The Bellingham Stake has 4 very nice buildings. I'm not sure the members here know how fortunate they are. Our ward , Bellingahm 1st, has to travel past this building to meet at one about 7 miles away. They are good sports about it. This is the building where we attend our weekly district meeting with the Elders

When I asked the elders at our last district meeting if they would mind if I took their picture for our mission blog, they grabbed their cameras asked us to take one for them too. They are great to work with. One of these elders, Elder Prince, is a second cousin to one of the missionaries that baptized Sister Curtis. Transfer day is coming and they are all nervous about what is going to happen. They have a great spirit!!!

Our living facilities are really quite nice. The site is pretty and the 5th wheel has everything we need. It is nice to be able to barbeque when I want to and just enjoy being outside. We are really blessed to have such beautiful accomodations. We feel a little guilty when we think of the primitive places some of the other senior missionaries are dealing with but we are enjoying it anyway.

One of the the other wonderful things we have are the great vistas. Mt. Baker is only visible on clear days but it is inspiring when we can see it. We are truly being blessed on our mission. The people in the ward are wonderful and the people we are working are really fun. We are having a great time.

This is where we live during our mission. Some might recognize it as the yard that houses our 5th wheel on our vacation property in Ferndale; more specifically Sandy Point Heights. Today it snowed (so I wouldn't miss Bonners Ferry winters I suspect) but it doesn't usually snow here. It does rain though, alot actually. It has rained most days we have been here with a sprinkle of sunshine just so we could remember what it looks like up in the sky. We are blessed to be able to serve out of our 5th wheel to cut some of the cost of going on a mission, but we also believe this is where the Lord wanted us to serve. We have met a lot of sweet sisters and brothers in the gospel. This morning we helped in primary (which was familar and friendly to Sister Curtis), so we got to meet the children of the sweet sisters and brothers in the Bellingham 1st Ward. It will be the ward we serve most of our mission in unless we activate all those that are not so active, and they give us a new assignment. That sounds pretty easy but it has some snags in the whole plan, people's agency. We have met just a couple of people that are not as excited about coming back to the fold as we had hoped. Not a problem, we are missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, going out to gather in the sheep to the fold. They know His voice, we just have to remind them of what it sounds like.

The senior couples are given very nice rooms. All of the rooms were remodeled in last few months and were et up nicesly for senior couple. The elevators in the building were limited to seniors and their is a lounge area for socializing. I don't how they were trained ( probably by their mothers) but all of the elders ran ahead to open doors for us seniors. They even took sister Curtis' tray back for her in the cafeteria.

One of the great things about the MTC was the great friendships that were made. These are the Shumways is is their 3rd mission and they are going on a temple Mission to Palmyra. We met lots of other wonderful people who were going all over the world. Russia, India, South America, the Congo and Texas to mention a few. Several couples were going on Family History Missions to photograph records.What seemed like a high porportion were going on international missions.

One of the other great things was the quality of the instructors. This is brother Hawkes, a returned missionary from Korea, who taught our  small class. We had to teach some investigators and he helped us get prepared and have the courage to actually do it. He was great!!

Missionary Training Center

Our first day at the MTC. We arrived on Sat afternoon but didn't start formal classes until Monday. Saturday we nainky got settled and learned our way around. On Sunday we had a great Sacrament meeting with an international branch. It was mostly elders and young sister missionaries from all over the world that were serving in English speaking countries. It was awesome. We also attended a mission conference that evening.