Galilee, Jericho & Bethany

Still Tuesday, July 15. We drove to the north of Israel to Dan, and visited a nature reserve. I didn’t realize Israel had so much green countryside; it was beautiful. We went on a two-mile walk, mostly over river rock. The river Dan is part of the headwaters of the Jordan, one of three rivers that form it. We saw the high place of Jeroboam, who told the people of Israel, the Northern Kingdom, that there was no need to go down to Jerusalem to worship. He brought in idols and started them on idol-worshipping. Israel never had a righteous king in all its history, beginning with Jeroboam. We saw ruins from King Ahab’s time, and turning a corner, we came upon a large mud-brick structure, almost 4,000 years old, Abraham’s time. It was just in the middle of a field and they had put a cover over it to protect it from the elements.
We visited Banias, Caesarea Philipi. This area was dedicated to the god Pan or Panias but the Turks couldn’t say Panias but pronounced it Banias. The river here, the Banias, is another of the headwaters of the Jordan.
We then drove through the Golan Heights and saw remains of battles, burned out tanks, fields still full of mines. One can see why Israel wants this area; it overlooks the fertile fields below making them very vulnerable to an enemy. We spent another night in Ein Gev. While waiting for our lecture that evening, by the sea of Galilee, one of the women started singing "Memories of Galilee" in Spanish. Many joined in singing in English.
Wednesday, July 15. We left the area of Galilee and drove south to Bet Sehe’an, or Beit She’an, depending on which literature you are looking at. Nothing, as far as spelling goes, is consistent, whether in Israel or Egypt This is a ruin that has 18 levels of civilization. There is a large tel in the background and at the bottom are many Roman ruins. The archeologists have decided to concentrate on Roman civilization as it is the most interesting. There is a column-lined street, baths, and a theater in quite good condition.
Our next stop was Jericho. a Palestinian city. We be bought pottery there. In the distance one can see the Monastery of St. George on the mountain which begins the area of Jesus’ temptation. We saw the spring of Elisha, which he healed as its waters were bitter. It is still a major source of water for the area. We visited the ruins of ancient Jericho, looking down on a round tower that I have seen in many pictures.
We drove along the old Roman road between Jericho and Jerusalem, it winds around a lot. About half way we stopped at Wadi Kelt or Quelt, a very deep narow valley that has a brook and trees at the bottom. This is said to be the place where Elijah was fed by the ravens. This area is very desolate but does have a little plant life.
Our next stop was Bethany. We saw a church that was built over the site of the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus. It is built over crusader ruins, which was built over Byzantine ruins. Across the street is the entrance, but not the original one, to Lazarus’ tomb. One climbs down many steep steps then way down into a chamber.
We next drove to Jerusalem and our hotel, the Seven Arches, which overlooks the old city. What a magnificent view. We will be here the remainder of our time in Israel. It is good to be in one place for a while. That night, we visited Jimmy’s, an olive wood shop where I bought a nativity set.

Mt. Tabor, Sea of Galilee

Sunday, July 12. We left Egypt and flew to Tel Aviv. What a contrast! It was so clean at the airport and the restrooms were immaculate and no one waiting for a tip. Our guide was Ron Amos, an Israeli, and our bus driver Eddie, a Palestinian.
We drove to Jaffa, also known as Joppa, a suburb of Tel Aviv, and walked down old narrow city alleys. They were clean and felt medieval. We drove to Caesarea and saw old Roman ruins. Harod built the city and, since he was raised in Rome, that is the style. We saw an old Roman theater and the remains of a crusader fortress. We also saw the remains of the port of Harold the great, an aqueduct built by Romans and waded in the Mediterranean. It was warm and looked beautiful.
We then drove to the Carmel beach Hotel in Haifa, a very modern, new hotel. The food looked delicious and tasted delicious. We could eat everything and drink the water! Everyone pigged out on the salads as we had not been able to eat them in Egypt. Our room was clean and beautiful and everything worked.
The money is called shekels and the small coins argorot. The exchange is about 3.6 shekels to the dollar. The hotel had video screens set up as the soccer world cup would be played either the next day or the next.
Monday July 13. Haifa is built between the seashore and Mt. Carmel. There is a saying that Jerusalem prays, Tel Aviv plays and Haifa pays. It is a hardworking city. We visited Mt. Carmel or Muhraka, the site where Elijah confronted the 450 priest of Baal. There is a Carmelite monastery on top with a large statue of Elijah. It overlooks the valley of Jesreel.
We dove to Megiddo and visited the tel there. 21 layers of civilization have been uncovered there. We walked through the north gate, built in the 15th century b.c. and walked through a water tunnel built by king Ahab in the 9th century b.c. There were people engaged in excavating under black awnings while we were there.
Next we visited Mt. Tabor, one of the places thought to be where Jesus was transfigured before Peter, James and John. The other place is Mt. Hermon. We were told that Pres Kimball felt Mt Tabor was the correct place. To get to the top of the mountain we had to get in 8-passenger taxis and drive up a very windy road to the top. It was a rather wild ride with Palestinian music playing. Another nice church is built on the summit.
We next drove to Nazareth, visited the site of an old synagogue and the Church of the Annunciation, a very modern church. We saw a place where excavations had uncovered a pavement dating to Jesus’ time.
Our destination for the night was the kibbutz Ein Gev, on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, right across the water from the city of Tiberias. The main business of this kibbutz is their holiday village, also a famous fish restaurant, plus some farming. We stayed in a nice apartment that had a stove, sink and refrigerator. We had a back porch overlooking the village and part of the lake. The food was very good. That night instead of our usual talk we had a lecture on life in a kibbutz from a man from Connecticut. When age 19 he had come to Israel to see what a kibbutz was like; he enjoyed it and has been here ever since, about 27 years.
Tuesday, July 14. We started the day with a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee to the city of Tiberius on the opposite shore to Ein Gev. When we were in the middle of the lake the boat stopped and Bro. Nyman played a tape of the tab choir singing "Master the Tempest Is Raging" and we all sang along. One of the crew threw a net over the side demonstrating fishing techniques of the past. Bro. Nyman said these modern guys never catch anything, but it was interesting to see.
We went to a museum where we saw a video about finding an ancient fishing vessel, dating to the 1st century. It was found in 1986 when a drought dropped the level of the lake. We then saw the actual boat, behind glass, and soaked in some kind of preservative.
We drove to the Sermon on the Mount siteand Bro. Nyman gave a lecture on the Beatitudes. The Church of the Beatitudes is a very lovely, modern one and the grounds were beautiful. We saw much bougainvillea, red, purple, pink, orange and white. We saw this all over Israel, such a beautiful site.
We walked along the lakeshore where there are some heart-shaped stones. This is supposed to be the site where Jesus asked Peter "Lovest Thou Me?..Feed My Sheep". It is called Peter’s Primacy. Bro.. Nyman told about Elder LeGrande Richards, that when he visited that place he took his shoes off and waded in the water.
We next visited the ruins of Capernaum and saw the ruins of Peter’s or his mother-in-law’s house; ruins of houses from Jesus’ time, these were of black basalt and must have been hot in the summer. We saw ruins of a synagogue built on the black stone foundation of the synagogue of Jesus’ time. We saw an olive press and a Roman milestone. More beatuiful bougainvillea in gorgeous colors. The flowers have been beautiful in Israel.

Visiting Karnak and around Cairo

On Friday July 10, we got into 4-passenger carriages which took us to the temple complex of Karnak. This is where those huge columns are seen in the movie "Death on the Nile". They were overwhelming. We saw the row of ram sphinxes, statues of Ramses II and others. Most pharaohs added to the great complex, even Alexander the Great.
We got back in our carriages and went to see Luxor, another temple complex about two miles from of Karnak. In ancient days there was a road lined with sphinxes that ran between the two temples. Now only a small part remains. One of the obelisks that stood outside the Luxor complex in front was sent to France and was placed in the Place de la Concorde.
After lunch we flew back to Cairo, same hotel but different room. After dinner we dressed in Sunday clothes and held sacrament meeting in a room in the hotel basement. Friday is the Sabbath for Muslims so members hold church meetings on that day.
Saturday, July 11. We drove past the 700-year-old city of the dead that has people living in it. The Muslims build two little rooms, under which they bury their dead; the women on one side and men on the other. The rooms are visited periodically by living relative to bring offerings and to hold memorial services in. When poor people realize that a family has died out and no one will be visiting, they move in. The cemetery is vast and covers many acres.
We went to the Citadel of Saladin, of Richard the Lionhearted fame. Inside is the beautiful alabaster Mosque, built last century by Mohammed Ali. It is built on the order of the famous Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. We had to remove our shoes and put on slippers to go in. If we had been wearing shorts or sleeveless blouses, we would have had to put on long green robes. I saw several women wearing them. The mosque is large and empty inside, the floor covered in carpets. The ceiling is a beautiful green with gold designs. There is a stairway leading to a pulpit where the Imam preaches on Fridays. It was very fancy and ornate but is no longer in use; another one, not as fancy, is used today.
Our guide Mohammed had us sit on the rug while he explained about the religion of Islam. The five pillars of Islam are 1) one has to confess that there is no god bu Alah and that Mohammed is his prophet; 2) pray five times towards Mecca; 3) observe the fast of Ramadan; 4) pay 2 1/2% yearly on all one possess and 5), if possible, make the pilgrimage to Mecca. Women and men pray in separate sections in the mosque; the women’s being smaller as mostly men come to the mosques to pray.
We visited the Cairo Museum. It is very large, a little dusty but not quite as Amelia Peabody described in her book. We concentrated mostly on the treasure of Tutankhamen and what a treasure it is! We saw the jewelry and the famous mask, they are housed in a separate room with guards present. We saw the four large gold-covered boxes that surrounded the sarcophogus , one fitting inside the other. We saw the throne with the famous picture of Tut and his queen together.
We drove within one block of Shepheard’s Hotel, famous for the many people who stayed in it in the 1800s. I wish I could have seen it but didn’t feel so badly after finding out later that the building burned down years ago and this is a new one. Our lunch was on a moored boat on the Nile. Lovely looking food be we were not able to eat a lot of it because of the unclean water.
We had a Tourist and Antiquities guard on each bus in Egypt. We also had a police car escort when we went sightseeing in Cairo. There were soldiers mounted on camels with machine guns at the pyramids at Giza and Sakkara. Soldiers were visible at all tourist attractions. Egypt did not want a repeat of the massacre that had occurred a few months earlier at Queen Hatshepsut’s monument.
One thought that kept coming to my mind while in Egypt was that I would not like to be a mother of children there, so much poverty and filth. It would be so hard to bring up healthy children. What a blessing to live in our country.

Visit to Valley of the Kings, etc.

