tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55859493520730436912024-03-14T01:30:11.733-07:00Dan and Lezlie Couch's Virginia Richmond MissionDan and Lezlie Couchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10738399282740972815noreply@blogger.comBlogger77125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5585949352073043691.post-81247594838379578292015-02-23T19:52:00.003-08:002015-02-23T19:52:45.259-08:00Goodbye Mission and Goodbye Virginia<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xQ_afTk8FGE/VOvzKHWBBgI/AAAAAAAAA-A/5ycV2yhY4Dg/s1600/Snow%2Bin%2BFeb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xQ_afTk8FGE/VOvzKHWBBgI/AAAAAAAAA-A/5ycV2yhY4Dg/s1600/Snow%2Bin%2BFeb.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Monday was a day of changes because of the fickle
finger of weather. We started out our
morning with a great walk at the mall.
We had been keeping tabs on the weather forecast because a big snow
storm is on the way for the evening. We
had planned on holding our The Basic School family home evening at our house so
that participants did not have to drive too far in the snow. But the forecast got worse and the snowfall
began earlier than expected. So we had
to cancel the FHE. It was a sad way to
say goodbye to our last two faithful attendees, but it would have been
dangerous for them to be out driving around in the heavy snow. We also were going to have dinner with our
niece who is visiting Virginia, but we cancelled that because of the snow
too. We did, however, have a delightful
lunch with some dear friends in the ward.
They are an older couple that served a senior mission several years ago. They kind of adopted us. Our very first Sunday here they invited us
over for dinner. They also had us for
dinner a couple of other times, including on Mother’s Day. They are in their
early 80s and are active and involved with many things. They are kind or our role models of how we
would like to be in 15 years. We had a
great visit with them at lunch. We will
miss them a lot and it was a hard goodbye.
Other than that we have been packing boxes, cleaning cupboards, and
throwing things away. It is tiring, but
we are making good progress. We can
hardly believe we will be leaving in just a few days. Eighteen months goes by fast, but it is long
enough to make dear friends. It will be
hard to drive away. But every minute has
been worth it. This is what the snow
looks like outside our back patio. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It snowed and snowed last night. We were planning on staying home most of the
day anyway to pack and clean. We did
have a very enjoyable dinner with our niece and family. We saw them once last summer when they came
through here. They are settling in
Eastern Tennessee and were visiting friends here. It was fun to talk to them about their
adventures. We then visited the home of
the couple that are serving as part time service missionaries for military
relations. They will take care of things
here until the new senior couple arrives in mid April. We turned over about six bags full of
military scripture sets, notebooks, paper goods, and baking goods for use with
the marines. We had a good meeting to
discuss all the families we have been working with and feel good about them
taking care of things. Just as we were
about to depart the brother, who was the bishop of our ward here until about 6
months ago, got very sober and said he owed us an apology. He said that when he was bishop he just took
us for granted and did not realize all the things we were doing for the ward
and the marines. He said he was sorry he
was not more supportive because he now knows that we have been doing yeoman’s
work and have touched the lives of many ward members. We were so humbled and grateful that we have
been of some value here. It was
especially touching to hear this from our previous bishop. We feel that since he has been working with
us a service missionary he has really seen all that we do, so a compliment from
him was very poignant. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Lezlie was gone all day Wednesday to attend the
Sister’s Training Meeting. She got a
ride down with two sets of young sister missionaries so I had all day to clean
house and pack. I was getting a lot done
and moving along just fine when I got an email from the Officer Candidate
School Chaplain about noon. The frantic
note said that the OCS director had changed the schedule at the last minute and
they would hold the informal OCS services tonight, just a few hours away. I assumed the other couple could handle it
since they were planning on doing the service tomorrow night anyway. But when I got in touch with them they said
no, they could not do it tonight. So I
had about 3 hours to come up with a lesson and prepare some treats so that I
could do the family home evening by myself.
Lezlie was not expected to get back until too late. I made up our last batch of brownies,
although I had to unpack one whole box to get to the baking pan. I dressed up a lesson I had done before on
Liberty Jail. And I went to OCS
alone. To my surprise 7 marines walked
in. Our lone LDS guy had brought 6
friends, which was great. We had a good
lesson and some excellent discussions about what you can learn from adversity. Although the treats were a little short
because I was not expecting that many, they each appreciated getting a couple
of brownies and some fruit. What a great
bunch of guys they were. They all said
they would come back to the next FHE, but I had to tell them I would not be
there. We will be in Florida by the next
time they meet. When Lezlie got home she
was very enthused about the training meeting.
She had been pondering and praying about some big concerns that that she
is having, and she felt like she got direct answers. There were several different mini-classes,
and she said each class gave here specific insight into how to approach her
issues. It was a testament that prayers
are answered. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thursday was our last shift at Navy Marine Corps
Relief Society. We had a slow day, but
that gave us a chance to visit with some of the other volunteers. It was nice to talk about things with them,
and share our memories and good experiences volunteering there. We will miss it very much, and we have felt
good about helping out many marines and their families with NMCRS loans and
budgeting advice. We will especially
miss the director, as she has become a good friend. She and Lezlie had a lot in common, and they
talked a lot during our time there. We
are so glad we decided to volunteer there and feel like it was an important
part of our mission. We will never
forget it. After our return home we
plunged in to more packing and house cleaning.
It is amazing how much cleanup a small apartment needs!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Friday was our last District Training Meeting, and
essentially our last association with our young elders. We had a good meeting and enjoyed being
there. Lezlie and I each gave a short
training session on attributes of Christ.
Hers was on knowledge and mine on charity. They went well. We also had a training talk by a young elder
on “listening with charity,” which was an excellent talk for us to hear. As we dropped off that second set of elders
they handed us a note that thanked us for our examples and service to them as
part of the district. It was quite
touching. We will sure miss our
association with these outstanding young men and women. The rest of our day was consumed by more
packing and cleaning. I think we will be
packing and cleaning until the moment we drive away. But we are getting closer to being
ready. Late in the evening we had an
unexpected visit by the two sister missionaries that are in our ward. They were trying to help a newly baptized couple
get some names ready to take to the temple for baptisms. But they were not sure of all the steps. So Lezlie got online with them and coached
them through it. They will be able to
help the couple tomorrow. It was fun to
see the sisters one last time. We will
see them Sunday at church, but it was nice to chat with them in our apartment
for a few minutes.</span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kMrE6TGNlx8/VOv0GzyY-yI/AAAAAAAAA-U/XRKwdV8-HmE/s1600/Packing.2jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kMrE6TGNlx8/VOv0GzyY-yI/AAAAAAAAA-U/XRKwdV8-HmE/s1600/Packing.2jpg.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UvmM_HQvLrQ/VOv0Gx1W6_I/AAAAAAAAA-Q/B_rxRCa3QDs/s1600/Packing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UvmM_HQvLrQ/VOv0Gx1W6_I/AAAAAAAAA-Q/B_rxRCa3QDs/s1600/Packing.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This is what our “packing up” looks like. I hope all the boxes fit into the van!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7oTzcCYkA_E/VOvzkyAEDeI/AAAAAAAAA-I/oDpur_m7Jsk/s1600/Snow%2Bfarewell%2Bday.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7oTzcCYkA_E/VOvzkyAEDeI/AAAAAAAAA-I/oDpur_m7Jsk/s1600/Snow%2Bfarewell%2Bday.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The whole week has been
a little bittersweet because of the weather.
