New Missionary Training, Jacob's Family Comes to Visit, Temple, Zoo

This is our newest batch of missionaries with their trainers, two days after they got here, so we could do some training with them.

The next day Jacob's family arrived from Omaha. Jacob has been here before, but it was the first visit for the rest of their family.

Good thing Sarah brought some of our old toys with her to leave here for the grandchildren to play with. They have been put to good use.

We went with Emma, Natalie and Laurie to the temple to do baptisms for the dead.

The flowers on the temple grounds were very beautiful as usual. These are my favorites.

The purple ones were Natalie's favorite.

 Emma really liked the pink flowers.

The girls wanted a frozen yogurt treat when we were finished. It was a treat to be with them at the temple.

The next day was zoo day. The girls got in their animal print socks to get prepared for the excursion.

Maps are critical once inside the zoo as every child knows.

The koala bear is Natalie's favorite animal. We made it our first stop and saw them awake and moving around and eating. It was amazing. They have always been sleeping whenever we have been there before.

We saw a few other animals before Natalie decided she'd had enough and wanted to go home. She had gotten sick right before their trip and she hadn't fully recovered.

Glen and I offered to take her home early so the rest of them could stay at the zoo. Glen had the great idea to catch the bus so we would have less walking to do to the get to the front of the zoo. It WAS a great idea until the bus driver told us the stop we had just gotten on at was the stop closest to the front of the zoo.

We rode the bus around the zoo for 45 minutes just to get off at the very same stop we got on and still had to walk the full distance to the front of the zoo.

Logan and Claire were showing me their stuffed animals.

 In case anyone is wondering, Claire's favorite zoo animal is the panda bear.