That evening we flew to Luxor, the ancient capital of Thebes. The flight was about one hour and fifteen minutes. We didn’t arrive at the hotel and have dinner until after 10:00 p.m. The hotel was the Mercure. Our room was hot, the air conditioning did not go on until about 2:00 a.m. but worked after that We spent two nights there.
The food in Egypt was presented so beautifully but we couldn’t eat the salads because the food is washed in Nile water which is ver contaminated. Because of the Aswan Dam, the river does not run as swiftly as before to cleanse itself. We were told not even to run our fingers in the water if we were riding in a boat. We could only eat cooked food and peeled food. The hotel in Cairo peeled their cucumbers so we could eat them. Once or twice I cut the outside off of the tomatoes and ate them. Our meals were mostly served buffet style and we had a choice of chicken, beef and some lamb which was delicious.
Thursday, July 9, we had breakfast at 7 a.m., our usual time, and took the bus to the Valley of the Kings, crossing the Nile on a new bridge opened just last year. Many people live on the West Bank of the Nile but no one in the area of the Valley of the Kings. We drove through a range of mountains to the valley and it is SO DESOLATE. Not a singe blade of grass or little weed grown there. We were able to visit three tombs, and then the tomb of Tutankhamen. His is the only mummy in the Valley of the Kings. It is encased in one of his three gold coffins, covered with glass. It is very hot and sunny there. No flies or bugs but many pests (vendors). Our guide in Luxor is Refat, very knowledgeable. He can read the hieroglyphics on the walls of the tombs and explained what was written.
After finding that pyramids could not keep out thieves, the pharaohs decided to build tombs, hiding the entrances, in the desolate desert. That didn’t work either. They then decided to place guards in front of their tombs but the guards did the stealing. There is a village perched on the side of the hills that the government wants to move out There is no running water and new modern housing was built for them. They won’t move because at night, illegally, they dig under their houses for old tombs and treasure.
We visited the Ramesseum, the temple of Ramses II. It is a very large complex with a huge statue of Ramses II lying on its side. It is the largest statue of him, made of rose granite.
We also saw the Colossi of Memnon. They really are the statues of Amenophis II, which stood outside a palace, destroyed in the earthquake of 27 b.c.
We drove by the monument of Queen Hatshepsut (we were told to say "Hot-Cheap-Suit" to remember how to say her name. We were not able to visit it; it was the sight of some shootings earlier in the year. It is a very beautiful monument, very different from any other in Egypt. Behind her monument one can see trails going over the mountain to the Valley of the Kings, the only way into the place in olden times. I could see Amelia Peabody trudging over these hills.
That evening we were supposed to take a sail in a felucca on the Nile. The river runs north and the winds blow south so one can usually go in any direction. That day there was no wind. We were pulled out from the bank by two fellows in galabeeyas, the long robes used by men, then one fellow, with rope in hand, hopped on anchored boats and pulled us out into the river. There a diesel-powered boat towed us up the Nile. The boat eventually was towing three sail boats and spewing out black, stinky smoke. After awhile we were turned loose but instead of going downstream with current, the fellows started rowing us towards the shore. I guess if we had just gone with the current we would have passed by our anchorage. When we finally got close to shore, out jumped one man again and started to pull us in towards the bank, again hopping on the anchored pleasure boats. They were anchored because tourism was way down and were not in use. It was quite hilarious watching the man pull the boat to shore. Instead of a sail on the Nile we had a tow on the Nile.
As we drove on the west bank we saw the houses where Lord Carnavron and Howard Carter lived while searching for tombs. In Luxor, we drove past the Winter Palace, a famous hotel, and the Chicago House.

Pyramids in Egypt

Our first visit was to the site of Memphis, an ancient capital of Egypt. There we saw a huge statue of Ramesis II. We then drove to Saqqara or Sakkara (in Egypt and Israel one finds several different spellings of the same word). There we went into a small pyramid of King Teti, then into a mastaba, a flat-topped tomb, of Mere Ruka, King Teti’s advisor. There were many paintings on the wall.
We then saw the famous step pyramid of King Zoser, built by his architect Imhotep. It was the first pyramid built. We visited a silk rug factory where children and adults were weaving rugs. The children range in age 8 to 12 and work 3 hours per day. We bought a small silk rug and they threw in a tiny rug too. The salesman spoke Spanish which surprised me. I found Spanish-speaking salesmen all through Egypt and Israel. On our tour we had two Spanish-speaking girls, one from Mexico and one from Guatemala. I did a lot of translating for them.
At a lunch at a restaurant, I had to use the restroom. Our guide called them "Temples of Comfort. After I came out of the stall a man came into the area where the wash basins were holding out his hand for his tip! He quite surprised me. Every restroom has an attendant that you have to tip. In some places the attendants tear off 5 or 6 squares of toilet paper and give it to you to use; none in the stall.
After lunch we drove to Giza to see the Great Pyramids. What a sight, so huge! The largest (Cheops) was closed for repairs but I was able to go inside the second largest, built by Cheffren, the son. There are other names for these two pharaohs but these are the ones I know. It was not considered good from to build your pyramid taller than your father’s so Chefren didn’t but he did build it upon a plateau so it actually looks taller. The smallest pyramid of the three was built by a grandson.
To go inside I had to walk bent over for a long distance, walking on a ramps that had little boards across it every foot or so. I had to walk down, then could walk upright for a short distance, then bent over going down again. Then I came to the chamber where the sarcophogus was. It was just a large, empty room with the stone sarcophogus as the only item in it. We then visited the museum that houses the Solar Boat. The guide said it was a mortuary or funeral boat. It was found in pieces right by the Great Pyramid about 20 years ago and was very large and impressive. It took three tries and many years to get it put together.
One of the fun things we did was to ride a camel. Leon’s driver had a turban for him to wear so he looks quite authentic in our pictures. The camels had only one stirrup, to help you get on. It is a funny sensation as the camel gets up in sections. First you go forward as his rump goes up, then you lean backwards and the front part goes up. Interesting.
We drove by the Sphinx. It is huge but not as big as I thought it would be. Most pictures are taken at such an angle that it is made to look almost as big as the pyramids but it isn’t. Right in front of it is a little round park and behind that the city with shops and streets. It surprised me how close they were to it.

start of trip to Egypt, 1998

In 1998, it was time for a new roof. We had lots of help but the person who stands out in my memory was Alan H. The day he came to help was very windy and threatened rain so he and Leon were up on the roof trying to put a large, blue tarp over the areas not covered with shingles. The wind blew the tarp around and it was very hard to get it finally down and fastened.
David Barlow was married in June to Elann Romney in the Salt Lake Temple. It is always a pleasure to attend a grandchild’s temple marriage. The reception was held in a chapel near the temple. It is the chapel with a stained glass window depicting the visit of the Father and the Son to Joseph Smith.
A wonderful trip had been planned and finally came to fruition. (I will be quoting from the journal I kept as it is hard to remember all the wonderful things we did and saw) It was a trip to Egypt and the Holy Land hosted by BYU. On Sunday, July 5, we spent the night at Nancy’s in Salt Lake and the next morning Ryan Barlow, who had been staying the summer with her, drove us to the airport. We met BYU travel people there who gave us our tickets and fanny packs. They had already given us two BYU blue carry-on bags. We had two suitcases to check plus the carry-ons.
We flew out at 8:15 a.m. and with a couple of stops, arrived at JFK airport in New York City, where we had a four-hour wait for the 9:50 p.m. flight to Cairo. Several of our fellow travelers knew people I knew. Our travel guide was BYU professor Monte Nyman. It was a very long flight and we arrived in Cairo around 3:30 p.m.
Our Cairo guide was Mohammed and he and the tour bus met us at the airport and drove us to our hotel in Heliopolis, a suburb of Cairo. The city seemed to have many gray cement buildings, lots of them seemed unfinished. Many buildings had windows or shutters trimmed in lavender, blue, orange or green paint. There was a mixture of poverty and wealth, modern cars and little donkey carts.
Our hotel was a SuissOtel called El Salam, very fancy, a nice room but the toilet didn’t flush well. I had to fill a wastebasket with water to flush it. We advised the desk and it was later fixed. We had brought two little bottles of water so we could brush our teeth that night. We knew we would have to buy water every day. The cheapest was buying it from the bus driver. The currency is called pounds and the coins piasters. We soon found we had not brought enough $1 bills. Everything is "One Dollar or Two Dollar" pronounced "dollah".
The breakfast buffet was fabulous! There was a table with breads, cereals, and sweet rolls. A table with jams along side fresh fruit. A table with cold cuts and salads, and a table where you could have eggs fixed any way you wanted. There were potato cakes, beef sausage, crepes, pancakes, orange and sweet lemon juice. What a feast! We could only eat things that you could peel or were cooked, no raw foods.
Every morning on the bus we sang a hymn and had a prayer. I was chosen the music leader so I chose a hymn every morning and led the music. BYU had given us headphones so we could hear Bro. Nyman wherever we were. Such a blessing. Other tour groups we saw didn’t have the headphones and had a hard time hearing their guides, all trying to get close to their guide to hear.

July 1997 trip back east

Time for another fabulous trip. In July 1997, we first went to the Romriells in Austin. We love visiting all of them and had fun enjoying their wonderful swimming pool. It is always like being at a resort to visit there. We headed east and visited the Shiloh Tennessee Civil War battlefield. We were given head phones so we could listen to all the information about the various places. we saw as we drove around the battlefield. We saw Pittsburgh Landing and the Shiloh church, they were prominent in that terrible battle. The first day, the South prevailed, the second day, the Union carried the battle.
We then went to Nashville, or rather White House, to visit Rob and Erika and family. The kids are really growing up. Rob gave us a tour of Starstruck, Reba’s publishing company. We then proceeded north, with Rob giving Leon a ride in a big semi-truck that he drives; I followed behind. After a few miles, we said goodbye to Rob and continued on into Kentucky.
We stopped at the Corvette assembly plant in Bowling Green, KY and watched them build the cars. It was most interesting to see the cars roll off the assembly line, all ready to go. We also drove by the United States Bullion Depository Fort Knox Kentucky. That’s its official name. One can only look at the building from afar off. No samples!
In Fort Knox is the Patton Museum of Cavalry and Armor. That was really interesting. Lots of different models of tanks, from very early models to huge modern ones. Also, lots of memorabilia of Gen George Patton, including his car and lots of pictures. Kentucky is so green, a beautiful state to drive through.
We continued on and arrived in St Louis, or Creve Coeur, where Mark and Sharon live Their three children had also really grown a lot. We were able to attend a session at the St. Louis Temple with Mark and Sharon. Then they, and their kids took us to Grant’s Farm. It used to belong to Gen. U.S. Grant and is now owned by Budweiser and has a huge Clydesdale breeding farm. There were other animals also, but the horses were what was so special. It was so fun seeing those beautiful horses. Then back home. Mom came back to live with us and we continued enjoying living in Mt. Pleasant.