The snow and frigid temperatures have put a damper on our farewell week
and we missed several “lasts.” We had to
cancel our last The Basic School family home evening because of heavy
snow. The weather caused the Officer
Candidate school to change the night for informal services at the last
minute. Lezlie was in Richmond at a
sister’s training meeting, so I had to go do FHE all alone. Today, Saturday, it has been snowing most of
the day. Then tonight the snow changed
into freezing rain. So tomorrow we will not
be able to go to OCS for our last sacrament meeting as it was cancelled. Also, we were to give our testimonies in our
ward sacrament meeting as a last farewell.
But the weather is so bad that all church meetings have been cancelled
tomorrow. Bummer! </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.3999996185303px;">However, we totally understand the situation in cancelling church.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.3999996185303px;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.3999996185303px;">The roads are really treacherous and it will be below freezing all night.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.3999996185303px;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.3999996185303px;">It will be bad first thing in the morning.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.3999996185303px;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.3999996185303px;">Sunday it is supposed to warm up to about 40 degrees by about 1:00pm, so the roads should be fine by the time we need to leave home.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.3999996185303px;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But we did have some very nice email goodbyes
from our Quantico Ward family.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The
Bishop wrote:</span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Elder &
Sister Couch, although we won't be able to do it in
person tomorrow as planned, on behalf of the Quantico Ward I
want to express our love and appreciation for all the service that you have
provided to us and, in particular, our military members during your
mission. Godspeed on your way home!
Warm regards, Bishop Rollins<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Today, Sunday, we will leave Woodbridge, VA. We will drive to the Mission Home in Richmond
for dinner and to spend the night. Then
early tomorrow we head for Atlanta.
Since church was cancelled because of the snow it has been a slow day. We have been doing touch up cleaning and
final packing and loading. Lezlie came
down with a cold and sore throat.
Because she does not want to be contagious we went to the CVS minute
clinic. That took a long time, but the
nurse found no major illness. It is more
like a bout of asthma. So mom got a new
asthma inhaler and some basic cold medicine.
It is hard for us to believe that we have been here for 18 months and
are now leaving. We have loved serving
as senior missionaries. At times we have
almost felt outside of ourselves, as if we are observers of activities and
accomplishments that are not really our own.
And we know that they are not.
When we were set apart as missionaries we were promised that we would
receive the guidance, courage, and wisdom to be able to accomplish our
work. And we certainly did receive those
things. We feel that we have received so
much that the minor inconveniences seem small.
We have learned to move forward with faith, knowing that good things
will happen. We have learned to rely on
prayer. We have received a greater and
deeper testimony of the Book of Mormon.
And we have learned to follow the promptings of the Spirit right
away. Our experiences have been
exceedingly rewarding. We can’t wait to
get home and share them with family and friends. To all of you that have given us such
tremendous support in many ways, thank you from the bottom of our hearts. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We had a marvelous evening at the Mission Home with
President and Sister Wilson. They fed us
a wonderful salmon dinner and we had a great chat about our missionary
work. We shared many stories about the
marines and young missionaries we worked with.
Then we had our formal interview with President Wilson. He asked us to provide 4 highlights from our
mission. It was hard to stop at 4. We had so many amazing spiritual
experiences. We are glad we kept a
journal to record them. Then he thanked
us as our Mission President for our service.
Then he also said as your Mission President I also thank you for
Heavenly Father. He is well pleased with
your work. We were pretty teary
eyed. Then we got to participate in the
unofficial departure ceremony. In this
event you remove your scarf and tie, write your name and your dates of service
on them, and then tie them to the banister on the stairway. Every couple of months they remove them from
the banister because it gets too full.
Some ladies in their local ward are making a large quilt for President
and Sister Wilson out of those ties and scarves. So that was very fun to participate in this
tradition. Here we are with the Wilsons
and hanging our scarf and tie on the railing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We got to sleep in the bedroom they call the General
Authority room. Whenever a church leader
visits to provide a mission conference or whatever they stay in this room. So it is very well decorated and furnished. It had a very comfortable king size bed and
did we sleep well! What a great night at
the mission home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Today (Monday) we drove from Richmond, Virginia to
Atlanta, where we are visiting our niece Jessie and her husband Rob. That is another story, but I had to report
one last thing about out mission. This evening
at 9pm Eastern we had a call with our Stake President. He read our release letters from our Mission
President, which were very nice. We felt
flattered and humbled. We had a nice
chat during which he asked us all about our mission and what we did most of the
time. He had to stop us because we kept
telling more and more stories about the miracles we got to witness and
participate in. Then he asked each of us
to bear a short testimony about what we had learned on our mission– we talked
about faith, prayer, the Book of Mormon, about getting out of the way and
letting the Lord be in charge, and listening to the Spirit. Then he thanked us for representing the Stake
and our Ward well and honorably released us from our mission. We took of our nametags and shed a few
tears. So now our mission is really
over! We feel so grateful that we were
able to have these 18 months working together and serving others all day every
day. It was rewarding in ways we could
not have imagined. We loved being Senior
Missionaries and feel that we got much more than we gave. It will take a while for us to get over the
shock of not being missionaries and return to our normal life. We hope that we will be able to use the
things we have learned to do a better job being good people and good church members. We love you all and thank you for reading our
mission blog and for your wonderful support.
Goodye to all. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Dan and Lezlie Couchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10738399282740972815noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5585949352073043691.post-73375088415637030442015-02-15T12:40:00.000-08:002015-02-15T12:40:58.838-08:00Making Final Preparations to Go Home<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We had a unique experience Monday evening. We contacted the Stake Executive Secretary
for an exit interview with the Stake President.
The way things worked out it was easiest for him to stop by our apartment. So the Stake President showed up at our door
so that he could interview us before we leave.
We had a great talk with him. We
discussed several suggestions and ideas about how to take care of the good
marines here. He was very complimentary
and gracious. We were so humbled to be
recognized by the Stake President. We
had a wonderful chat with him and felt a good closure about our work here. We know he cares about the military folks
here and will make sure that the Stake looks after them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Since Tuesday District Meeting was almost our last
one we splurged and took all of our little district out to lunch. It was great fun visiting with four young
elders and learning about their lives.
We had some very good training.
One of the elders told a particularly touching story about why he came
on a mission. He said early in high
school he was quite depressed and felt very lonely. He had been raised in the church but did not
have much of a testimony of his own. He
decided he needed to read the Book of Mormon for himself and really decide what
he believed. He said that reading
brought about great changes and blessings in his life. He found friends, his depression lifted, and
he developed a testimony. But then as a
junior in high school he started spending time with some bad friends and he
went into a downward spiral that led to another deep depression. After a while he realized what he was doing
to himself and that he had distanced himself from God. He repented and changed his ways, and felt
peace and joy again. He said that his
experience of repenting and claiming the blessings of Christ’s atonement were
very powerful. He wanted to be able to
share the power of the atonement with others so he came on a mission. I did not do his story justice, but it was a
sweet moment and the spirit was felt strongly during his remarks. All of us got tears in our eyes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Quarterly the head chaplain on the marine base has a
meeting for all of the religious volunteers.
