Summer Flown - Three Weeks to Mission Service!

Some of you may have thought that since my last post on June 12th I had gone into the Witness Protection Program. I may have disappeared from here for a bit but it has been a remarkable three months. In my last entry I noted my father-in-law's health struggles. Many of the most significant events of this summer relate to his deterioration, end-of-life care, his passing on July 23rd, and the funeral services in Idaho in early August. You can read a beautiful life sketch here.

The fact that I retired in April and that Vivian had started winding down her counseling practice meant that we had more time to to support her parents through many hospital trips, home reconfigurations, airport runs, and other events. I am grateful for that and for the many precious memories with him and many other family members. I realized some time after his passing that I had spent more time with him than any other person that has passed away. I learned much from him in my life and appreciate all he has done for our family.

Through the summer we have been blessed to spend a lot of time with all five of our children and all five (with the birth of beautiful Wilford to Emily and Brock on July 18th) of our grandchildren. We have done this in locations ranging across Missouri, Kansas, Idaho, Utah, Georgia, Arkansas, and Connecticut. I won't burden you with the full travelogue here, but but have included some pictures below. It has been a wonderful summer!

As noted in the title, we are now under three weeks until being set apart as full-time missionaries. This final sprint will be full of home preparations and more family time. We engaged the local property management company Cozy in KC to care for and rent out our home for short term rentals via their website, AirBNB, VRBO, Bookings.com, etc. Preparing to do so is a lot of work, but we feel good about the progress we have made.

Final note: As we start our mission we will move to a more frequent and regular cadence of these posts. We hope as well that we'll hear more from you, our readers! Please leave comments here, via the Contact button, or through email. We want to keep up with each of you.

Pictures