heart attack, 1997

On April 7, our anniversary, we were in Provo and took Nancy and her kids and Doug and some of his kids to dinner. That was a Monday. When I went to bed that night I had a funny feeling in my chest, like bubbles going up. Had little pains off and on during the night and morning but nothing in the afternoon but had another pain that night. Leon thought I should go to the doctor so I did see Dr. Speakman on Wednesday. He took some blood tests and an MRI, I think, I’m not sure just what it was. He told me I should go to the hospital in Provo and see a Dr. Asay. I packed a bag just to be sure but felt fine. Of course, Leon and Mom came with me.
When I went to admissions they put me right to bed; I thought I would see the doctor first. But no, they took me to an operating room and Leon and Mom were with me in the room, which surprised me. That’s when I first saw the doctor. A catheter was inserted in my ankle and I could see on a monitor my heart and all the little veins which were moving about. It was funny to see that. I didn’t feel anything. I had an angioplasty to clear one of my veins, or arteries that was clogged, which caused my heart attack It was called a myocardial infarction. I have never felt so well in a hospital. I was hooked up to a solution dripping in my vein but could get out of bed, pulling the stand that held the bag with the solution, and go to the bathroom. On Friday, I was able to go home. Mom went to either Mary or Carol for a month or so while I recuperated. Have done very well ever since.
In July, we had our last Honey band play in the 4th of July parade. This is the list of people and the instruments they played. Melissa: flute; Leon, Sylvia: clarinet; Brent: trumpet; Doug: baritone; Chris: tuba; Ron Barlow: banjo; Alan: snare drum, Peggy: bass drum; Daniel, Lauren, Sam: percussion. Mark drove the truck that pulled the flat bed and Sharon, Tricia H and Nancy rode in the back of the pickup with the grandkids. It was a fun experience. We then went to the Barlows for a delicious meal.

trip to Oregon

Here is the latest on the travels of the Leon Honey family. On Monday, the 5th, we took off for California, heading for a night’s stay in Barstow. We stopped in St. George for a delicious Mexican meal at a restaurant Kirk and Nancy had introduced us to. When we went to get into the car NOTHING. Dead as a doornail! A fellow from the restaurant gave us a jump and we drove a block and one/half to a Checker Auto. The people were most helpful and put in a new battery and air filter. Then on to Barstow. In the morning, we drove to Garden Grove to pick up the clothes I had left the week before. We saw Caryol Tolman for about 15 minutes, then on to Fresno.
We had a great visit with Jenny, Garrett, and their three darling children. They are very well behaved and we enjoyed being around them. The dog, Molly, didn’t hardly bark at us this visit. After a nice dinner, we all went for a walk around the block. The kids run ahead until Jenny calls out "Red Light" then they stop and wait and go again when she says "Green Light." Max kindly gave us his bedroom. We left the next morning after breakfast and drove to Redding, CA where we spent the night.
Thursday we started north and when we got into Oregon, we stopped at Crater Lake. It is so blue and beautiful. It is in a very large crater and there is only one steep trail to the water. We were told one can swim in the lake but for only a very few seconds; it is very cold. We watched a movie about the lake which was most informative then drove part way around the lake and ate our lunch overlooking the beautiful site. Dad took lots of pictures.
We continued on north to Bend. Nancy and Kirk have a very nice home, so large and spacious. The landlord had freshly painted the house and put in new carpet. The living room, kitchen and bedrooms are very large. The only drawback is that there is no back yard, just a narrow piece about 8 feet wide. Maddie is a doll and Reagan is adorable; she is now ten months old and crawls all over the place and pulls herself up to stand by everything. We enjoyed seeing them, also Nan, Kirk and Tanner. They like where they live; it is a beautiful place with lots of pine trees. Nancy took us to a pharmacy and we got our flu shots. Nancy drove us to the top of a butte, called Pilot Butte and had a wonderful view of the surrounding country with various mountains in the background.
Saturday, Tanner drove Dad to see the band room at his high school and Nancy and I did some shopping at Goodwill and the grocery store. Tanner cooked us a delicious dinner "Penne Primavera" which was great. He had worked in a café in St. George and enjoys cooking and is great at it. The dish had chicken, pasta, red onions and peppers with a sauce of Parmesan cheese, cream cheese and cream. It was great.
My nephew Fred Williams lives in northern Oregon and comes down each Friday for classes. He is working on his Masters in Counseling. He came to dinner and then we all went to Tanner’s high school to attend a band concert: the President’s Own Marine Band. It was GREAT. They looked great in their uniforms and sounded great. Dad was really impressed as everything was in tune. One of the members played a Clarinet Concerto by Artie Shaw and he was wonderful. Dad liked his tone quality. It was a wonderful evening. Fred spent the night on the couch as it was rather late. His wife Karen and son were in Arizona for a wedding.
Saturday morning, about 5 a.m. Dad woke me and said "I want to go home!!!" We had not planned to leave until Monday. I persuaded him to wait until afternoon as we had plans to see where Kirk works. We drove to Sisters, the town where his office is and then went on into the forest. Very tall Ponderosa pines, so beautiful. We went on a trail to the headwaters of the Metolius River. The water comes out of the side of a hill and is very cold. While we were looking at the river two bald eagles flew above us. It was a thrill to see them. We then drove to a fish hatchery on the Metolius River and as arrived at the place the river water comes to a bridge where there are some small rapids and the water is an ice blue color and also frothy white.. So beautiful. I really loved being in the pines and along this beautiful river.
We then drove back to Sisters (there is a mountain range that has three peaks, called the Three Sisters) and found a very good Mexican Restaurant. At first the waitress gave us Dinner Menus and the prices were shocking. When she changed to luncheon menus my heart settled down and we had a great meal. When then said goodbye to the family and headed towards Boise, ID.
In Boise, as it was rather late, there were no non-smoking rooms left on the lower level. They had us check out a smoking room but it smelled terrible. We thought we would have to lug all our stuff upstairs but the lady found a handicapped room, non-smoking on the ground floor. The room was o.k. but the next morning, the shower didn’t work. Darn! I had planned to wash my hair and look decent again.
Coming into Lehi, that afternoon, we stopped at Rob’s to drop off some baby clothes from Nancy for Rachel. She also had a car seat for her. We are also bringing baby clothes for Becky. It was wonderful to arrive back home; there’s no place like home, no matter how much we enjoy visiting. Sylvia had left some dinner for us in the fridge and homemade bread. That was a treat. All in all it was a great time.

visit to Southern California

Leon (Dad, Grandad) and I had a great weekend. My cousin LaMar Williams passed away in California. He is the son of my father’s brother O.C. We had been good friends my first year at BYU and we went to many dances there. For one dance we made a corsage of vanda orchids a bank was giving away at its opening! We kept going back inside until we had enough for the corsage. He then was a missionary in Uruguay and we sang in the mission choir and saw a lot of each other. He married Sonia Auliso, a beautiful young girl from Uruguay and we have enjoyed our relationship all through the years, though we didn’t see each other all that much these past years. He and Sonia lived in Buena Park and then Santa Ana. Sonia worked at the Chicken Restaurant at Knott’s Berry Farm for many years.
Friday, the 25th Leon and I met Mary and Greg at the Wendy’s in Nephi and continued on together to California. We enjoyed traveling together and hearing Greg’s stories, both coming and going. We arrived that evening at Jerry and Caryol’s in Garden Grove after dropping off Mary and Greg in Riverside, their daughter Becky’s home. It was so good to see the Tolmans and Jenae and her kids were there. They had spent the day at Disneyland as it was her birthday. We had a great visit with them.
Saturday morning early we drove out and saw our old home in G.G., Thomas Payne School and La Quinta High School. We then drove on down Brookhurst to the beach and drove along the Pacific Coast Highway to Beach Blvd., turned into the beach entrance and looked at the ocean. We could only spend a few minutes as we then had to drive to the funeral in Santa Ana.
The funeral was very uplifting with both Ronnie and Larry (sons) speaking and grandchildren either singing or playing piano, flute and/or violin. After the funeral we drove to Forest Lawn in Cypress for the burial, then went to the Williams’ home for a nice luncheon. We were able to have nice visits with Christine, Ronnie (Rrronie as Sonia would say) Larry and Patricia (their children). My Williams cousins Myrna and Pam were also there and we had a good visit.
After the funeral we returned to G.G. and Caryol and I attended the Relief Society General Broadcast at the church and had a meal afterwards. I saw Sa Wilson, a great lady we had known when we lived in G.G. and a few other I had known in the past. Sunday we attended church with Jerry and Caryol at the Valley View ward. The Stanford chapel is being remodeled and no meetings are held there right now.
Sunday evening Mitchell and his family came over to visit, also Jerry and his family. Their kids are really growing up. Paul also came by. Jerry and Paul had visited Brazil not long before and Paul saw many of his old friends there. It was nice to see all of them.
Monday morning, early, we drove to La Quinta H.S. Leon wanted to see it so badly. The principal, a woman, was so gracious and took us to the band room, introducing Leon to several teachers telling them he was the first band teacher when the school opened in 1963. One teacher, a Mr. James, was still teaching and remembered Leon. At 7:30 a.m. the orchestra was rehearsing and Leon got to take pictures of them and the band room. The risers have been taken out because the band doesn’t fit with them when they rehearse. The orchestra was quite large too.. He met the music teacher and really enjoyed himself. The school looks very well cared for.
We then drove to Riverside and picked up Greg and Mary and started back to Utah. Dumb me, I had forgotten our Sunday clothes that were hanging in the closet at Tolman’s. We will pick them up when we go see Jenny and Nancy next week. All and all it was a great few days.

