Our VERY Last Week In The PPM

Monday morning we were privileged to have Elder David F. Evans  of the 1st Quorum of the 70 and head of the missionary department and Elder Allen of the 3rd Quorum of the 70 here for a mission-wide conference.  It was wonderful.  It lasted just about 4 hours.  Both of them had lapel mics and wandered among the missionaries, so if was quite informal and personal.  They greeted each missionary before the meeting.  I got to ask Elder Evans if he descended through my relative, Bishop David Evans of Lehi and he does not--but he said he gets asked that all of the time.  Since we were among the test missions for I-pads and Facebook we got this special opportunity to hear from these brethren.  The whole conference was about being in the world and not of the world and using technology responsibly.  It was very good.  The brethren feel that if we can teach these young adults to use technology responsibly and how to avoid the trap of pornography and other inappropriate related technologies that we will have an outstanding missionary force and a wonderful group of upcoming church leaders.  It was wonderful to bid good-bye to so many missionaries that we love. We got our picture taken dozens of times.  The day was very emotional.  The very best part was our WHOLE mission singing the mission song.  It was so powerful and brought me to tears with gratitude for being here and realizing the strength of this mission.  

 Evan and Darlene Wilson are from Veyo and if you remember, Corry and Evan played football together at Dixie.  We play games at their house each Friday night and will dearly miss them.  We will, however, take up the game playing with them when they return home in December.  They are CES missionaries who teach institute and Pathways.

 This picture is us with Elder and Sister Ballard from the Logan area.  We have served with them in the office for the last 9 months and they live in the same apartment building as we do.

This is Wendy and Greg Rose from Blackfoot, ID.  They are our replacements.  We have been training them for 7 days and both Corry and I feel that they are ready to go solo!  They will be just awesome.

Friday was our absolutely last day and there was another leadership training meeting, so we had to again say goodbye to missionaries.  One of the elders just asked me if he could hug me and from then on I just hugged them all.  I love these kids!  We love these kids!  We will miss the PPM, but feel so very grateful for the wonderful 18 months we got to spend here.