June 10, 2016 - Friday and Levi's arrival!

We have an additional grandson tonight!  Levi made his entrance this afternoon at 7lbs and 10ozs, and 20.25 inches long!  He arrived about half way through our Rendezvous 1st show tonight!  Congratulations Amy and family!!!  Now, we are so excited to meet him!  Here is his very first picture!

Precious little bundle straight from Heavenly Father!

We are so very thankful for all the prayers sent heavenward for our newest grandchild!  I think the hardest thing about serving a senior mission is missing these sacred and wonderful events.  And then reality hits us, and we know that his safe arrival and Amy's safe delivery was influenced by the service of both of Levi's grandparents in the mission field this year!

Mom and I, along with our fellow missionaries, had our morning training meeting with Elder Schwitzer this morning.  We were taught from Chapter 5 of Preach My Gospel on the Book of Mormon.  It was a great discussion, but I am trying to now figure out how to give a copy of the Book of Mormon in a tour group of 30 plus people in the allotted 10 to 15 minutes, with another group of 20 to 30 waiting for the next tour.  Now that would be a great Wednesday morning training session!

I had the assignment to work at the Blacksmith shop, and mom was one of the Wagon Narrators.  We were both kept pretty busy all day, and, we were both off early.  And today was the warmest day of the year, so the Blacksmith shop was really warm with the forge going strong all day!  It sure felt good to get off at 3:00pm and head home to the air conditioned little cottage!  

Then, at 5:30pm we checked on the handcart treks for tomorrow at the Visitors Center and then went to the Cultural Hall for Rendezvous.  We had two shows and both shows were not quite filled to capacity.  And both audiences were a little too quiet for my liking.  It was hard to get them excited, but they started coming around toward the end of the show.  I hope we were able to touch one or two, in each audience, with the wonderful message of the Saints who lived here during the Nauvoo years!

Mom and I had a good day, that was made great by Levi's safe arrival and Amy's safe delivery.  We sure love our family and when we announced Levi's arrival between the two shows to our Emma Hale cast, we got a standing ovation!  We love our precious growing family!!!