Everyone gets a chance to discuss what their group is doing and the
chaplain describes all the upcoming chapel activities taking place on the
base. Today was our last time to attend
this meeting. We explained to the group
that our missionary service was ending and said goodbye to them. We received a lot of nice feedback and
expressions of thanks for our service on the base. It was humbling and flattering. We will miss these good folks. After that we got to stop and visit several
of our marine families, deliver Valentine treats, and say goodbye. The goodbyes are sad, but we again got some
nice feedback for our efforts. Finally
we went to a graduation for The Basic School and got to congratulate one of our
marines. He is a Naval Academy graduate from
Hawaii. I had fun visiting with him about
the academy at our many family home evenings.
Here he is in his dress uniform. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We had a wonderful going away luncheon with our
friends at the Navy Marine Corps Relief Society. It was great fun to get to visit with all of
the other outstanding volunteers we work with at NMCRS. We received a nice
certificate of appreciation from the President of NMCRS, a retired
Admiral. We also got very nice feedback
from the Director, in red in the picture, about our service. All the other
volunteers were so nice in thanking us for our service and wishing us
well. We will really miss this
group. We were touched by the kindness
of the lunch party and it made us sad to have to say goodbye to so many
friends. After the party we did some
personal work at the library on the base, which is a beautiful library. Then we took another of our bachelor marines
out to his favorite submarine sandwich shop.
We had a nice visit with him, but we worry about this young man. He had not been to church in a couple of
months. He told us he basically did not
like to be out in crowds in the public.
But when we saw him at church before he was very friendly, outgoing and
social. We think it is just an
excuse. We invited him to come back to
church, but we will be gone so we don’t know if it will happen. We did have a nice visit with him and he was
pleased with the Valentine Cookies we gave him.
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">What a busy Friday we had.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We both had doctor’s appointments this
morning, nothing major though.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Lezlie
had to see the dermatologist and I went to see the doctor about some shoulder
pain.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We then had a very enjoyable lunch
with our marine that had the intestinal surgeries.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We feel very close to him because we have
been with him during his whole year of difficult medical challenges.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We visited him in the hospital in DC multiple
times and gave him blessings before each surgery.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He is doing really well and looked healthy
and happy.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He is so changed from the man
we met 18 months ago.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We talked about
our shared memories of things we have done together, like the having the spudnuts
on Christmas morning.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He told us of his
ongoing medical board that is deciding his future in the Marine Corps.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And he told us that if the med board keeps
him in the marines he is hoping to switch from helicopter mechanic to explosive
ordnance disposal – the guys that blow up things and defuse bombs.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It sounds crazy to us, but he wants to try
it.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Anyway, we had a great time with
him.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It would have been a really, really
sad goodbye.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But then he promised us he
would come to church our last Sunday when we will be sharing out testimonies.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">That will be very special if he is
there.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We later had a wonderful dinner
at the home of one of our marine families in Stafford, VA.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We love this family and their four beautiful
children.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We had a great visit and an
exceptional meal.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The children were so
polite and friendly.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We know that was
our last visit with them, so it was very sad to say goodbye.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Finally, in the evening I went over to the
hospital to get an MRI on my shoulder.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The doc decided that since it had been bothering me long enough and had
not improved with anti-inflammatory drugs that she wanted to see what was going
on inside.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So we shall see what is going
on there.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I hope it is minor.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">(Note:</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The MRI showed I have a torn shoulder muscle.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Not exactly sure how I did this.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It is painful some, but they said if I take
it easy on my shoulder it should heal just fine.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">One other note.
Our doctor is a lady from Iran, who is a Muslim. She is one of the friendliest and
most compassionate doctors we have ever met.
Lezlie related a conversation she had with the her in the lobby while I
was back waiting in the exam room. She told Lezlie that she had enjoyed us as patients and really appreciated our
service in Virginia. She explained that
many years ago she had worked for Doctors Without Borders and had gone to El
Salvador after an earthquake. She said
that there were many LDS volunteers helping with things, including medical
personnel. She said she was very
impressed by how hard they worked and how much service they provided. So she knew that we must have done good
service in Virginia too. She said she
had a lot of respect for the LDS people.
It was heartwarming to hear this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Feb 14 – Happy Valentine’s Day! We had an outstanding Senior Missionary
activity today. We were up early and
driving to Richmond. We met at a Young
Single Adult center that is next to Virginia Commonwealth University. The host couple had set up nice Valentine
decorations. We had a nice program where
each couple told the story of how they met and then shared why they came on a
mission. Lezlie and I had practiced
our little talk and it went well. We
double teamed it – I talked, then she talked, then I talked. It went well and everyone enjoyed our story
about how Marvin Eggleston acted as matchmaker for us. Here is what we said about why we chose to
serve a mission. First, we feel we have
been greatly blessed in our lives. We
have experienced good health, we have a wonderful family, we have always had
good homes and jobs, and we have had the anchor of the gospel. In order to show our gratefulness and pay
back a little for our tremendous blessings we wanted to serve others. Second, we really wanted to be an example of
service and missionary work to our children and grandchildren so that maybe
they would follow in our footsteps.
Third, we wanted to challenge ourselves spiritually, physically and
mentally by doing something totally new and different. We knew that we would learn and grow by doing
so. (AND WE HAVE!) And finally, we do have strong
testimonies of the gospel and of the divine leadership of the prophet. He has asked for more senior missionaries, so
how could we say no. We really enjoyed
all the talks by the couples and had a great time visiting with everyone during
our excellent Virginia brunch – ham, biscuits, sweet potatoes and pie. We were sad to say goodbye, especially to the
couples that have been here almost as long as us. We feel as if we got to know them really well
and will miss them greatly. Here is our
group at the party. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Sunday morning was supposed to be our last lesson
for Officer Candidate School. But it was
not to be. We were there all ready to
present our lesson when our marine showed up and said he only had twenty
minutes. He was ordered to do field day
and had to beg his sergeant to have twenty minutes off to go to Sunday
services. So we quickly passed the
sacrament and fed him some bread pudding.
We spent about two minutes summarizing our half hour lesson. But at least we got to see him and bolster
him up a bit. He also asked for a
blessing, which we gave him. He seems to
be doing pretty well, but he is only at the halfway point and still has a lot
of hard things to do. Today was our
second to last meeting at Quantico Ward.
