The week started by taking our sisters to a doctor's appointment in Pleasant View. Sis Geetz is having treatments for allergy problems. We came home and worked on putting things together for our first missionary class on Sunday evening. We are a little nervous but are preparing to have a good experience for all who attend. Just before dinner time we got a text from the former mission leader from the third ward asking us if we were planning to come to dinner. We had no notification of that but responded that we will, they said they were expecting us so we obliged. We had a wonderful meal. He cooked chicken with crab meat and cheese. The Bluebird Cafe cooks the same dish and call it Chicken Louie, it is one of Ruth's favorite dishes there. We had two more appointments one was a former bishop's family in the 5th ward. We were able to help them fill in a few gaps and find a family where there may be some additional work available. Then we went to the 14th ward area and met with a family that are fairly new in the area. She was born in Peru and their family moved to Italy. They were interested in pursuing some additional information. Ruth is going back tomorrow to see if she can help. We stopped to see another sister who is recently reactivated. She told us earlier that she wanted to go to the temple. She told us that she has set a date and she plans to go in July. That is exciting!
  Tuesday we had dinner with a couple that we have established a nice relationship with. We have helped them with indexing problems and also Ruth has helped her with some Family History challenges. We have tried to help there since he was recently sustained as the new Stake Indexing director. They wanted to have us for dinner to say thanks for all our help. They are a neat couple and we enjoyed being in their home for a delicious pork chop dinner.
Following dinner we went to the home of a Relief Society Pres. in another ward. She really wanted to find a name of an ancestor to take to the temple. They worked hard, and after one family they found needed more work, low and behold another ancestor was found and she was so excited. Her daughter will do the baptism and the mother will do the rest of the work. It was an exciting evening for her.
  After spending most of the day fine tuning our missionary class for Sunday we went to visit a father and son who had invited us for dinner. The family lost a son just over a year ago to a suicide. The younger son found his brother which obviously would be a shock for anyone to deal with. In addition to the death there was a separation of the father and mother which complicates the matter even more. However, the father had recently been able to go to the temple and do the work for his deceased son. It was an incredible experience for him and those family members who attended.  The younger brother is still struggling some with the memories and the shock but seems to be doing better. We had a couple more good visits. One is a sister that is just returning to activity and wants to go to the temple to do baptisms. Ruth has found a few names for her so we will continue to help her schedule that temple visit. We were impressed to stop to see a couple that have recently moved into our stake. They are members but have not been active for a long time. We had a great Gospel discussion and they were happy we stopped to see them.
  The following day was one of the busiest and most productive days we have had while we have been serving. We ended up with five appointments We had dinner with a neat family that loves Montana. He is a builder and an artist. He spends a goodly amount of time in Montana. He would probably move there but his family has been in the valley since its beginning and so that would be tough to leave. We talked a lot about Montana, they are going next weekend to Great Falls for the annual Charles Russell art show and sale. Their little family of five including a set of twin boys enjoyed our "What is Genealogy" video and "My Family" books, and the coloring pages.  Some of the children were working on the information before we left the home. We stopped for a short visit with another family and found they have a daughter with some medical problems. She only goes to school part time and the parents thought some form of family history research or indexing would be a great thing for her. We set up an appointment to return and talk with the young lady. As we were going to our next appointment one of our ward members flagged us down and told us her young daughter was missing for the last four hours. She had taken her bike and gone with a friend and no one had been able to find where they were. Fortunately when we checked back after our scheduled appointment, the young lady had returned home and was fine. They had found a place to have fun and just seemed to have lost track of time.
Our appointment in the 14th ward was great. They are an active family with two boys and a college age daughter who was sleeping at the time we were there. The parents and the boys were very excited to accept the challenge of Find, Take, and Teach. What a great visit!
 We had a late visit with a young family that had a disconnect on one of their lines. It didn't take Ruth long to figure out how to solve the problem and connect the family properly.
  My brother Nick told me about a book recently told me about a book called "In the Shadow of Eureka Peak," by Rodger Carlson. He was a few years older than me but I ordered the book and it came in the mail. It is an interesting read as he recounts some of his experiences as a young man in Eureka that reminds me of many people and experiences I had a young man there. He remembered the epic snowstorm of 1949 that buried Eureka and left snow banks nearly ten feet high along the plowed streets. Some of the streets were not plowed for a long time after that storm.
   Saturday we put in a lot of time finalizing our missionary class. We were happy to be able to attend the First Ward Conference then go to our own ward to hear the returning missionary talk from a young man, Elder Pututau who just returned from Chile. He gave a wonderful talk about how the atonement of Jesus Christ and faith in that atonement made a difference in his life as well as some of the people he met and baptized. This is a Polynesian family that celebrates everything with a big meal. We went to the Canyon school following sacrament meeting and enjoyed the meal with many friends who filled the church more than any meeting I ever remember. Even the dedication service was not as heavily attended.
  We are so thrilled to be involved in this missionary service. We pray that we are doing all the Lord expects of us. The people of the stake have been so kind to us, we are getting acquainted with so many, what a privilege.