Summer of 1996

The summer of July, 1996 was a great one. Mom went to spend some time with either Mary or Carol, I can’t remember whom. Leon and I took off for St. Louis to visit Mark and Sharon. We also visited Rob and Erika in Nashville. Both families’ children have really grown.
We drove to Edenton, North Carolina. Some of my favorite books take place there, they are called the Carolina Series by Inglis Fletcher. Edenton is on the Albemarle Sound where it is joined by the Chowan River. It is a beautiful place.
We then drove to Williamsburg, VA. What a great place to visit. We stayed in a woman’s home that rented rooms. We were just a block away from the historical part. We bought tickets so we could visit inside restored homes but one can just walk all around the place. People dress as they did in colonial times and speak like they did. They had a fife and drum corps play marching down the street. The streets are dirt but there were sidewalks. It was a wonderful place to visit. We attended a concert in the old church one evening. We spent two days there.
We were also able to visit the replica of Jamestown, just five miles away. That is where the colonists first came but moved to Williamsburg some years later as it was not a very healthy place, right on the water. That was another great place to visit. It is built in a triangular stockade with little houses and a church. We saw a bread making demonstration in one of the little houses. Very little light, mostly from the open door. A man was demonstrating firing a musket and others were roofing a house. Just outside the stockade was an Indian village, with Native Americans cooking and showing their lodges and things. So interesting.
Also, near Jamestown, were the three replica ships that brought the settlers. We were able to go on two of them. These ships are represented on Virginia’s coins. They were so small to go crossing the huge Atlantic ocean! I like bigger ships for my sailing.
We then drove to Middletown, PA, where my fifth great grandfather, Gottleib David Ettele, lived. He and another man walked all over Pennsylvania collecting money to build a church. We were able to see the little church, St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, in Middletown. It was built in 1767 but it no longer used for services, just for special occasions. We couldn’t go inside but walked all around it. It is a beautiful little church.
It was a wonderful trip. I enjoyed seeing all those historical places I had read about through the years.

Move to Mt. Pleasant

During our stay in Monument Valley, Syl and Brent bought a reposed home in Mt Pleasant, thinking they would fix it up as a rental. Then they thought that we might like it as our time down south was drawing to a close. We saw the house and it was a MESS! I couldn’t see how we could live in it but Syl and Brent said they could fix it up and really make it nice. So we agreed. Brent’s father, Maurice whom Leon had home taught in California, loaned us the money so we had no down payment and no closing costs. Brent did the bulk of the work with help from his kids and Doug. He did a great job! I picked out colors and suggested some changes and he did it all. That last winter in Monument Valley, Brent had made me a template of the house and I made little models of furniture and spent the time making arrangements in the house.
On the last days of May, 1994, Mark and Brent came down to move us. They had Brent’s large white van and our little luggage trailer. Leon had to stay one more day for graduation so he had the little TV and a mattress. Everything else got taken to Mt. Pleasant. When Leon arrived late the next day, all the furniture was in place and everything looked very homey. Of course, there were tons of boxes in his shop. The house was really beautiful.
Since my Mom was going to be living with us, before she came we went on a long trip to see our kids living out of state. First, we visited Tricia and Alan in Albuquerque, then on to Tennessee to Rob and Erika.. While there we visited Opryland and enjoyed some great country music. Next we went to Columbia, MO to see Alan and Peggy.
On one of the days, Peggy and kids, and Leon and I drove to Hannibal and saw Mark Twain’s childhood home. We had a nice picnic there. On another day, Alan drove us to the town of Fulton where stands a memorial to Churchill. Also a church brought over from London.
Shortly after Mom came to live with us, Mary, Gina, Fred and Carol came to visit and to distribute more of Mom and Dad’s things. It was fun to be with everyone.
Leon started playing in the Utah Valley Symphony again and enjoyed it very much. We would drive in every Wednesday for rehearsals and then the concerts were played on a Wednesday and Thursday nights. Mom and I drove in with Leon for all the rehearsals and attended the concerts. They played in the Provo Tabernacle.
More trips. When in Albuquerque, Tricia and Alan took us on the tram up to the top of Sandia Mountain. Quite a view from up there. Sandia Mountain has special meaning for Leon and me, that’s where he proposed to me back in 1953 when I went with him, and two other girls, to visit his parents.
We then went to St Louis, Creve Couer to be exact, to visit Mark and Sharon. We visited Grant’s Farm, that used to belong to General Grant. They have a farm for Clydesdale horses there. They are beautiful animals. Mark also took us to a museum, the building is the only one left from the fair of 1904, of "Meet Me In St. Louis"movie fame. We also visited the zoo; a really fine one and free!!!
The fourth of July is big in Mt. Pleasant with parades. A children’s parade first then the larger one. For a few years, our family had a band in the parade. A flat bed trailer held the band and we had clarinets, violins, drums, baritone, tuba, trumpet and I don’t remember what else. It was a lot of fun and people enjoyed watching and listening. One year we won the "People’s Choice" trophy.

Life in Monument Valley

Monument Valley is a beautiful place and Hollywood appreciated it too. Many John Wayne films were shot here plus others. From my kitchen window I could see the two monuments called "The Mittens," You expected to see John Wayne and soldiers ride across the skyline. The skies were beautiful and one could see for miles. Leon was the band teacher, the only music offered was band. He enjoyed it. The school had grades 7 through 12 and 98 % Navajo. The only white kids were children of the teachers. The elementary school was in Mexican Hat. It was harder for me as there was not much to do.
Monument Valley consisted of the high school, Goulding’s motel and restaurant, a hospital and a service station with a small convenience store. I helped out at book fairs and would walk to the library to read the Church News. I also went for a lot of walks. To shop for groceries I could either drive to Kayenta, AZ, about 25 miles away or go to Blanding, UT which was about 75 miles away. The store there was larger, also there was a library in Blanding so that was my drive of choice.
We went to church in Mexican Hat, which was 21 miles away. I had five different callings in Mexican Hat. I was a counselor in Relief Society, a teacher in R.S. and chorister in R.S. and SS and Sacrament Meeting. I was also a visiting teacher. Our visits took us on many dirt roads and one never knew if the sister would be home. They, and we, had no phone! We couldn’t get a phone. The Navajo Nation did not want to add more phone lines so every Saturday I would go to the little convenience store and call Sylvia and use a telephone card I had. She would tell me how everyone was doing. Not too satisfactory. We were able to get cable so we could get good T.V. programs. They came from New Mexico or Denver, I can’t remember which; we couldn’t get Salt Lake stations. I did a lot of reading!
Several family members visited us. First, we had my Mom for about two months but it was hard because the pharmacy was over an hour away and our car was a little Toyota pickup. Not too comfortable for three people. We did turn it in and get a station wagon. Fred, Carol and family came, Rob and family, David and family, Tricia and family and Nancy and family. It was always fun to see loved ones. Alan and Mark had seen the area when they drove us down.
One of the favorite places to show visitors was the swinging bridge over the San Juan River. One felt like Indiana Jones going over it. Part of the time there were missing planks in the bridge and one could see right down to the water. After crossing the bridge, after a long walk, one could arrive at the 17 Room Ruins. Indian ruins, cliff houses, and they were so interesting. There would be no one around and one could climb into the ruins. It was like you had discovered them yourself. Sylvia and Brent had discovered this area when they lived in Montezuma Creek and had shown it to us.
We got very well acquainted with the area. We would drive to Cortez and Durango, CO and of course, into Blanding and Monticello in Utah. Many weekends we would drive up to Mt. Pleasant and stay with Syl and Brent. We also spent a summer with them. People needed to get away from Mon. Valley. Nothing going on there! Syl and Brent always made us feel welcome. We also drove to Albuquerque several times to see Tricia and Alan.

Leaving Brazil, Monument Valley

Our last week in Brazil was great. We had already trained the Elders that replaced us so we really didn’t have much to do in the office. Elder and Sister Simmons, who lived next door, took us to a symphonic concert at a lovely auditorium. What was sad was that during intermission, one of the cellists left his instrument leaning against his chair and it got knocked down. The cello broke and you could hear a huge groan from the audience. It was really a horrible thing to happen. That player didn’t return for the second half of the program. Fred took us to a drive-through zoo where we saw lots of animals. That was fun. We had a nice dinner at the mission home with other missionaries who were also being released.
When we arrived at the airport, since it was the middle of December, an orchestra was playing excerpts from "Messiah"! What a send-off!!! It was wonderful to be home in the USA again. We were able to see all of our kids except Tricia and Alan, who had moved to Albuquerque. We spent Christmas with Syl and Brent and then Sylvia drove us to Monticello for Leon to interview for a band director position in Monument Valley. He had taken a leave of absence from the Alpine District but there were no openings at that time. It was a real blessing for him to get that job.
From Southern Utah we drove to Albuquerque to see the Romriells and to pick up the little yellow Toyota pickup they had been using while we were on our mission. We were able to see the site of the new house that was being built for them. Returning, Syl and I rode in her car and Leon drove the pickup.
Alan, with Will, and Mark helped up move to Monument Valley. The small trailer broke down before we got there so we left it with someone and retrieved articles at a later date. We gave the trailer to the man. There wasn’t housing available at the time so all our furniture, etc. was placed on the stage of the auditorium. The boys were so helpful, stayed one night, and then returned home. Leon and I stayed an entire week at Goulding’s Motel, paid for by the school.
After a week, a three-bedroom, two bath trailer arrived for us. It was quite nice and we were happy to be in our own place again.

trip to Matto Grosso do Sul

In November, 1992, Carol’s mother came to visit and Fred and Carol planned to take her with them when they visited the outlying state of Mato Grosso do Sul, that was part of our mission. Since it was close to the time for our leaving, we were invited to go too. We rode in the "Veraneo" the mission van. Of course, Fred did all the driving; he got sick if he was a passenger. Our first stop was in Americana, a city founded by Southerners after the Civil War. The ones who were willing to work were successful, those who weren’t, failed. There still are Southern descendants living in Brazil. We attended a Zone Conference in Campo Grande.
We visited the "Pantanal" which is like the Everglades. Lots of birds and water. We saw an alligator, "Jacaré, and an otter. There were very large white birds called "Tuiuiu (pronounced too-you-you). We also saw parrots, toucans and macaws. We had to take a ferry across the Paraguay River and stayed in the city of Corumbá. We were able to take a river trip on that same river seeing lots of birds and animals. Corumbá is on the border with Bolivia and we were able to cross the border into the city of Puerto Suarez and visit shops there. One of the stalls we visited was run by an LDS couple.
After visiting Corumbá, we visited an Indian tribe. There was a huge ceremonial hut called an "Oga" and we met the Indian chief, wearing only a pair of shorts. The hut was made of reeds or some kind of grass. There were some ceremonial feathers and things on poles but the hut was mostly empty. Leaving the reservation we saw ostriches and tall ant hills in the fields.
We spent the night in the city of Ponta Porâ, on the border with Paraguay. We stayed in a lovely hotel and we had musical entertainment: a harp and guitar and the fellows sang and played Paraguayan music. The next day we crossed the street into the city of Pedro Juan Caballero in Paraguay. We went to a nice shop and met the owner and a very cute Indian girl who waited on us. We took the girl’s picture and the owner wanted us to take hers too, so we did. I had always wanted to visit Paraguay and finally was able to.
Fred received permission for us to go out of our mission and visit the Iguazu Falls or Foz do Iguassu in Portuguese. Iguazu means Big Water in Indian. I had seen many pictures of them from childhood and was finally able to see them for myself. We rode in a boat to a place where there was a walkway built. There had been recent floods and we could see some of the damage along the way. We came to an observation place where we could see the huge fall called the Devil’s Throat. A huge fall with little birds flying through all the mist. There are 275 separate falls of varying size and covering a large area. Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina meet here. The falls are most spectacular and are set in tropical jungles. Really beautiful. When we left the falls we visited a huge hydroelectric dam at Itaipú on the Paraná River, making the largest artificial lake in Brazil. There were 18 huge turbines; quite a sight.
It was a lovely trip, a very nice way to end our time of service. When we got back we had Thanksgiving dinner at the Gallaher’s home, some American LDS members of the branch. All the branch members were present and it was a fun time. He worked for some big company, I can’t remember which, and had a huge, lovely home which was all enclosed with a guard at the front gate. Typical for Sâo Paulo. Fred, Carol and I did some singing as entertainment.