Everyone pretty much knows that we are leaving soon so we had a lot of
nice feedback from ward members. We have
been asked to bear our testimonies next week at the end of sacrament
meeting. That will be hard. I will probably just stand up there and
cry. But we are also very, very excited
about starting our journey home and getting back to family, friends, and home
(and dogs). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Dan and Lezlie Couchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10738399282740972815noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5585949352073043691.post-33095013091396248422015-02-08T17:59:00.003-08:002015-02-08T17:59:46.777-08:00Happy Valentines Week<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We had a couple of excellent lessons with our marine
at Officer Candidate School this week.
At Family Home Evening Lezlie
gave her lesson on nature. She has set
about 180 beautiful pictures of nature to clasical music. She talks about how marines are always out in
nature and that they can feel close to God and gain strength by observing His
magnificent creations. It was excellent
and our marine really liked it. On
Sunday we talked about Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled. This is basically a lesson about how a Latter
Day Saint need not fear that he is violating his faith by being a soldier. It is a pretty deep lesson and we had some
good discussion. We have only a couple
more meetings with our LDS man at OCS, and we are missing him already. However, we will probably not miss getting up
at 5:30am to get ready to go to OCS meetings!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thursday was our Navy Marine Corps Relief Society
shift, and we had a good day there.
Lezlie was very busy with many phone calls and multiple quick assist
loans. I had only one case, but it was a
good one. We loaned a young marine $4000
so that he could get his truck repaired.
He blew his engine, but it should never have happened. It happened just beyond the end of his warranty
period. He left a happy man with his big
check. We are sad to think we have only
one more shift of work there. Later in
the evening we met our young woman friend from Richland, the one that was in
our ward years ago and was in Lezlie’s young women’s class. She took us out to dinner as a farewell
present. We ate at an amazing steak
house and she spoiled us with a large and delicious dinner. The steaks were amazing. She is the girl that is a finger print
scientist at the FBI. It is really
interesting to hear her stories about working there. We had an excellent discussion with her about
why she has not been attending church.
It turns out that in the past some people have done some things that
really put her off and hurt her feelings, so she backed off. It made us sad. But she said she still feels close to
Heavenly Father and prays and feels very blessed. That is good.
We were sad we had to say goodbye to her. We have really enjoyed getting to know her
here<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We had an excellent lunch date with our single
female marine. She surprised us by
saying she loved sushi. She is kind of a
country girl from a small town in Utah, and we did not think she would know
anything about sushi. We knew of an
Asian restaurant in Quantico Town that has sushi, so we took her there. She enjoyed her sushi and we had regular
Chinese food. This girl works as a
security guard at the president’s helicopter base. She was excited that she finally got her top
secret clearance. That means she can now
actually go on trips with the president’s entourage. It was very enjoyable to visit with her about
her job and her family. Her dad is from
India and she lived there for two years as a little girl. It made us think of Korea. We have greatly enjoyed her and it was
another sad goodbye. After our lunch we
made 4 visits to marine families and delivered our first round of Valentine Day
treats. We made sugar and chocolate
cookies and Lezlie decorated them with the meringue icing that makes the pretty
decorations. They are delicious and
beautiful. So we said goodbye to four
families, although we will likely see some of them at church over the next few
weeks. Our saddest goodbye was with the
family that has the little boy that was born very premature. We have visited them a lot and come to know
them pretty well. They have been through
so much tribulation with their little boy.
He recently had to be in the hospital for a week because his brain shunt
came loose and they had to install a new one.
So it was tough to have a last visit there and say goodbye. We got these nice pictures with them. I was hoping they would let me hold their
little boy, Atticus. I was glad they did.</span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IeGK22RH0WU/VNgMJ_Eu47I/AAAAAAAAA74/clcRljwxvok/s1600/Hartshorns%2Ball%2Bof%2Bus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IeGK22RH0WU/VNgMJ_Eu47I/AAAAAAAAA74/clcRljwxvok/s1600/Hartshorns%2Ball%2Bof%2Bus.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DJjq5PTITPY/VNgMhXZCBjI/AAAAAAAAA8A/7P9P5CMHS-o/s1600/Harshorns%2B-%2BDan%2Band%2BAtticus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DJjq5PTITPY/VNgMhXZCBjI/AAAAAAAAA8A/7P9P5CMHS-o/s1600/Harshorns%2B-%2BDan%2Band%2BAtticus.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We attended a very sweet baptism this Saturday
morning. A couple aged about 50 were
both baptized. They were so happy and
bore simple but sincere testimonies afterwards.
It turns out that the sister missionaries saw them carrying several bags
of groceries to their car and offered to help.
The couple asked the sisters who they were. When they explained and asked if they could
stop by their house to teach them about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, they said
yes. It is two months later they and
they are now baptized. This couple was
so strong in their new found faith that they purchased quad scriptures even
before their baptism. It was a very nice
service. We finished up some additional
Valentine Cookies and made deliveries to four marine families. We have to say goodbye when we see these
families this time around, and it is very sad.
But we had some good visits and received some touching thank you’s. And everyone loved the cookies. Here is a photo of our cookies. Our Valentine Message is below.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">After our regular ward meetings on Sunday we had a nice
interview with our bishop. It was sort
of an exit interview. We reviewed our
list of families that we are most concerned about as we depart. We had a good discussion about them. He then thanked us for all the work in
helping take care of the Quantico Ward and said we would leave a huge hole when
we departed. It was humbling and
rewarding to know that our efforts to help others and our whole purpose for
coming on a senior mission have been realized.
We love our ward family here and it will be terribly sad to have to say
goodbye to them. Sunday evening we had a
wonderful experience. One of our The
Basic School marines is graduating in 3 days.
So the gal that comes to our family home evening invited him, our other
marine at TBS, and us to dinner to celebrate.
She is the one that is an athletic trainer on staff at TBS. She lives about a half hour away from us in a
nice townhouse. It is always delightful to
get to visit a full size house – I think the apartment feels smaller the longer
we are here. She served a delicious
lasagna dinner. Mom provided pistachio pudding
desert. It was good food and good conversation
with some outstanding young church members.
The marine who is graduating from TBS is a Naval Academy grad, so we
have fun sharing stories about Annapolis.
It was an enjoyable evening and we will miss our TBS. Here is a photo of the group at the dinner
table. </span></div>
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<o:p></o:p>Dan and Lezlie Couchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10738399282740972815noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5585949352073043691.post-60126273216993975412015-02-04T18:53:00.001-08:002015-02-04T18:53:14.569-08:00Starting to say Goodbye<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We have had several excellent family home evenings
and sacrament meetings for our sole Officer Candidate School student. Lezlie gave a good lesson on the church video
called “Flecks of Gold.” It is about the
philosophy that small things done faithfully and consistently can add up to
something that is great. We also had
lessons about “Remember Who You Are” and about “Courage.” We had excellent discussions on all of
these topics. Our marine is doing well
in this difficult training. After one of
the lessons our guy asked if Sister Couch could help him with a little sewing
job. He had a hole in his uniform and
had no clue how to sew it up. The
marines had given him a nice little sewing kit, but he did not know how to use
it. So Lezlie got him started and showed
him how to thread a needle, sew up the hole, and tie a knot. It was fun to watch that interaction (see
picture). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Our most recent Navy Marine Corps Relief Society
shift was a bit unique. For a large part
of the shift we were there alone. The
Director was out sick and only one other person came in for part of the
day. We were able to help out two marines
with loans for basic necessities like rent and food. It was a long day but we were very happy to
help out a couple of marine families. We
were also very proud that the Director trusted us to take care of the office by
ourselves and that we handled it well.
