Did I mention how much family I have in Arizona?

It is crazy how many relatives I have who live here in Arizona.  My younger sister - and the one closest to me in age - lives in Payson and we have already seen quite a bit of each other in the past two months.  We went up to Payson in July when her grandson, Kason, was in town.  Here she is with him.  He is 10.5 years old and he plays the VIOLA!  He and my sister left the next day for a little road trip to the Grand Canyon, Four Corners, and Mesa Verde before he returned to Maryland.  

Juli's oldest son lives in Payson and here he is with his wife, Kat, and one of his dogs - Dex.  Wiley is his other dog - a working police dog who is rather high strung.  Dex is his retired police dog.

I love her yard in Payson.  Look at her "valentine" prickley pear cactus....

See the little lizard on her pine tree?

And, it is hard to see but these are elk footprints in her front yard!  He was chomping on her apples, the stinker.  

It was a great visit but driving home Sunday afternoon was NUTS!  SO much traffic - bumper-to-bumper and going about 10 miles per hour for at least 30 miles as two lanes had to merge into one due to construction.  

When we finally got down to the valley, we were rewarded with a beautiful evening sky.

Juli has come down to visit.  Here we are in front of the Surprise house

We drove down to Mesa to visit our oldest sister, Jerri.  She is currently recovering from a fall where here forearms were terribly burned on the hot cement!  

Here I am after another visit with her.  Jerri is 83 years old.  

After that visit, we got caught in one of the monsoon storms.  First it was blowing sand and dust that forced me to tightly grip the steering wheel.  Then, it was torrential rain that forced us to pull off the highway until it blew over.  It was crazy!

Now that we are living in Anthem, I am about four miles away from my brother who also lives in Anthem!  How cool is that????

Here he is with his wife, Joan, in their kitchen.  Jim just turned 79 last Friday.  

Juli was down last weekend for a visit and Jim and Joan treated us all to Mexican food.  The other individual in the photo is Ashley, the granddaughter of good friends who have difficulties raising her because grandma is crippled with rheumatoid arthritis and grandpa travels all over the world for his job.  So, Ashley hangs out with "Aunt Joan" and "Uncle Jim" most weekends and much of the summer.  She is 15 and reminded me very much of Shiloh.  She is a sweet girl.

Finally, I have many cousins from both the Young and the Fraedrich sides living here in the valley.  

This is Dave Fraedrich and his wife, Shelley.  His father was my mother's youngest brother.  He grew up in Virginia so I never saw him or his two brothers as a girl.  Only when Steve and I moved to Virginia for the Army did I finally get to meet Uncle Doran, Aunt Jan, and Ed, Dave, and Doug.  

I hope to post MANY more cousin photos in the next two years....as well as more sister and brother pictures.  

Surprise no more - we're moving to Anthem

SO,  about three weeks ago,  our mission president got a call from the stake president in the Anthem area asking if a missionary couple was available to move into a house owned by the church which was designated for part of the facility to be a classroom for high school seminary students.  The classes would be in the living room part of the home and they would happen during the school day.  We would live in the back part of the house - take two of the four bedrooms - and we would be working in the mission office during the time classes would happen.  The very first day we heard about this,  we had very little information about the house - not even an address.  The mission president just asked what we thought about it.  Well, I had insomnia all that night thinking about it!  We got a chance to drive up to look at it the next day and, over the process of these past three weeks, we have gone from "would it be possible" to "when can you move in"?  And, that is what we have been doing this past week - slowly doing a little each day.