Life in the Mission

Our days were very busy working in the office. Leon working with all financial responsibilities. I kept track of new incoming missionaries, typing up transfers, making doctor appointments for sick missionaries and a lot more. Leon and I had to take new missionaries to the Polícia Federal, the Police Headquarters, to get identity cards; we also picked up new missionaries at the airport or took returning ones there. We took Fred to the airport whenever he had to fly to the other state in our mission where he would attend zone conferences every six weeks.
The mails were not very reliable so all bills had to be paid at different banks. We would go and stand in long lines in order to pay the bills. We also drove to the Clinica Fry, where the missionaries went for doctor appointments, to present the payments for medical attention; a different check for each doctor.
On Saturdays, we would go to the grocery store to do our weekly shopping. There were many checkout stands, it looked sort of like Wal-Mart or Target checkout stands. Occasionally we would go to the outdoor feiras, or markets but not often. They were usually held during the week when we would be in the office.
Our service was tuning pianos. Fred told Leon to bring his piano tuning tools. Most of the chapels had pianos that had not been tuned for years! Since our branch met in the afternoon, we would go Sunday mornings to locate the ward where we would visit during the week for the tuning. Traffic was much lighter on Sunday so it was easier to locate the places. We had a Guia, or guide, which helped us negotiate this large, busy city.
At one time, Leon developed severe pain in his side. He finally went to the hospital and the x-ray showed a kidney stone. The hospital was called Albert Einstein, a Jewish hospital and a very good one. The doctor that attended him had attended John Hopkins in the States. They gave him a relaxant and sent him home. Carol, Fred’s wife who had suffered from many kidney stones, recommended he drink a glass of water every 15 minutes. He did this, all day and night and the stone passed.
Close to the end of our mission, two other couples came to Sâo Paulo. Elder and Sister Fowler (she was a nurse) and Elder and Sister Simmons (he was a doctor and she was Pres. Benson’s niece). They were assigned to the North and South Missions but we lived in the same apartment complex. The Simmons were in the apartment next to us and the Fowlers across the way. It was really nice to have other couples to do things with and to show around.
Towards the end of our mission, the location for our Mission Office changed. We went to a building in the Santo Amaro neighborhood behind the Santo Amaro chapel. Fred had worked on that chapel when he was a young missoionary.. It was a little more cramped as to space and did not have the branch of the bank we used close by. I’m glad most of our mission was spent in the Church Area building next to the Temple and MTC or CTM as they called it.

Death of Dad, short return to U.S.

We had only been in Brazil a few weeks when family called to tell us that my Dad had passed away. He hadn’t been very well when we talked to him just before we left the U.S. Of course, neither Fred nor I could leave the mission field to attend the funeral. Just about all of the extended were able to go to Mesa and support Mom. Elder Richard G. Scott, who had been one of my Dad’s missionaries, spoke at the funeral. My sister Gina told me that he looked right at Mom all the time he was speaking. It was hard not being able to be there. A few days after the funeral, Elder Scott called the mission home, where we were staying with the kids, and wanted to visit with Fred about Dad but he and Carol were out in another state for zone conference but I had a nice visit with him.
In early December, a Monday, I received a call from the Murdock Travel person who takes care of all missionary travels. She told us that Leon and I had tickets to fly to Los Angeles
the next Tuesday evening to get our permanent visas. It had not worked out as earlier thought, to go across the border into another country to get the visas. We would need our copies of birth certificates and marriage license. I immediately went upstairs to the church lawyer’s office to get them but he was out of town! He had no secretary and no one knew where they could be. The Area Authority’s secretary told me to look through all the papers and files I could see but I couldn’t find them. They were not in the file he had for us. Our originals were packed away somewhere in Utah with one of our kids. We couldn’t get the visas without them! I said a quick, heartfelt prayer and the secretary came in and said I should look in a certain pile of papers. I had already gone through it but looked again and THERE THEY WERE! I have never had a prayer answered so quickly and completely before and I was so grateful.
We flew to Los Angeles. The church had rented a car for us and arranged for us to stay at the Los Angeles Temple patrons’ lodging. We went to the Brazilian Consulate and got our visas and now we could wear our missionary name tags. Carol had given us a list of things to buy for her family and we also had a list of things we wanted that were unavailable in Brazil. It was fun shopping at an American grocery store. One evening, I stood outside at a pay phone and called all eight kids collect and got to talk to almost all of them. What fun! We also went one afternoon out to see Mary and her family. We enjoyed being in the States again but were happy to go back to Brazil and continue our mission.
In December, Mom and Gina came to Brazil for about a month-long visit. I’m sure it was a big help for Mom, to have something nice like that to take her mind off her loss. They stayed with Fred and Carol, in the same room Leon and I had used. It was so fun to see them, to show them where we were working and living, and taking them to different meetings.
Close to Christmas, Fred, Carol, Jonathan, Violet, Gina, Mom and I drove to Santos, which is on the coast. Fred had worked there as a missionary and our family had stopped there at various times while traveling on ships to Argentina and Uruguay. It was so great to see the ocean and the hills covered with greenery. There were also the famous wavy sidewalks that are so prominent in Rio de Janeiro but Santos had some too. You could get dizzy staring at them for a long time.
One of the members of the International Branch, the branch we attended, was an American working for some company. He and his wife had bought a beautiful vacation place out in the country. He was Dallas Archibald, and later was called as a General Authority in the 2nd Quorum of Seventy. It was a gorgeous place. So many flowering trees and plants. They had a lake and a swimming pool. It looked like the Garden of Eden. They were very generous and held many branch activities there. For New Years, they had a big branch party but Mom was having problems with her heart so she was in the hospital for the day and I stayed with her. Later, the family went out to the vacation place so I got to see it. It was lovely.

arrival in Brazil, apartment

Since we were traveling on tourist visas, we couldn’t wear our name tags. We arrived in Sâo Paulo early in the morning, before 8:00 a.m. and Fred wasn’t there to meet us!!! Here we were in a foreign country and no way to get to the Mission Office. We tried calling but as it was early in the morning, no one was in the office. Fred finally came; relief! He took us to his apartment, which was on the 17th floor of an 18th floor building. Carol had given us Violet’s room, with twin beds, in which we stayed for several weeks before an apartment was ready for us. Fred, Carol, Lexie, Jonathan and Violet lived in that apartment.
When he took us to the office the missionaries had prepared a big welcome banner for us and made us feel very welcome. My trainer was Elder Brown, who had been the executive secretary and Elder Boyer trained Leon, he was the financial secretary. There were a couple of other missionaries working in the office, the historian and the commissary elder. Leon’s office was rather small and had a huge, old safe in it, where we kept the missionaries’ passports. All passports had to be taken to a Cartório, a notary public, where they were copied and the Elders carried the copies with them at all times. My office was larger and I had a computer and printer. It had an old version of Word Perfect. The keyboard was in Portuguese and so I wrote my friends at UVCC to send me an old template with the commands in English. This really helped a lot.
The mission office was located in a three story building which housed the Area President’s Office as well as the Church Offices and it also had a branch of the Itaú Bank that we used for all the missionaries and office monies. This was on a huge block that held the Temple, a Stake Center and there was also a building used as lodging for visitors to the temple and as the MTC or CTM in Portuguese. We had guards at the entrances to the complex.
After a few weeks, an apartment became available in the Vertentes apartment complex across the street from the church block. There were about eight tall buildings, four on each side of a little plaza. We were in building Lambari apt. 51. Several apartments in the complex had been purchased by the Church for temple workers but there were not anymore American temple couples so these apartments were available for us and later for some other missionary couples.
We had two bedrooms, a bathroom with different shades of dark blue for the sink and toilet; also the tile on the walls was turquoise. Very colorful. The kitchen had a marble counter. No hot water; it had to be heated for dishes. We had a washer and dryer which I appreciated but I had to wash with cold water the whole time we were there. My stove used a propane tank and was quite small, it looked like it belonged in a doll house. We also had a refrigerator. There was another bedroom and small bath (which we never used) which would have been the maid’s quarters. We had a large water bottle which we kept filled at the temple complex where a well of pure water was located. The apartment was like low class student housing but we were happy to be in it. All fresh vegetables had to be soaked in a special solution before we could eat them.
We did have hot water for showering. Every night, when we got back from the office, we would turn on the fuse that the water heater for the shower used so I had hot water for my nightly shower. We would turn it off when we went to bed and by morning the water was still hot enough for Leon to shower. We didn’t dare leave it turned on all day, the water just kept getting hotter and hotter and we were afraid it would explode!