We gave out about $2000 on our own!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Our busy Friday began with a zone meeting. The young elders and sisters are always so
impressive. They give good training and
handle their responsibilities with a maturity beyond their years. We feel fortunate that we get to interact
with them so much. It is one of the
great blessings of our mission. It was a
bittersweet meeting because it will be our last zone meeting. We went from the meeting directly to the base
to pick up one of our bachelor marines for lunch. He is a great young man and we have enjoyed
getting to know him. He is actively
attending one of the Young Single Adult wards and seems to be enjoying it. He shyly told us that he had a date tonight
with one of the girls from the ward. He
seemed to be looking forward to it.
After returning home from an excellent lunch with our marine we began
preparing a nice dinner for two sister missionaries. We really enjoyed them a lot. They were both very personable and down to
earth, and were so easy to talk to. They
live in our apartment complex but this is the first time we have been able to
have them over for dinner. Before they
left they gave us a great spiritual thought about using the Book of Mormon to
find answers to some of life’s great questions.
It was excellent. They will come
back tomorrow for a family history lesson with Lezlie, and she is looking
forward to that. So it was a full, busy
day. But as always on our mission it was a rewarding and enjoyable day too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Our one big activity we were looking forward to
today (Saturday) fell through. We were
going to take a bachelor marine to the temple.
He called about twenty minutes before we were leaving. He had to cancel because the Marine Corps
decided the platoon needed to work until 5:30pm on Saturday. He was very apologetic, but we just laughed
it off. This has happened multiple times. We know that the Marine Corps owns them right
now, and the Corps doesn’t really care if their personal lives are
inconvenienced. Things like this are the
main reason that they only send ex-military folks on military relations
missions. We have lived it so we
understand. Instead we were able to spend some time with the young sisters in our apt and show them how to use some new programs to do genealogical research so they can help other people. It was a lot of fun, as they found pictures of ancestors on line they had never seen. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Our Sunday began with an early morning service for
our lone OCS marine. Later at our ward Lezlie
bore her testimony and accidentally said, “This will be out last sacrament meeting.” She meant to say this was our last testimony
meeting. Because of her slip we had
numerous ward members come up and say nice things and wish us well, and we had
to tell them we will be here 3 more weeks.
It was kind of funny and kind of nice.
After our own services we went to the FBI Academy, which is on Quantico
Base. Last night a student there called
us. He is attending FBI agent school for
5 months and left his wife, 2 children, and car behind in Utah. We took him to the ward nearest his barracks
on base. Everything worked as we
hoped. We introduced him to the bishop
and several ward members that promised they would make sure he got a ride to
church every week. After getting him plugged
in at the ward we came home. We were
tired after 3 sacrament meetings. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Last Monday was one of many “lasts” we will
have. We attended the chaplains briefing
for the new The Basic School class. This
is the meeting where all the various lay leaders get to introduce themselves
and tell what type of services they hold.
We have done this about a dozen times now so we have come to know the
other lay leaders pretty well. We had to
say goodbye to them and to the chaplain.
It was sad. And there were no LDS
students in the new class. We have
enjoyed our association with the TBS lay leaders and chaplain and will miss
that part of our mission a lot.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">On Tuesday we had a delightful trip to Wash DC. We went up to the temple. Although we were not able to go to a session
we did some shopping at the distribution center. We also had a chance to browse and shop at
the LDS bookstore. We finally decided we
needed to leave right away because we were spending too much money. There are so many nice things to buy
there. We then had lunch with our dear friends
the Colsons, who used to live next to us in Richland. They are on a mission in Washington DC. We had a great time remembering old friends
from our ward in Richland. They told us all
about the amazing mission they had in Jordan.
They got to mingle with Jordanian royalty. In distributing wheelchairs and hygiene kits
they enlisted the Jordanians to help them and thus taught them about
service. Proselyting is not allowed in
Jordan, so theirs was purely a humanitarian service mission. We had a great lunch at Ruby Tuesdays. After returning home we prepared for our TBS
family home evening. We had only one
attendee, which made me kind of sad.
Nevertheless, we had a good lesson about ordinances and covenants. We have enjoyed so many excellent lessons
with our TBS students, and we only have two left! We will be sad to give that last one in two
weeks. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We had a surprise call from the mission
president. They invited us to their home
in Richmond (the Mission Home) for dinner our last night in Virginia. Not only that, they also invited us to stay
overnight there. They were aware we are
driving south so they knew it would give us a couple hour head start on our
drive the next morning. We said yes of
course! The Mission Home is a huge,
beautiful house. All missionaries spend
the first and last night of their mission there. In the basement there are enough beds for
about sixteen elders and on the second floor for about a dozen sisters. So there is plenty of room. It will be a wonderful send off to spend that
last night in the Mission Home. We love our mission president and his wife and will miss them a lot.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Dan and Lezlie Couchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10738399282740972815noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5585949352073043691.post-65291677346768246212015-01-25T17:08:00.001-08:002015-01-25T17:08:46.813-08:00A Visit to Montpelier<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This week was our Stake Conference. President Wilson, our mission president,
spoke. We had not heard this before, but
in giving his talk about providing service as missionaries he mentioned that
two young missionaries had lost parents while here on their mission. They were both elders and they lost their
moms. They both chose to remain and
complete their missionary service because they knew that is what their moms
would have wanted. We are always in awe
the dedication and sacrifice of these young missionaries. They are so impressive and inspirational. We feel it a great honor to work with them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We received permission from our Mission President to
be released a week early. Our official
end date was March 1 but he is allowing us to leave Feb 23. We thought we needed to spend more time with
mother in Florida to help her get things under control there before we head
back west. We are planning to stop in
Atlanta, Venice, Florida, Spring and Alpine, Texas, and Pagosa Springs, Colorado to see many
family members. Yay!</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We had a good Officer
Candidate School family home evening.
Our lone LDS marine was the only attendee again, but he is a really great
guy. He told us all about how hard the
first week has been and we gave him encouragement and praise. We had a good lesson about integrity and
leading by example. He loved the
chocolate cake the other couple brought and ate two huge pieces and about 3
glasses of milk. We are sad there are
not more LDS students this time, or at least a few non LDS visitors. But we know this young man needs all the
support he can get, so we are glad to hold our meetings just for him. It is pretty funny, 4 of us old folks giving a lesson and treats to this individual marine. But it is always a privilege to work with these
young OCS students. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">We had a Senior
Missionary activity on Saturday to tour Montpelier, so we traveled to Orange,
Virginia on Friday. Montpelier is
the historic home of James Madison and it is located about 5 miles from
Orange. Lezlie has ancestors that
settled in Orange County, so we decided to spend a day there doing family
history research. Well, Lezlie did the
research and I did some reading and tv watching. She visited two different libraries and tapped out all the resources on the Conways. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> It was a good day and she found some
additional details she had not known before.