Tuesday - Steve and I brought our grubbies to the office and we enlisted the help of three missionaries (Elders Huiaquinir, Salinas, and Johnson) and we went to the mission storage units to see what might be available there for us to use.  We found a dresser, an armoir, a night stand, a  kitchen table and six chairs, two stools, a small bookcase, a computer desk, an end table, and a pole lamp.  We also found trash cans, a broom and dustpan, bucket,  and a set of plates and bowls as well as assorted kitchen ware.   Housing Coordinator, Elder Parker, met us at the storage units about an hour and a half later with the mission van pulling the mission trailor and we loaded everything up and unloaded in Anthem.  (Steve and I treated everyone to Taco Bell after - yah, such big spenders here)

Wednesday - I went to a HUGE furniture store here in the valley (American Furniture Warehouse) and picked out a couch and love seat and two twin headboards (to put together to make a king size bed but what can be later used to sleep two missionaries, should the need arise), two night stands, and two bedroom lamps.  In my entire life, I have NEVER purchased a brand new couch.  Well, I didn't actually purchase this one, either ......the mission is paying for it.  But it was fun....

Thursday - Elder Parker picked up the furniture and a washer and dryer from Home Depot and two twin mattresses from Serta and delivered them to the house.  He set up the appliances.  He was helped by the Anthem missionaries - Elders Black and Smith (great name duo, don't you think?)

Friday - Steve and I worked at the mission office half-day and spent the afternoon and early evening in Anthem unpacking the furniture and putting together the beds.

Saturday - Steve and I shopped at Dollar Tree for assorted kitchen utensils and storage containers and Walmart for everything else (flatware, drinking glasses, cookware, toaster, mop).  I felt like we were newly weds again shopping for our first home.  Most of the items the mission is covering but some things we have to buy ourselves - like hangers (I can't tell you how many hangers we have back in Columbia and I didn't bring them because the Johnson house didn't need any) and bed linens (for some dumb reason, I left our king size mattress pad at home but I did bring our king sheet set).  The mission has a full size mattress and box spring that is going in the second bedroom and, although I got rid of a couple of full-size linen sets before leaving for our mission, I had to buy a set for here (sigh).  After shopping, I was pooped but the day had just begun - We still had to go to the house and put everything away and unpack and clean.  We got a lot done Saturday.

Slowly, things are taking shape.  We plan to sleep in the Anthem house tomorrow.

New address is 3605 W. Memorial Dr.  Anthem, AZ  85086.  I get to fill out a change of address form AGAIN.  And, I have to say that, while I am not really excited about doing THAT, I am very happy about this move.  For one thing, I am closer to my brother, Jim.  For another, I will have a back yard (as much as Arizona can offer - which is mostly dirt- but still, I can try to grow a tomato plant or something)   And, what is happening to this beautiful Johnson home?  A very nice missionary couple, the Chilsons, are moving out of a tiny apartment and into this spaciousness.  And, they can hold on to any mail that belongs to us.

I will post pictures next week....and I will also tell about my sister Juli's visit this weekend and the Tucson Temple dedication.  Hopefully, we will have internet by next Sunday!

A Day in the Life of an Arizona Phoenix Mission couple

5:15 

 alarm sounds.  I turn off the white noise app on  my phone (we like heavy rain pouring).  

We dress in exercise clothing, make the bed, and pray together and then separately.

5:35ish  

head upstairs for a fifteen-minute stretch-yoga-calesthenics routine as 

we listen to a General Conference talk.

6:00

Thirty-minute walk around the neighborhood.  

I set my phone alarm for 15 minutes and, when it chimes, we head back home.  

We each take a plastic shopping bag to pick up trash along the side of the road.  

We used to ride bikes during this time on Tuesdays and Thursdays but the front tire of my bike (actually Rebecca Johnson's bike) has a slow leak and the Johnson's bike pump is really a pain to use and pumping takes up valuable bike-riding time so we have suspended riding bikes until we can bring two unused bikes over from the mission storage shed.

6:30

I shower and get dressed for the day.  

Steve does scripture study

7:00

I fix my lunch and breakfast and empty the dishwasher and eat

Steve showers and gets ready for the day

7:30

Steve fixes his lunch and breakfast and eats

I am still eating but at about 7:45 I do my scripture study

8:15

We are out the door.  

We do our couple scripture study in the car during our 30-minute commute to the mission office.  

It starts with us singing one verse of a hymn - unaccompanied.  If the hymn is one we are not especially familiar with, I might read the verses rather than try to sing it.  (if we were doing this at home sitting down in the living room, we would sing every hymn in the order it appears in the hymnbook - me on melody and Steve on either tenor or bass) 

Steve drives and I work on embroidery. 