Richard's birth, Doug deployment, call to Brazil

On the 5th of October, 1990, Mark Richard was born to Mark and Sharon three months early. He only weighed 2 lbs ½ oz!!! He was so small! He was in the hospital for quite a long time. Leon and I were allowed to see him a few times. He was finally permitted to return home but was on oxygen. I took a special class so I would know how to care for him while Mark and Sharon attended her sister Carlene’s wedding.
In December Doug, our marine, was activated to go to Okinawa. His group went to relieve other marines who were sent to Iraq for Desert Storm. The family got together to take a family picture. We hadn’t had one for a long time and everyone was present! Sharon’s Dad, Spencer Rigby, who lived across the street, took the picture.
My brother Fred was called to be Mission President of a new mission in Sâo Paulo, Brazil. He was to be set apart by Elder Richard G. Scott, of the Twelve. He had been a missionary under my Dad. Fred invited Leon and me to be present but when we got to the MTC, Elder Scott thought it best to wait a week or so when my Dad could be present. Carol was scheduled to give a concert in the Assembly Hall and the folks were coming up for that. David accompanied on of Carol’s numbers on the violin.
Fred invited us both to visit with him in the lobby of the MTC. He said he had found out that mission presidents could suggest couples to come and serve in their missions. He and Carol had prayed about it and he felt Leon and I should come and be office missionaries! I though we should go home and pray about it but Leon said that we had made covenants in the Temple and, of course, we would go! He was teaching summer band and I was working at UVCC. This was the 18th of June and the next Portuguese class would begin July 3rd at the MTC. I quit work and Tricia and Alan, and others started working on our house to get it ready to sell. We couldn’t go without selling it and paying off debts. The 3rd of July was supposed to be Leon’s last day of summer band but the other band teacher took his classes. We were able to be with Fred and Carol when they were set apart by Elder Scott and our parents were also present.
All the arrangements for our call were conducted over the telephone. We didn’t get our official missionary call letter until we had been in the MTC for three weeks! We lived at Tricia’s for three weeks and three weeks at David’s. We had classes morning, afternoon and evening. At night, after the last class, we worked on the house. Two of our teachers were returned missionaries from Brazil and the other was a girl from Portugal. Her accent was different from the two young men. We enjoyed our classes and the firesides and devotionals very much. As we studied Portuguese, all the Spanish Leon had studied in high school came out of his mouth when he wanted Portuguese. There was one other couple in our class; they were going to Recife, Brazil. They had lived in Brazil before. He was a Texan and spoke Portuguese with a Texan accent!
We finished our six weeks in the MTC but our visas had not come. They finally decided to send us down to Brazil on tourist visas and thought we could go into a country on the border of Brazil and get our permanent visas there. Two more weeks had passed before we were finally ready to go. We had a great family picnic in Provo before we left. We gave Tricia our power of attorney to take care of all our bills, sale of house, etc. She did a magnificent job of it all the time we were gone

Kansas and Denver

After leaving Nauvoo, we drove by where Dean Morris lived. He had about 180 acres and local farmers farm it and give half of the crop, hay and field corn, to Dean. There is a nice two-bedroom home with two creeks running through the property. Strawberries and blackberries grow in the woods. It looked like a fun place for kids to enjoy.
We next drove to Miltonvale, KS, where Grandpa Honey was born. A very small town! We visited the little historical society in Clyde, KS, where Barsuma had lived and saw mention of the Honeys. The two towns are only about 20 miles apart. Incidentally, Barsuma is the one who named the town of Clyde.
On to Denver, CO, arriving in the afternoon. After checking into our motel, we drove to the Molly Brown house. It was 3:55 p.m. and found it closed at 4:00 p.m. The last tour had just started and, after Leon had talked to the people, they let us join the tour and didn’t charge us a fee!
We found out many things about Molly. First, her name was Maggie, not Molly, and she was not an orphan but had 10 brothers and sisters and was born in Hannibal, MO. She and a brother came out to Leadville where she married J.J. Brown. After he struck it rich they moved to Denver. The city welcomed them and she gave parties for up to 800 people though her husband did not like society. Only the sacred 32, the old money, did not welcome her, new money. Their house was very modern for their times. Molly spent much of her time in Europe and learned six languages. Her children, a boy and a girl, were educated in Europe.
One time, while she was in Europe, she got word that a grandchild was very sick so she booked passage home. The Astors persuaded her to change her ticket to the Titanic, costing $5,000, as they thought it would get her to America sooner. She was instrumental in calming people in her lifeboat and in getting the wimpy sailor assigned to it to function. She nursed people on the ship that rescued them for three days and told reporters that the Browns were unsinkable, that’s where she got the nickname. The sacred 32 invited her to lunch after that but still didn’t invite her to play bridge. She and her husband separated and never did get together again. Hollywood really changed a lot of things about her life!
We had dinner at the Casa Bonita. I had heard about this place for a long time. It has a pink and gold leaf tower on the outside and going inside is like going to Disneyland with the winding lines to get tickets. We wound around quite a bit then paid for the dinner, a little expensive, more winding around then got to the place where the dinners are shot out of the kitchen onto a counter and a fellow, with hot pads, plunks the dishes on your tray. The food was nothing special, but the atmosphere was great. A grotto with trees and pool where divers dive into the pool, strolling mariachis, gun fights, puppet and magic shows. You felt you were in a Mexican market. Kids would love it but all two years old and older have to buy a dinner.
We saw beautiful scenery out of Denver in the Rocky Mountains. We stopped at the Dinosaur Museum outside of Vernal. Leon had always wanted to go there and it was very impressive; more than I thought it would be. A bank of rock, with the bones that have been uncovered sticking out of it, is enclosed in a building for protection. The displays were very informative and everything done very nicely.
We stopped a few minutes to see Lou and Lucy in Duchesne. They are fun people to visit and Lucy gave me a large copper tray she brought back from Belgrade. It is very beautiful. She certainly has given me many lovely things.
We got home in the evening and it was great to be back. We had had a wonderful 18 days, being with family and then seeing so many great things.

Kentucky and Nauvoo

Wednesday, 15August, 1990. We left Nashville and drove into Kentucky and found it even more beautiful than Tennessee; thicker woods. We visited Ft. Boonesborough. It is a replica of the fort where Daniel Boone and others lived. It was very well done. The backs of the cabins are part of the stockade wall. There were demonstrations of frontier crafts such as soap making, weaving, spinning, quilt making, pottery, candle dipping, toy making, basketry, etc.
We drove through more beautiful country with big estates, horse paddocks, and wooded areas. We visited "My Old Kentucky Home", a lovely home belonging to a cousin of Stephen Foster. A visit to the home inspired him to write the song. His uncle, Judge Rowan had built the home and his son had inherited it. We enjoyed visiting it very much.
On Friday, we visited Carthage Jail. The grounds were beautiful with lovely flowers. We saw the rooms of the jail; the jailor’s quarters and rooms for confining prisoners. We learned that Joseph Smith and the others had been taken to the jailor’s bedroom and were in that room when killed. We then drove along the Mississippi River and stopped and ate our lunch overlooking that great river.
In Nauvoo, we drove to the Visitor’s Center. Nauvoo is such a beautiful place; the flowers were spectacular. It is the same gardener that does them and at Carthage. We were told many people come for the flowers alone. The temple site gave me a sad feeling to think of its destruction.
We stayed in a nice motel and Leon rested while I went to visit more of Nauvoo. It was very hot and humid, in the 90s and 85% humidity! I parked the car in the shade of some large trees and it was not too bad. I visited the brick yard and learned about making bricks. I was given a small brick with "Nauvoo" on it. I was the only one in the audience and so had the tours to myself in most of the places. I saw Heber C. Kimball home, and the Noble-Smith home, where Lucy Mack Smith had lived for a time. Also the bakery and tinsmith shop. The missionary couples are so friendly and helpful. There are about 50 of them and one sister said she called this mission their "Chocolate Cake" mission.
Leon felt more rested so we went to see more things. The blacksmith and wheelwright demonstrations were outstanding. The Brother was a retired dentist and what made it extra special was that his great-grandfather was one of the four brothers who had originally built the blacksmith shop. We also saw rope making, barrel making and typesetting. All so very interesting.
We ate dinner at the Nauvoo Hotel; it had been a private home built in 1841. They would not take credit cards, only cash and personal checks. Even out-of-state checks!
We attended a musical presentation at the Cultural Hall called Memories of Nauvoo. A few young elders and sister missionaries plus older couples put it on and it was delightful. There was singing and a little dancing and sketches. I was impressed with all the couples had to learn, not only their presentations during the day but their lines and songs in the evening.
The red-brick homes, trimmed in white, are two-story, federal style and very elegant. They were very lovely; how hard it must have been to leave their homes again. The lots were four-acre lots and most of them are now in grass with a restored house here and there. We didn’t have time to see the ones belonging to the RLDS which includes the Mansion House, but we did drive by and see it.

Laura I. Wilder and Nashville

On Wednesday, August 8, we missed the turn off up to Columbus, NM, on our way back to the U.S. It was not marked well so we went on to Ciudad Juarez, an extra 45 minutes in Mexico but not out of the way for us. It was very nerve-wracking driving in Cd. Juarez but finally found the bridge and got back into the good USA. Our insurance had expired about 30 minutes before we left Mexico but I didn’t mention it to Leon until we had crossed the border. I think I’d rather visit Mexico on a tour and leave the driving and worries to others.
We drove through El Paso, Las Cruces, and Alamogordo. Just before Alamogordo we stopped at the White Sands National Monument and went through the Visitor’s Center. The sands are really white, mostly made of gypsum, very pretty. The usual sand we know is made up of quartz. I learned that sand is a name given to small particles and it can be made up of shells, volcanic rock, gypsum and/or quartz.
We went through Ruidoso, very pretty country, through pines. We saw ENMU , in Portales, NM, the university Leon attended as a freshman. Only two buildings were familiar to Leon; it was a pretty campus. We spent the night in Clovis, NM.
Thursday, we drove through Amarillo, Oklahoma City to Tulsa. On Friday, we drove to Wayside, KS, to the site of the "Little House on the Prairie". The site has been identified and a cabin, a replica of the original erected. It is so small but delightful. Trees grow there now but there were none in Laura’s day. An old school house and post office have been brought in nearby in which souvenirs are sold.
We next drove past Springfield, MO to Mansfield, whre Laura and Almanzo lived all their married lives expect for the first four years. It is a large white house that was built in stages, with all the original furnishings. Laura was under five feet in height so Almanzo built everything in the kitchen specially for her. At one time she had the most modern kitchen in the Ozarks, she had hot and cold running water! She loved windows and didn’t like curtains to block the view. She called the view her living pictures. Almanzo built a library in the corner of the living room for her. A museum is built next to the house and has many pictures and articles belonging to the family, also Rose, their daughter. The country is rolling, wooded hills; very pretty.
Saturday, we arrived in Nashville and found Rob and Erika’s place without any trouble. Their duplex is very nice painted rose and white which harmonizes with their furnishings. Rachel had grown so much. She is a darling little girl but a little leery of strangers. She did hold my hand by evening. Erika made us feel very welcome, even let us sleep on their water bed. Rob is on tour with Donnie and Marie Osmond and won’t get back until Monday some time. It was great to use a washer and dryer after a week on the road. I called my parents and found out they arrived back home safely though very tired.
Sunday we attended church with Erika. a nice friendly ward. The speakers in Sacrament Meeting were the young Bishop’s in-laws, Boyd Jarman and wife. He was a big BYU basket ball star when I went to school; now he is a patriarch.
Monday Erika took us to visit the Hermitage, Andrew Jackson’s home. The grounds are beautiful, like a park, and the home was lovely. I bought a small thistle pattern glass bowl, which I was told, is a very old design. Eleanor Roosevelt collected thistle glass. We drove to a park to see a replica of the Parthenon. It was built for their centennial celebration sometime in the 1880s or 90s of wood. It was scheduled to be torn down at the end of the celebration but the citizens liked it too much. It was redone in stone. We weren’t able to go inside; it was closed on Mondays.
Leon and I bought an inflatable mattress; we don’t do too well on water beds. We slept better on it.
Rob got back about 7 p.m. and Erika picked him up while Leon and I took care of Rachel. She let me hold her while her mother was gone. She really is a darling. It was so good to see him.
On Tuesday, we went sightseeing in downtown Nashville. We went to the Tennessee State Museum which was very nicely set up. It was not crowded and things were displayed very well. We saw examples of or replicas of a water wheel, a couple traveling through the wilderness, log cabin, etc.. There was a beautiful collection of silver made from coins, also a civil war exhibit.
He also took us to see the Opryland Hotel. What a place! It is a huge hotel complex and within it there are two very, very big atriums with waterfalls, fountains, trees, rocks, plants, flowers, etc. One would have to see it to believe it. There was a dancing waters show with a very showy harp placer. We stayed for part of it. The place is well worth seeing!
We really enjoyed our visit with the kids, it was good to see them and see where they live.

