Surprise!

We enjoyed a wonderful, but hectic first 20 days of June, including Darin's Temple Wedding, a luncheon at the home of our gracious friends and Laurie's in-laws, the Meservys, in Orem, Utah, 2 receptions, (one in the Skyroom of the Wilkinson Center at BYU and one in the Lincoln LDS Stake Center in Idaho Falls) with great support from family and friends. 

Back in Idaho, we had a crazy, but awesome cousins camp (Knapp Kousins at Hogwarts) where we played Quidditch, made owls, created magical creatures, tasted magical potients, went to Gringotts, hunted for horcruxes, had divinations class, and ate and laughed a whole lot with out 16 oldest grandchildren for 3 and a half days.  It was a riot!  Then we had the next oldest 5 and had a blast with them for a day!

We drove to California with Janie and her family, stopping in St. George and then proceeding to Rancho Santa Margarita where they live now.  It is beautiful and we loved being with them.  They treated us like royalty swimming everyday, massages, eating at a Korean grill, frozen yogurt, the beach, just being together was so grand!

Tuesday morning when I got out of bed I grabbed my cell phone and noticed that I had missed a phone call from President Mark Fuller, our stake president.  He has called me very frequently for the past 8 years and I didn't think much of it.  I looked at the clock and realized that it was 8:15 in California, which meant that he was already at work in Idaho Falls, being 9:15 there, so I called.  He answered, thanked me for returning the call, and asked me how I felt about our mission reassignment.  I was dumbfounded, grabbed Janet and said I had no clue what he was talking about.  He went on to explain that we have been reassigned to serve in the South America South Area as OPHC missionaries.  We have no idea what that means, but are anxious to learn.  On Sunday, June 23 there was an all-church broadcast from the Conference Center where they talked about better utilization of church meetinghouses throughout the world and hastening the missionary work through better use of technology including email, facebook, internet blogging and mormon.org.  It sounds exciting, but intimidating.  We learned that the South America South Area includes Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, but just how we fit in is still unknown.  We are both excited about the possibilities that come with this change of assignment, but what a surprise!