However,she did not find the big conclusive evidence about James Conway she
was hoping to find. </span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Even though it was spitting snow we drove outside of Orange and found the land that the Conways settled- it is now a wildlife preserve that sponsors bird dog trials, a horse farm that raises endurance horses, and a large plant </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">nursery</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">. Orange is in the foothills of the </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Shenandoah</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> mountains and the rolling countryside is beautiful, even in the winter. We</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> saw some of the most beautiful horse farms. </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">We had a very nice
dinner with the senior missionaries that live in Orange at an interesting local restaurant that had been a silk mill during the Civil War and WWI.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> It was called the Silk Mill Grill- delicious crab cakes. </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">This couple is going home next week, so it was fun
to talk to them about finishing their mission and their plans for when they get
home.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">They have been here almost as long
as we have, so we feel like we know them pretty well.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">We talked about how hard it will be to say
goodbye to the great new friends we have made here in Virginia.</span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-z6zAYiL1yd0/VMWJX31SnEI/AAAAAAAAA7I/CSg8ZdJYinw/s1600/Montpelier%2BLezlie%2Bw%2BJames%2Band%2BDolley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-z6zAYiL1yd0/VMWJX31SnEI/AAAAAAAAA7I/CSg8ZdJYinw/s1600/Montpelier%2BLezlie%2Bw%2BJames%2Band%2BDolley.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">On Saturday we had a
great Senior Missionary Activity at Montpelier, the home of President
James Madison and his wife Dolley. Many years after the Madisons died it was owned by the DuPont family and became a horse farm. It is a national monument now, but it still </span>sponsors<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> cross country steeplechase type horse shows and fox hunts. There are beautiful rolling hills with horse pastures and a </span>view<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the front. We
met at the visitors center and had a short but very spiritual meeting. Since it may be the last time we see all the
seniors we got a chance to bear our testimonies. We talked about how much we have learned on
our mission and about how blessed we and our families have been since we
arrived here. We have learned a great
deal about faith, prayer, and about following the spirit. We then got a special group tour of the
mansion, and it was wonderful. We had a
superb tour leader who knew a ton of history about the home and the
Madison family. She even told a bit about James Madison's mom, who was a Conway. You might remember us mentioning that James Madison was born at Belle Grove, the Conway mansion. He was born there </span>because<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> his mom went home to be with her mom when she had her first baby, James. We stood in the room where James mom taught him his basic arithmetic and ABCs. The guide was very dramatic and a
great story teller. So in addition to
seeing the beautiful mansion and grounds we heard some great stories about
James Madison, his wife Dolley, and about U.S. history. James was an amazing man who had a huge
intellect. He studied the governments of
the world in his home library for six months before the Constitutional
Convention. He evaluated why they failed and developed ideas about how to avoid those pitfalls in a government. That is one of the reasons
he was able to write most of the constitution all by himself when he attended the convention. We had a very enjoyable day at Montpelier. We are grateful that we have been able to see
so many amazing U.S. History sites in Virginia.
We said goodbye to most of the other seniors as we may not see most of them
again. This was sad, but we are so
grateful we got to know them and serve with them. All have been wonderful examples to us. The picture above is Lezlie reading on a bench with James
and Dolley. Below we are standing in
front of the front porch at Montpelier. Finally
there is a picture of all of the senior missionaries from our mission that
attended the activity. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Today was a triple sacrament meeting Sunday. We were busy!
We began by getting up early to bake muffins and get ready for our 7am
sacrament service on base. We then drove
all the way to the base and provided the sacrament meeting for our lone LDS
marine currently enrolled in Officer Candidate School. We had a great discussion on courage. We have enjoyed getting to know this young
man and think highly of him. We get to love
these young people so quickly and we just want all the best for them. I think it is part of the missionary spirit
that you can develop such a love for folks so soon after you meet them. I supposed we should try to be more like that
all the time. Next we drove all the way
back to Woodbridge and attended our regular church meetings in our own
ward. Our schedule is currently
9:00-12:00. Our meetings were excellent
and we enjoyed spending time with our dear Quantico Ward family. Immediately after our meetings we headed for
the Rock Hill ward in Stafford, which is south of the base. We met a young marine family that are not
members of the church. She is a marine
at The Basic School. We first met her at
OCS where she attended our services several times. She contacted us and said she would like to take
her family to an LDS church service. So
we met her, her husband, and her two children at a ward near them. It was a really good experience. Their children, two and four, had never sat
through a church service like this before, and they did great. They were well behaved. Many, many ward
members came up and said hello and we think they had a nice time. We are going to wait a few days and see if
they want to come again or if they want us to stop by and teach them a lesson
about the gospel. We were happy to be
able to facilitate them coming to church and were pleased with the way it
turned out. Upon arriving home we both
kind of collapsed for a nap. We do not
handle these early, early mornings as well as we used to. But it was an excellent day and we were
grateful to be busily engaged in our work.
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Dan and Lezlie Couchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10738399282740972815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5585949352073043691.post-37846235013871993762015-01-17T12:39:00.001-08:002015-01-17T12:39:29.806-08:00In Memory of Papa<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #2f393a; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We have not posted a blog update in a
few weeks. This is because Lezlie’s dad,
Glenn Douthitt passed away on January 2 and we were away.
We received a phone call informing us early in the morning from Lezlie’s
sister-in-law who lives in Florida. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Although
he was 88 and in bad enough health that we knew this day was coming soon, it
was still a shock and very sad news.
After multiple phone calls to Lezlie’s mom and other family members,
many rearrangements of our schedule, and a quick job packing our suitcases we
flew to Sarasota, Florida that afternoon.
We arrived in the evening and began doing all we could to comfort
Lezlie’s mom and help take care of all the administrative issues associated
with a death in the family. Lezlie and
her sister went through many files and made multiple phone calls to insurance
companies, pension plans, etc. Meanwhile
I did the shopping, errand running, and handyman chores that needed doing. Lezlie’s mom was blessed by having many
family members visit to provide comfort and to attend the memorial
service. Lezlie’s brother and his wife
and her sister and her husband were all there.
Seven of her eleven grandchildren attended and even a couple of
great-grandkids were there. Although it
was a somber event that brought us together, the cousins all enjoyed visiting
with Grandma and with each other. Glenn
was an Army Veteran, so he was buried in the National Cemetery of Sarasota,
Florida. We had a very nice outdoor
memorial service there. Three Army
soliders were present. When we began the
service they marched in and placed the urn with Glenn’s ashes and an American
flag on the front table. Carrie said a
prayer and Anne read a scripture. Then Lezlie read a biography of her dad. Several of the children and grandchildren
sang a song that Lezlie’s sister had written several years ago for Glenn and
Connie’s fiftieth wedding anniversary.
