Monday, June 6, 2011

Month of May

May was a great month for our family. We had many wonderful and humbling experiences.

 To start the month off we had my dad come and visit us for a week. It was so much fun having him here. Brendon made sure he got in a lot of train time with Grandpa Mills. Any free time we had Grandpa spent it playing trains with him. Arianna followed him around the house everyday and fell asleep in his arms every night. Unfortunately my dad's visit came along with lots and lots of rain and  tornado warning. He got to be very familiar with our safe spot. He is convinced we need to move now. It was wonderful having him all to ourselves for the week.

Reading books with Grandpa.

Playing trains. The track they built together.

Saturday night at the Naturals Game

A baseball from the game!

Sleeping on Grandpa.

Playing in the rain!!

Soaked to the bone.

We were very fortunate to not have any tornadoes touch down in our area. Joplin a city about an hour or less from us was not so fortunate. They had a massive tornado touch down and destroy a lot of the city. The hospital, walmart, school and many other local stores and homes where destroyed. This really shocked  our family. Anthony has many customers that live in Joplin and we have friends families also there. Our church in this area was asked to gather up 200 men to go and help in the clean up effort. Anthony did not even question whether he should go or not. He quickly volunteered himself. He was gone Saturday and Sunday of that week helping in the clean up efforts.The first day he was there he was helping clean up debris that had fallen or damaged local homes. One woman came out of her house in tears, hugged Anthony and told him she had been praying for someone to come and help her. I felt blessed that my husband had the opportunity to help. It was a life changing experience. Pictures of this event will come soon.

 A year ago I was asked to fellowship a sister investigating the Church. Since then she has joined our church and we have become very good friends. Sunday the 29th her son Brenden was baptized. Anthony was asked to baptize him. It was such an amazing experience to watch my husband take Brenden into the water and baptize him. I am grateful for this gospel and opportunities like this that bring joy and happiness into our lives.
Anthony,Brenden, and Maria

Elder Schofield on the left taught Maria and her family the discussions