9:00

Work at the Arizona Phoenix Mission office begins.

There is always a short devotional right at the start of the day.  Devotional duty rotates among the staff which consists of Elder Baggiore - Finance,  Elder Parker - Housing, Sister Parker - Referrals/Receptionist, Sister Brown - assistant to mission president' wife (she does newsletters and keeps up with medical records), Elder Brown - Executive Secretary (he makes all the appointments for the mission president), Steve - Vehicle Coordinator, and me - Travel / Baptisms.

The Browns, Parkers and Elder Baggiore are all "part-time" senior missionaries meaning they are Arizona residents full-time and they don't work as many hours as Steve and I do who are full-time senior missionaries.  The office is open from 9:00 to 5:00 Monday through Thursday and 9:00 to 1:00 on Friday.  The Browns and Elder Baggiore come in about two times a week and leave when their work is done.  The Parkers come in Monday through Thursday and leave at 4:00 except on Thursday when we get to leave at 4:00 and they lock up at 5:00.  It is only Steve and me in the office on Friday.

We do regular office work - typing, answering phones, keeping records.  

I think Steve has the more difficult job.  

He has a LOT of record keeping and he fields phone calls from missionaries with vehicle problems all the time.  He is like the dad of the mission.....you know, when you were a teenager and you got a flat tire.  Who did you call?  Dad.  

He also travels to all the zone conferences to do vehicle inspections.  

He sets up new vehicles (the mission just got a mini van yesterday) 

and he decommissions old vehicles that the church will sell.  

I record baptisms into CDE (convert data entry).  

I keep track of all incoming and outgoing missionaries - this happens every six weeks - 

and I prepare arrival and departing binders.

 Arrival binders contain important information and booklets for missionaries 

to reference during their mission.

 Departing binders include a letter of appreciation from the mission president, 

contact information for the previous mission president and the current one, 

instructions on how to give a good mission report to the high council and stake presidency, 

photos of all the missionaries, 

a record of all the places the missionary served and who was their companion, 

and finally, a copy of their flight itinerary and their boarding pass.  

Steve and I bring our lunch and eat at the table in the workroom.

Here is the entrance to the mission office.  Our part is on the left.  Family Services has an office on the right.  The Bishops Storehouse is in back.  A Deseret Industries is across the parking lot.

another photo of the office 

This is my desk on the left.

Here is a group of newly arriving missionaries

This is Sister Parker's desk and the office entrance

Steve working at his desk in the workroom

This is another view of the work room

Every office has a "water cooler".  Missionaries visiting the office hang around it to look at the photos on the board.  The door is to the mission president's office.

This is where Elders Parker, Baggiore, Brown and Sister Brown work

5:00 (or 4:00 on Thursday)

We drive home.  On the way, we have been listening to The Chronicles of Narnia dramatization on CD.  We are currently on Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  Once we finish with this collection, I suspect we will see what the public library has to offer.  

I drive and Steve tries to stay awake

Evening

Sometimes, we stop off at a store on the way home - usually it is a grocery store 

that has a great deal on produce

Sometimes, we are so worn out when we walk in the door that 

we will take a short power nap before tackling dinner

After dinner 

 Monday - we have Family Home Evening which is usually watching something on LDS.org

Tuesday -  Steve does laundry and I do finances and bills

Wednesday -   we clean house

Thursday -  we do grocery shopping

Friday - most of the time, we will try to catch the 1:30 session at the temple.  

Then home to chill (literally and figuratively) .  Usually watch something from Redbox or Netflix

Saturday - if Noah has practiced, I will give him a piano lesson via Facetime.  

We have set aside Saturday for visiting family around the valley day 

or having someone over for a meal.

Sunday - church from 9:00 - 12:00, light lunch and long nap, 

phone conversations with assorted children throughout the day 

(for example: Julina, who is 3 hours ahead of us, talks to us at 6:30 Sunday morning)

10:00 

Light's out