Mission Call
Big news for us . . . we are going to have another missionary in our family! Our daughter Tess has decided she would like to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and this past month received her mission call to the Poland Warsaw Mission (watch the video of Tess opening her call). She will enter the MTC on July 15th, where she will begin learning the Polish language. Of course we knew that she could be called to serve anywhere in the world, but we have to admit that Poland came as a bit of a shock. As answers to our prayers, we have received personal revelation that this is where our Heavenly Father wants her to serve and we are excited for her to have this wonderful opportunity. And so all the preparation begins as we start shopping for everything she will need to take with her. My sister Melinda served in Poland 15 years ago and is very excited for Tess and is a lot of help as we make decisions about coats and boots, etc.
Phillip is doing well in Madrid Spain. He sent us a new batch of photos and it is fun to see all the cool places he gets to visit on his P-day. He really enjoys being close to the Madrid Temple, which was dedicated ten years ago. The country of Spain was dedicated for preaching the gospel 40 years ago, so this is a time of celebration for the Church in Spain. He and his companion Elder Cutler are working hard to find people to teach. The work seems to ebb and flow, but they do have a baptism date for one of their investigators and meanwhile they keep setting new goals. There are many members there that love the missionaries and are always inviting them over for dinner. I so appreciate all the care and concern throughout the church for all of the missionaries! In fact, a friend from our ward was traveling to Madrid and offered to take a package to Phillip for us. It was fun to send him some banana bread!
It was a beautiful day here for Easter this year — it truly felt like spring was really on its way! We enjoyed a very nice Sacrament meeting program where we were able to sing in the choir. Afterwards we had a nice Easter dinner with Pat and Wally, Loren and Anne, Tess, and Nichole, a good friend of Phillip's. We spend the afternoon playing some games and just enjoying a good visit with everyone. Our younger kids are excited when everyone comes home for a visit — they think Mom and Dad are kind of boring....oh well, I guess we probably are.
We got to attend BYU's graduation this year because Loren's fiancée Anne graduated with a masters degree in psychology. We were actually able to find Anne and wave to her down on the floor of the Marriott Center. It was a great program with Elder Nelson and Elder Uchtdorf both speaking. I think it is always exciting to see so many graduates all together — I think there were over 600 this year. It was also fun to see my Aunt Susan Breinholt graduate with her two daughters, Becky and Liz. With so many graduates, we didn't think we would be able to see them and it turned out they were sitting in the section just below us and I was able to give them all a hug on their way up the stairs!
As we usually do, we celebrated Madeleine's and Alan's birthdays together. Madeleine turned 18 years old this year and Alan still managed to squeak in under 50. The grandparents and the BYU kids all came to celebrate. We decided to have a fondue party — messy, but fun.
For Madeleine's birthday / graduation gift we surprised her with her own violin. She was already out the morning of her birthday with her violin teacher Kathy Morris at a state competition. Kathy called us when they were leaving the competition, so that Alan and I could meet them at the violin shop. We parked in the back so Madeleine wouldn't see our car and when she walked in with her teacher, she was very surprised to see us (watch the video). We spent a fun couple of hours listening to them both try out several violins until they decided on the best one for her. She brought it home and played a little bit for us that night. She had been using Phillip's violin, so now she has her own to go out into the musical world with.