them. They represent the best of the best. Front row left to right: Elder Davis, Elder Killpack, Sister Clark, Sister Perez, and Elder Machado. Back row left to right: Elder Johnson, Elder Harris, Elder Strupp, Elder Ames, and Elder Peart.
We had three new missionaries join us the same week as the Big 10 went home. They are, from left to right: Elder Horvath, Elder Monk, and Elder Jones. We are so grateful to have them!
Matthew has been with us since last summer, but his school track at BYU-I is beginning in January, so he is leaving us in a couple of days. Here he is in Paris, a side-trip he took with his sister Heidi. Matthew has thoroughly enjoyed his European experience. The next time we see him will be in Tampa this summer. That's really hard to believe!

Karlovy Vary and Loket Castle

Every transfer, we take the office missionaries on a vylet--or small trip--to a local site of interest. In December, the office staff wanted to see Karlovy Vary and the castle at Loket.
The Grand Pupp is the Karlovy Vary hotel where they filmed The James Bond movie, Casino Royale

The assistants, Elder Briggs and Elder Williams, made friends with this kind gentleman, and tried teaching him the great plan of happiness.

Thanksgiving Football and St. Mikulas Volleyball

The Prague Zone is in yellow, the Hradec Kralove Zone in Black. The other three zones--Olomouc, Slovakia, and Brno played in Brno. All enjoyed a dinner of Kentucky Fried Chicken and other American foods.
So, for Thanksgiving this year, we issued a challenge to the missionaries to achieve specific goals in finding new investigators, number of investigators attending church, and teaching lessons with members during a 3 week span. If these goals were met, it would be the best 3 week performance in the mission ever on record--as far as we know-- and the missionaries would get to play a football game on Thanksgiving day. The missionaries took up the challenge and shattered the records. We were all very happy.


The following weekend, the church members in Uherske Hradiste hold an annual volleyball tournament on St. Mikulas Vikend. It is a very fun time as members from all over the mission come to compete in volleyball. They take the game very seriously! The local missionaries get to participate in the games if they bring investigators. Below is Sister Anderson who came to play.

We all had a great time, but none so much as the Prague team who took home the trophy for first place. Viktor, the guy holding the trophy, bore his testimony about volleyball in church the next day. He even carried the trophy to the stand with him. It was very sweet.