This was a historic week. On July 1st the Logan Utah mission was officially begun. We were all invited to a meet and greet and as we arrived we were invited to partake of the refreshments while we waited for our new mission president and his wife to return. They had gone to a baptism. This was not a random thing, it was heaven sent. The baptism on July 1 was at 1:00 p.m and the young lady's name was Logan.The mission president and his wife are named Allred, they are from Washington where they own a picturesque apple orchard as well as a dairy. The farm includes crops of  grain and peas. They have a large family and things should go well while they serve here. They talked about the mission president's seminar the past week. One presentation was a video talk by Elder Perry who died the end of May. He counseled the new mission presidents to,"press forward with zeal." Another bit of counsel was to seek to receive revelation from the Lord on any questions that arise in the mission.
Pres Allred lived in Hyrum for a while as a child, his father taught at USU and they later moved to Washington. We had a wonderful meeting in which we became acquainted with the office people and the Allred's. At the end of the meeting, we were asked to stay in our seats and consider what had been said and listen for the whispering of the Spirit.
  We have had a good week. The weather has been in the neighborhood of 100* for most of the week, which made being outside quite uncomfortable, especially because of my lack of tolerance for heat. Early in the week we made some good visits. We came as close to being rejected as we have ever come. A family was given to us for a visit. The family has previously been active but not lately. As the man answered the door, he recognized who we were and as we invited him to attend the ward meetings he said, "We know where the Church is if we want to attend." Later in the day we were invited to a fun night at Bear Bottom area where the fourteenth ward had organized a neighborhood wide event. They had lots of food, refreshments, two water slides and a great attendance. There were some shady spots so that cut down on the heat which was also aided by cold drinks and snow cones of all flavors.
  Due to the fact that a lot of cars have been taken from each mission, about 50% overall, our missionaries are needing more transportation help, doing a lot of walking and will probably be using a bike in some situations. As a result, some of our district meetings are being held on a smaller scale, closer to the areas where the missionaries are serving.
  We had a great meeting with a family this week. There were six children, two oldest are boys and the other four are girls. We had a fun time talking about family history and as we concluded one of the boys said, "Can you come back sometime?" That helps one feel like maybe the work is worthwhile.
  Friday night we attended the Freedom Fire at USU with Kaylene, Ron, Hallie and TeTe. There was a good program and some good entertainment. As we waited for the gates to open a fellow approached us about entering a Frisbee throwing contest. We declined the invitation, only to have another guy come and beg us to take his last two Frisbee's and we caved in. We didn't win anything but it was fun to be part of the entertainment for the evening. The fireworks display was well choreographed with music and quite beautiful. It was a late evening but we had a good time.
Saturday we did more celebrating by attending the Hyrum parade and then all of us had a nice family meal at our house. After resting in the afternoon everyone returned and we watched and set off a lot of fireworks.
  We have had a busy day today, we started the day with an early morning meeting with our stake presidency, attended three ward sacrament meetings and then our ward mission leader correlation meeting. There was a letter sent our from the First Presidency concerning the US Supreme Court decision legalizing same sex marriage. In one ward there was an open discussion where the members were able to share their feelings on the matter. It was a great meeting and some very thoughtful discussions on the matter.
  The Church sadly announced yesterday afternoon that another Apostle of the Lord, Pres. Boyd K Packer had passed away. He had been suffering with ill health as a result of childhood polio for some time. His passing was no doubt a kind release for him but a great loss for the Church. His wisdom and leadership will be missed. Now there will have to be two new apostles appointed.His funeral will be on Friday.