1989-90, Trip to Mexico

January 20, 1989 was Rob and Erika’s wedding day. A beautiful, but snowy and foggy day. They were sealed in the River Jordan Temple by my Dad. We were happy to welcome another daughter to the family.
Laurisa Romriell was born just a month later. We now have 18 grandchildren. Jenny, David, James, Ryan, Chris, Becky, Melissa, Alicia, Salem, Daniel, Tannie, Trent, Russell, Alex, Laurisa, Lauren, Sam, and Michelle. All great kids!
In June, Nancy was married to Jeff Wise. Two great kids came from that marriage, Ashley and Tanner, though it was not a happy time for Nancy. It ended in divorce a few years later.
Also in 1989 we had a Honey reunion. Bill and Kathy, Joan and families came and it was nice to be together. Leon prepared a booklet with pictures and stories of Bill and Leona for all the family.
March 23, 1990 was Mark and Sharon’s wedding day in the Salt Lake Temple. Dad was able to seal them; so special to have my Dad officiating. They had known each other ever since we moved to Utah, in 1977. Sharon lived right across the street from us. All of our children are now married.
In August, 1990, my Mom and Dad and all their kids took a trip to the colonies in Mexico. Dad had never been back since leaving Colonia Dublan where he was born. He was a toddler when he left. Gina and Keith; Fred, Carol, young Fred, Warren and Lexie; Mary and Rachel; and Leon and I made up the group. We took three cars.
We spent Sunday evening singing lots of songs, many of them having to do with Mexico. The next morning we drove to Tucson and found the old Mormon Cemetery in Binghamton, now a suburb of Tucson. We located my grandfather’s grave, Frederick Granger Williams, the 2nd though he didn’t go by 2nd. He died when my Dad was a young boy. We visited the granite monument to the Mormon Battalion in a park in Tucson. My folks were instrumental in organizing the dedication of the monument in 1937.
We drove to Columbus, NM on the border with Mexico. Leon filled up our car with gas a one pump and Keith and Mary filled up at another one. Then their cars wouldn’t work! We found out that diesel fuel had been mixed with the gas. After much hassle, the owner was contacted and he had the tanks cleaned out and filled with gas; no charge. By now it was late at night so we spent the night in Deming, 34 miles north.
Tuesday, Mary, Leon and I obtained Mexican insurance for our cars; Keith and Gina had obtained theirs earlier in Mesa. We drove to the border and had to wait for the Mexican border attendant to finish his lunch, then we were able to proceed on our way.
It was a slow 90 miles to Colonia Dublan, now part of Nuevo Casas Grandes. Roads were good in the country but terrible in the towns we passed through. Big chuck holes and unmarked large speed bumps.
We stayed at Motel Hacienda, formerly a Ramada Inn. It was built Spanish style around a large grassy patio with a swimming pool in one of the corners. Large trees and flowers made it a very pretty place. We ate lunch in the banquet room, very private and nice. It was fun being all together. Most of us spoke Spanish so we talked to the waiters and other hotel people.
Afterwards, we got into the cars and located some landmarks Fred had investigated. We located the corner where Nancy Abigail Clement Williams, my grandmother had lived, and where the blacksmith shop was located.
Dublan was much prettier than expected. Most homes looked like they had been transported straight from Utah. All the roads were dirt except the main one. The church block looked very prosperous, enclosed with a fence and a sidewalk. There were many trees and flowers. We met Fletcher Memmot, who had been a missionary in Argentina during WW II. He told us how to get to Colonia Juarez and the Academy. That night, he and his wife and two daughters visited us and brought maps, pictures and lovely peaches.
We drove to Colonia Juarez, about 8 miles from Colonia Dublan and saw all the beautiful orchards. We saw the Academy building, built in 1904. There are about 400 students, 80% LDS; a bishop’s recommend is needed and there is a long waiting list.
We drove back to Dublan before dark; it is not good to be out on the roads at night. The little Mexican towns are very poor and dirty but where the Mormons settled, the places are clean and neat.
Wednesday, Leon and I had to leave as we had planned on going east to visit Rob and Erika in Tennessee. The others stayed another day, locating the place outside of town where Dad was born. It was very special to have this trip with my parents, brother and sisters, and other family members.

1986-88

After we returned from our fabulous trip to Europe, we were able to get a new roof. With help from Brent, Doug, and I can’t remember who else, we got the job done, just before a rainstorm.
Doug had been attending Utah Valley Community College and had enrolled in an art class, or something like that, and the teacher planned a trip to Europe. Doug got to go and had a great time. The most important part of that trip was that he met Julie, also a student at UVCC. They hit it off really well and became engaged; either on the trip or shortly after returning home. They were married December 5, 1986 and the sealing was performed by my Dad.
In April of 1987, David received his PHD from UC Berkely. We were able to travel and witness this. We were really proud of him and his accomplishments.
Mark received his mission call to Des Moines, IA late that summer and in the fall, entered the MTC. Our last son to fill a mission. Many family members went to the MTC to see him off.
We had five young men from our ward enter the MTC that fall; one after the other gave their farewell talks, a week apart in Sacrament Meeting.
In a weak moment, we signed up to buy two lots in Aspen Hills; between Fairview and Mt. Pleasant. There was a stream with a waterfall and it was fun to go there for picnics. We parked the Dragin’ Wagon and the camper shell there. Many family members enjoyed visits and a few camped over night. We always thought we would build a cabin but it was not to be. Some vandals stole the metal supports on the camper shell and a bad winter snow caved in the Dragin’ Wagon so we cleaned up the lots. Eventually we sold the lots.
December brought another performance of Messiah. Leon was the conductor and Tricia and I sang in the Chorus. It was always a lot of fun to sing that great music.
My boss, Roger Plothow, had me, another secretary, himself, and the college president, attend a conference in Washington, D.C. Besides attending the meetings, I was able to visit the Smithsonian Museums, Ford’s Theater, The Washington Monument, Lincoln’s Memorial, Mt. Vernon, Arlington Cemetery, saw the Declaration of Independence and visited the White House. There were many more things we saw. It was a great time. One could purchase a ticket, ride a little bus around, get off and on again and continue seeing our capital. I’ll always be grateful to Roger for the nice trips I was able to take.
I was able to visit Washington D.C. another time; this time just Roger, someone else, and I went. After the conference, he said he wanted to visit the National Museum of Art with me. We would go into a room. He would sit on a bench while I walked around looking at the paintings, then we would go into another room and he would sit again and I would look. I got a kick out this. It was in Washington D.C. that I first tasted Key Lime Pie. It has been a favorite ever since.
In 1988, my Dad celebrated his 80th birthday and we had a big celebration in Mesa. Most of the family were there except Mark and Shane Morris; they were serving their missions. We had lots of singing and playing. We sang the grandkids’ songs and wedding songs that Mom wrote, plus her sacred ones. I was wonderful to be with the extended family and Mom and Dad