Finally one of the soldiers played taps and the other two performed a
very nice flag ceremony. They presented
the flag to Connie and on behalf of the President of the U.S. thanked her for
her husband’s service to the country. It
was a very nice service and many tears were shed. We then all gathered at the home of Lezlie’s
brother David and his wife Liz. They
provided a wonderful meal and we had an informal sharing service where we all
got to talk about our favorite memories of our father, father-in-law, and
grandpa. He was a great man, and we all
had plenty of wonderful stories to share.
Many memories centered around his marvelous talents of art and
music. Some time in his forties he
decided he wanted to learn to paint and he taught himself to be an excellent
artist of land and seascapes. Every
child and grandchild has some of this art in their home. We all remembered his skill at the organ,
also self taught. Every family get together
was not complete until he sat down at the organ and played song after
song. There were also many memories
about his kindness, his love of family, and his enjoyment of life. It was a special afternoon where the tears
were interspersed with laughter and contemplation about the good life of Glenn
Douthitt. We honor him and will miss him
greatly. But we know that he is now
free from the pains and worries of mortal life, and that his spirit lives
on. We know that he is reunited with
loved ones in heaven. We are grateful to
have known him and been a part of his life.
He was a great man who has left an outstanding legacy. We honor his memory. Here is a picture of Lezlie with her dad when she was about two.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We got some nice photos while in Florida. Here are Abby and her 6 month old cousin
Austin, son of Lee and Laura Douthitt. </span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-N07CT1HkyMU/VLq-i9NU4GI/AAAAAAAAA6I/-apj1h7VaZ8/s1600/Abby%2Band%2BAustin%2B4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-N07CT1HkyMU/VLq-i9NU4GI/AAAAAAAAA6I/-apj1h7VaZ8/s1600/Abby%2Band%2BAustin%2B4.JPG" height="400" width="300" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Here is a nice picture of Abby with her great-grandma
as well as a four generation shot of Abby, mom Carrie, grandma Lezlie, and
great-grandma Connie.</span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BdBd-o6BqzQ/VLq-udJ7anI/AAAAAAAAA6Q/gk4AVTbciyE/s1600/Abby%2Bwith%2Bgreat-grandma.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BdBd-o6BqzQ/VLq-udJ7anI/AAAAAAAAA6Q/gk4AVTbciyE/s1600/Abby%2Bwith%2Bgreat-grandma.JPG" height="400" width="300" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #2f393a; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">At the
end of December we had a pleasant surprise.
We got the chance to see our nephew Michael Parsons and his fiance Alexis. They were in Washington DC
visiting friends. They were visiting the
Air and Space Museum at Dulles Airport on their last day in DC and invited us
to visit them there. We did and it was a
wonderful visit. We enjoyed chatting
while we walked around and saw the amazing planes, rockets, helicopters, and
anything else that flies. They both know
a lot about aviation and space. We got
to see the Space Shuttle Discovery and Michael showed us the engines he worked
on. Very Cool! We really enjoyed getting to know Alexis and
thought she was a wonderful girl. They
really seemed happy with each other. We
were flattered that they invited us to spend time with them. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #2f393a; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We recently
talked with the Church Military Relations Department. We were sad to hear they do not have a couple
lined up to replace us yet, at least not that will be here when we leave. It will make us sad if we do not get to turn
over these wonderful marines to another couple.
The soonest anyone would be here would be mid April, so that would mean
about a 6 week gap. But that is better
than no replacements at all. We will have
to leave a lot of information for the new couple so that they can quickly come
up to speed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2f393a; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Lezlie
had a delightful phone call with the grandma of our young marine friend – the
spudnut grandma. She was delighted to
hear that her grandson had enjoyed spudnuts on Christmas morning. We assured her that they were not as good as
her spudnuts. She and Lezlie had a good
laugh and a nice talk on the phone. We
were so delighted to be able to make that surprise work out. It was a blessing for our marine as well as
his grandma.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">After a slow Monday of catching up from our trip to
Florida we went out to dinner with our senior missionary friends Kevin and Mala
Anderson. They have served here in
Woodbridge for 6 months and we have greatly enjoyed working and socializing
with them. They are leaving tomorrow, so
we took them out to dinner. It was fun
but bittersweet because we are sad to bid them goodbye. While they were here we visited Monitcello
and Mt Vernon together, went to the temple, shared several meals and got
together in each other’s apartment several
times. It has been wonderful to become
close to another senior couple and talk about our missionary work. We will sure miss them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We had a great experience one evening last week with
a marine family. One of the female
marines that frequently came to our Officer Candidate School classes and who is
not a member of the church filled out a religious survey form at The Basic
School. She put down that she was
interested in attending LDS services.
The chaplain sent us her information.
So we went and visited her family and got to know them a bit. She has two young children and a husband who
is very nice. He is a retired
marine. He said that he had several close
LDS friends in high school so know something about the church. We are taking them to sacrament meeting at
the ward near their home this Sunday It
was exciting to talk to them and get to know them just a little bit. We are happy to get to take them to church.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We have actually begun sorting through some of our
closets and shelves here. We have just a little over a month left. Some things
we will leave here, some we will ship home, some we will give to Goodwill, some
we will give to the young missionaries, and some we will take in the car. You can really accumulate a lot of stuff in
18 months, so we have a lot to go through.
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Friday evening was our first meeting with the new
Officer Candidate School class. We had
only one show up, but he was a very nice guy.
He is originally from Utah, but has lived in Portland for the last
couple of years. So it was fun to talk
to him about Oregon. We had a nice
lesson about having the courage to Stand Alone.
He had some excellent comments. The
other service missionary that help with OCS and I were able to give him a
blessing. He is not worried about
handling the physical stuff, as he is in really good shape. But he is worried about getting injured. So we gave him a nice blessing. The chaplain told
us he thought that there were a couple more LDS folks that might show up next
time. We will just have to wait and see
if there are others. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Dan and Lezlie Couchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10738399282740972815noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5585949352073043691.post-44391817643357742512014-12-28T18:39:00.000-08:002014-12-28T18:39:07.549-08:00Aaron's Visit<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #2f393a; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">We worked a couple of shifts at the Navy Marine Corps Relief
Society this past week. A lot of the
regular volunteers were out of town or had family visiting, so we filled in the
gaps. We helped several marines that had
last minute money crises just before the holidays. As usual we were happy that we could help
them. We feel grateful that we have had
the opportunity to volunteer at NMCRS.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Mzr73YNEtsk/VKC6qQknbrI/AAAAAAAAA40/7TlWy_jvLcs/s1600/Christmas%2Bconf%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Mzr73YNEtsk/VKC6qQknbrI/AAAAAAAAA40/7TlWy_jvLcs/s1600/Christmas%2Bconf%2B2.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Tuesday was our
all-mission Christmas conference/party, and it was wonderful. Early in
the morning we transported 4 elders to Richmond for the party. All 280
missionaries from the entire mission were there, and it was a sight to
see (2 photos). To watch all of these dedicated young people sitting together and
knowing how hard they work, how much sacrifice they have made, and how hard
they are trying to be good people - well, it was just overwhelming. Our
program followed a set pattern. Someone would give a short talk about one
of the attributes of Christ, such as patience, charity, diligence, faith, hope,
etc. And then there would be 1 or 2 special musical numbers. The
talks and the music were both superb. I told Lezlie that some of these talks
could have been give at General Conference and they would have fit in
seamlessly. Most of the musical numbers were simply amazing. We were
in awe of the talent in our little mission. Of course there were several
beautiful singers, some solos and some numbers with duets or ensembles. I
had two favorites. One was the sister that sang "Oh Come Oh Come
Emmanuel." Her voice was like a controlled opera singer, and she
conveyed great emotion. Another was a sister that sang a very
interesting arrangement of "Silent Night." Her voice was like
crystal, pure and clear. Her testimony was obvious as she sang with great
emotion and tenderness. We also had some superb elders that played
instruments - a wonderful rendition of "Silent Night" on the violin,
"Emmanuel" again on the organ, and then a cello solo. There
were a couple of solos and ensembles that did not have stellar voices, but
their testimony of the Savior and their emotion came across strongly.