KS, TX & AZ trip

I’ve been asked to write about our great 2 ½ weeks trip that we just took. All together it was a marvelous time. The main purpose was to witness Laurisa’s wedding, see Tricia and Alan, plus visiting Alan and Peggy and my sister Gina and her husband John.
We left on Thursday, April 30. We drove to Denver, CO, enjoying the beautiful scenery which reminded us of our mission in Woodland Park, CO. The pine trees were so beautiful. The next day we drove to Manhattan, KS, and arrived at Alan and Peggy’s new house. It is right across from the other one they had rented. This is a much nicer one; it has a basement family room plus a bedroom and bath for Will and upstairs, three more bedrooms and a bathroom. The living room is large, reminiscent of their living room in their old Provo home. We enjoyed our time with them. Alan and Peggy graciously gave up their bed to us; so kind of them. We weren’t able to see Lauren and Ross because they were visiting in Houston, TX. We went to church with them and enjoyed their Gospel Doctrine teacher very much. He was an LDS Chaplain at Ft. Riley.
Monday, May 4 (my mother’s birthday) we drove to Oklahoma City to spend the night. We saw signs advertising a Cowboy Museum. It was located fairly close to our motel so we thought we would check it out. It was a great place to visit and we only saw part of it. There was a huge room in which they had built a frontier town. It had a saloon, blacksmith shop, stables, hotel, newspaper office, doctor’s office, and a mercantile store. It was most interesting. They also had galleries with lovely paintings and many bronzes by Remington and Russell. They also had cowboy movie memorabilia. They showed little excerpts of cowboy movies, from silent film days to the present. They also had a huge room with pictures and items from cowboy movie stars from silent films to today. John Wayne had a huge selection. There were pictures of John Wayne, Roy Rogers, Tom Mix, Tom Selleck, Glen Ford, Walter Brennan, Gene Autry, and so many more with saddles, boots, gloves and other items. It was a worthwhile place to visit.
As we were about to leave, I got a call on my little cell phone. It was Lauren! She had called her Dad and he asked her where she was. When she replied she was in Oklahoma City, he told her that we were there and gave her my cell phone number. It was great to hear from her.. We told her where our motel was and they came by. It was fun to see her, Ross and little Ethan. What a darling little boy, so smiley and happy. We walked across the motel parking lot to a Waffle House and had supper together. I’m so glad we were able to see them since we didn’t get to in Manhattan.
Tuesday, May 5, we drove on down to Austin, TX. It is always great to get to Tricia and Alan’s house. We have our own room with our own bathroom. Wednesday, May 6th, we went to the San Antonio Temple for Laurisa to take out her endowments. David, her fiancé, his parents and brother Daniel (who looks a lot like David and who is leaving for Argentina to serve his mission very soon) and Tannie and Jillian and I can’t remember who else was there. The temple is very beautiful with lots of stained glass and beautiful murals in the endowment room.
Thursday, the 7th, Leon had to buy a new camera as the old one just quit. We went to Target and got a nice one. Alan arrived that evening to photograph the wedding. Friday, the 8th, the Christoffersons came and spent the night, along with their daughter and baby. Laurisa also had a friend from BYU there. Laurisa, friend, Alex, and Daniel, David’s brother, all slept on couches. Tricia’s house lends itself to housing many people. David slept at Russell’s house.
Saturday the 9th, quite early, we all left for the temple. It takes about 1 hour and 10 minutes for the trip. Elder Christofferson, of the Quorum of the Twelve and David’s uncle, performed the sealing. It was very special. Tannie and Dan, Trent and Cinthya, Russell and Jillian, Alex and his fianceé Rachel, Alan’s sister Janna and husband, Ryan and Leslie Barlow,
David’s parents, brother and sister, were all there. Tricia had arranged for babysitters to watch all the little ones while we were in the temple. James and Lonna Barlow had planned on being there but Gwen pinched her finger in the car door and they had to take her to the E.R. She was o.k. And they joined us at the restaurant. Alan took lots of pictures and it was fun watching him work and his patter. After the sealing we all went to an Italian restaurant for a nice meal.
Tricia had lots of friends to help with decorating and serving for the reception. The whole driveway had small white poles with white tulle lining the driveway with luminarias also lighting the way. Some young boys had the fun job of keeping the little candles lighted in the paper sacks. There was a dance floor with lights overhead, also more lights where the arch and wedding line stood. The tables were beautifully decorated as were also the backs of the chairs. A string quartet, Tricia’s friends, played for an hour; very enjoyable. There was also a DJ with more music. It was a very lovely affair.
Sunday morning, David and Laurisa came and opened gifts. Leon and I watched for a while and then Alex, Rachel, Leon and I went to Sacrament Meeting. People started leaving Sunday: Alan, all the Christoffersons, and Laurisa’s friend. It was nice to have it quiet again.
Monday, the 11th, Tricia, Alan, Leon and I drove to Corpus Christi for a mini vacation. We visited the USS Lexington, an aircraft carrier. They are always fun to visit and so huge! We found a good Mexican restaurant, then dropped Leon off at the motel and Tricia, Alan and I drove out on Padre Island. We walked down to the beach and waded in the Gulf of Mexico. The water was warm and it was a lovely experience. I really miss the beach, living in Utah, so this was special.
The next morning we drove along the shore, seeing the Gulf on one side and lovely homes on the other. We then went to a great museum. They have the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria; full-sized replicas of Columbus’s ships. They were built by the Spanish government in 1992 to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the sailing to America. The ships had sailed around the world and finally wound up in Corpus Christi. The Niña is floating by a pier but the other two are in dry dock. We were able to go aboard the Pinta. They are so small to sail across the large ocean! We were told that at one time the Pinta and Santa Maria were in the water and a barge ran into them causing damage. Spain still owned the ships at that time and they had to have people from Spain come and repair them.
Wednesday the 13th was a quiet day with Tricia getting her house back in order. She and I sat in the spa for a while; the pool was still a little cold for me. We always enjoy being at their home.
Thursday, 14th we drove to Van Horn, TX and spent the night and drove next morning to Mesa, AZ to visit Gina and John. They have a lovely condo and are very hospitable. Saturday, They drove us to Phoenix to visit Bill Farnsworth, an old missionary friend from Uruguay. He had been the first mission secretary. He and his wife Ella are special people and it was great to visit with them. They have lived all over the world; he was an executive in a large bank. They lived in Uruguay, Brazil, London, California and I don’t know where else. He was from the Colonies in Mexico.
That afternoon, we were able to go visit Robyn, Rob, and their family. They have a nice home with a pool. She is a ball of fire, so fun to visit with. They plan on going back to live in Hawaii in a few years.
Sunday, we went to the Spanish Ward, as Gina and John are assigned there to help out. It was nice to hear Spanish spoken. Gina wasn’t feeling to well, so we left after Sacrament Meeting. She felt better in the afternoon so we went and visited Melanie and Boyd. They also have a lovely home. It was good to visit them and hear about their lodge in Heber, AZ. also about their kids. That evening we drove to Phoenix and visited Kevin and Marian. Also a lovely home. Their kids are great and we enjoyed visiting with all of them. Erica and Andrea both had spent time at the Jerusalem Center and we had fun talking about places we all had visited. Erica has graduated from BYU and is working in a law office; not her father’s. Andrea is still going to school at BYU and Kyle is a junior in high school.
Monday, we started home, planning on stopping on the way to spend the night but we kept right on going. We were ready to be home. Leon had been very good about stopping frequently and walking for his leg so I don’t think he had any problems with it. It is lovely to be home in our own bed.

Rome!

We next drove to Rome! How exciting to visit that city. We unloaded our luggage and then dropped off the car. We then walked back. We walked all the rest of the time in Rome and saw so many wonderful. Our bed and breakfast place was on Via Cavour, the same street as the church that has the statue of Moses by Michelangelo. The one with the horns. It was very plain inside but loved seeing that statue.
Our room overlooked the street and that was so entertaining. Cars were parked every which way, double parked, triple parked and even on the sidewalk. at right angles, or at any angle, to the curb. People would walk down the middle of the street, two and three abreast, ignoring traffic. Our room has a shower in the corner with the toilet down the hall.
We saw the Spanish Steps but I was disappointed. Pictures always show them with flowers and clean. There were no flowers, it was dirty and tons of people. We walked across town along the Tiber river and saw Castello de Sant Angelo of Tosca fame (she jumped from it at the end of the opera); it was built as Emperor Hadrian’s Mausoleum. We then walked to St. Peter’s Square. Pictures can’t do it justice, it is huge!!! Inside the Basilica is truly beautiful, also huge. Lots of beautiful marble, gold, paintings and statues. We were able to see the "Pieta", just beautiful.
Walking back to the hotel we would look down in a vacant lot and see Roman ruins below ground level. We saw the huge white monument to Victor Emmanuel II "Altare della Patria" It looks like a big wedding cake.
Next day we visited the church "St. Peter in Chains" built to house the chains that bound St. Peter. It is famous for the tomb of Pope Julian II for whom Michelangelo did so much work. We then walked to the Colosseum. What a thrill to see and walk about it. We paid the extra fee and went up higher. I saw a little piece of brick and picked it up as a memento. What things occurred here years ago: duels, battles, hurts, etc. We truly enjoyed this. We walked to the Trevi Fountain in a drizzle. It was bigger than I had thought and so beautiful. I was surprised to see that it is surrounded by buildings and not in a big open space. We went to the Pantheon but it had closed about 45 minutes earlier. We had wanted to go to the Forum but with the rain coming down and having seen a lot of other ruins along the streets we didn’t feel too disappointed, just a little.
Bus tickets are sold in the tobacco shops so we bought two for in the morning. We thought it might be too far to walk to the train station with all our luggage. We really don’t have that much: two small suitcases, a garment bag and a carry-on bag.
The next morning our landlady gave us an early breakfast at 7:30 a.m. consisting of bread, butter, jam and grapefruit juice. We caught the bus about 7:50 a.m. arriving at the train station around 8:00 a.m. It took a long time to find where to buy tickets to get to the airport. The tickets cost L5,000 each and I now only have L4,000 left; everything worked out just right. It took about 45 minutes to get to the Leonardo da Vinci airport. There were guards with submachine guns patrolling and occasionally stopping and looking into luggage if you are Arabic. We were not stopped. It was a nice big airport. We boarded the plane about 10:30 a.m.
We enjoyed seeing the Cape Cod Hook from the air as we flew into Kennedy Airport in New York. It was great understanding every one. We had a few hour wait but customs did not check our luggage. We went all through Europe and back into the U.S. and no one checked the luggage; that really surprised me. Tricia and Rob met us at the SLC airport about 10:00 p.m. It was good to see them and be back but we had had a marvelous time, an unforgetable time, for which we are very grateful. It has been a wonderful 20 days and we still can’t quite believe all we’ve seen and that our kids made it possible.

Padova, Venice and Florence

Sunday, June 15, my 55th birthday and we celebrated by going to Venice! It was a bright, sunny day, the first sun we had seen on our trip; all the other days were cloudy. We walked to the train station, bought our tickets and traveled to Venice; no one checked our tickets. We took a Vaporetto, a boat which was like a bus, and got off near the Piazza San Marcos. People!! And Pigeons!!! We went inside the church of San Marcos, very ornate; mass was going on. We heard the bells pounded by two bronze Moor statues at noon. We saw the Bridge of Sighs and took pictures.
We walked along the Piazza and found a Wendy’s. Good bathroom stop and we enjoyed the food. We walked all the way back to the train station. Venice is truly a rabbit warren; very narrow streets, some tunnels. Luckily there were signs pointing the way to the station. It was just a maze, no straight streets and lots of little bridges going over small canals. We took the train back to Padova and again no one asked to see our tickets. We really enjoyed seeing Venice.
The next day, we tried to get out of Padova and got turned around again, then we saw signs leading out of the city towards Bologna. What a relief! South of Bologna the country consists of tall hills covered in green with houses or churches on top of the hills. We got off the freeway at the right place for Florence and had signs leading to the R.R. station where we could book a room. It was only two blocks away. A very dingy doorway and up two flights of dirty stairs. I wondered what I had gotten us into. We had a nice surprise. The room was clean with freshly painted walls, sparkling fixtures but no towels or soap. The only drawback was a noisy street.
We walked to the Duomo, the big church, the most beautiful outside of all the cathedrals we’ve seen. Pink, green and white marble. White flowers with pink centers, all made of marble, is the design on part of the cathedral. It is rather plain on the inside but vast and light. It was built in 1299. We saw the older Baptistry with Ghiberti doors, very beautiful. We walked to the Piazza di Poppolo where Michelangelo’s David was displayed. The one there now is a copy, the original is in the museum which was closed on Mondays. We walked on the Ponte Vecchio, the old medieval bridge with houses (shops) on either side. A great city to visit.
Coming back to our room we saw where a car had parked in a crosswalk and a bus couldn’t turn the corner. Lots of honking and shouting. A supervisor came and the bus backed up a little, then made the corner going over the curb. Such narrow streets. A policeman was called and the driver got his car. I don’t know if he got a ticket but he deserved one. Lots of motorcycles, motorbikes and bicycles.
The next day we drove to the city of Siena, still lots of beautiful, green hills. We drove into the city through Ponte Tufi, drove through the old medieval city, parked the car at the Duomo and walked to Il Campo,a large, open square where they hold the Palio, the famous horse races. I’m glad Alan suggested we visit Siena.