After two hours we broke for lunch. A group of women and young people had
prepared lunch for all 280 of us, and it was excellent (see pictures). We
had excellent ham, cheesy potatoes, rolls, salad, and pumpkin pie.
Afterwards we sang "Called to Serve" to the servers as a thank
you. While we were on our lunch break a couple of humorous numbers were
performed. The best one was when a very large Tongan elder played the
ukulele. His companion, who was about one-third of his size, did a very
funny rap poking fun at the mission president. The whole audience was
just roaring. It was good to see these hard working young people having
fun. Following our afternoon session we gathered in the gym one final
time. A group photo was taken, and you can imagine how long that
took. Getting 260 young people and 20 old folks lined up was not
easy. Then the mission president and his wife gave each of us a small bag
of goodies for Christmas. Also, one of the sister's family own a company
called Fatboy Ice Cream. They had sent several cases of ice cream bars on
dry ice so that we could each have one. What a special treat!
Although it was a long drive home after the party, Lezlie and all of the elders
slept, we were very happy that we got to attend such a spiritual and fun
Christmas conference. It was nice to spend a day totally focused on Jesus
Christ rather than on the other trappings of Christmas. We spent the few
hours left in the day making final preparations for Aaron's visit. We are
very, very excited about that. </span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--qcH4oj7kFM/VKC6qUoPj3I/AAAAAAAAA44/1xCnOBArQYI/s1600/Christmas%2Bconf%2B3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--qcH4oj7kFM/VKC6qUoPj3I/AAAAAAAAA44/1xCnOBArQYI/s1600/Christmas%2Bconf%2B3.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">After working at NMCRS
on Christmas eve we met a brand new Navy family that just arrived on base
Saturday. He is a lawyer – the Navy
provides all the lawyers for the marines.
It was a very nice family. She is
a Samoan and their sons have cool names like Kiumana and Tao. But it was also a sad visit. This dear sister has stage 4 cancer
and is battling for her life. You would
never know it though. She was cheerful
and positive. We were glad to meet her
and offer our help in any way we can. She
had lots of family their visiting for the holidays, including her parents. So she is in good hands. Finally we got to travel to the airport in
Washington DC and pick up Aaron. We had almost no traffic and all went
well meeting him. We were so happy to
see Aaron! We probably talked way to
much on the drive home but we were just very excited to see him. Upon our arrival at home we gave him a tour
of our apartment and had some excellent sloppy joes. We opened a few Christmas presents and had a
great time just visiting and catching up.
We got to skype in to Anne and Rex’s family Christmas Eve program, which
was really fun. There were many excellent performances by all of the
family. We were so proud of all of them.
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-i9arafJHIhs/VKC7xL6RRVI/AAAAAAAAA5M/k_HHUFKeqw0/s1600/Jordan%2BBauer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-i9arafJHIhs/VKC7xL6RRVI/AAAAAAAAA5M/k_HHUFKeqw0/s1600/Jordan%2BBauer.jpg" height="200" width="200" /></a><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Merry Christmas! We had an outstanding Christmas morning.
Lezlie got up first thing and started mixing up the dough for the
spudnuts for our young marine friend. It
is a complicated recipe so she was up early.
Our marine arrived just as the first spudnuts were being cooked. He was very surprised and touched. We could tell. He told us many stories about his
grandparents and what they did on Christmas Day, and about he and his cousins
eating dozens of grandma’s spudnuts.
Shortly after he arrived two of our missionaries stopped by, the young
elders from our ward. We fed them a good
Christmas brunch, and they also ate many spudnuts. The elders gave us an excellent spiritual
thought about the life of Jesus Christ and then they had to leave. To our surprise our marine stayed for another
hour and helped us finish our Christmas jigsaw puzzle. He seemed to enjoy it very much. But all too soon he had to leave. We were so pleased the way the spudnut
surprise went. I think he really knows
that we care about him and has come to trust us. After we opened the rest of our gifts we took
Aaron for a tour of the base. We dropped
plates of Christmas cookies off at two of the gates and the guards were very
pleased. We were able to show Aaron all
over the base, which was very quiet since it was Christmas Day. We also dropped off some toffee at one marine
family home, so Aaron got to experience that part of our missionary work
too. While on the base we stopped by the
Potomac River and saw lots of birds (photo below). We
did a lot of puzzling and game playing in the evening. We also got to have an excellent group video
chat with all of the family – Anne and Rex and their kids from Texas, Chris and
Stacey from Colorado, and Carrie and Matt and their kids from Washington. We really enjoyed that. It was a quiet but very, very nice Christmas
Day. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #2f393a; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UZJqBgvRCas/VKC7j1yFgfI/AAAAAAAAA5E/J7U17dxNdBc/s1600/Aaron%2Briver.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UZJqBgvRCas/VKC7j1yFgfI/AAAAAAAAA5E/J7U17dxNdBc/s1600/Aaron%2Briver.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #2f393a; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Of course
the day after Christmas was Lezlie’s birthday.
Happy Birthday Lezlie! During
breakfast she opened her birthday presents and enjoyed them very much. Throughout the day she got many phone calls
and happy birthday songs on the phone.
We spent most of the day at the Marine Corps Museum. Aaron really enjoyed it. He did not read quite as much as Rex, but he
did take his time and read most of the signs.
We had a superb lunch at the Tun Tavern restaurant in the museum. After a couple more hours of browsing in the
museum we finally headed home and worked on our second jigsaw puzzle and played
some more games. For Lezlie’s birthday dinner
we went to Bahama Breeze. We had some
really good seafood, and we all enjoyed it a lot. It was a low key birthday for mom, but we had</span><span style="background: black; border: 1pt none black; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 0pt; line-height: 115%; padding: 0in;"> </span><span style="color: #2f393a; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> a great time sharing it with Aaron. Here we are at the Marine Corps museum.</span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-D_DSUAYFbQ8/VKC8ObIs0KI/AAAAAAAAA5g/fhIaCkgdX64/s1600/Aaron%2BIwo%2BJima.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-D_DSUAYFbQ8/VKC8ObIs0KI/AAAAAAAAA5g/fhIaCkgdX64/s1600/Aaron%2BIwo%2BJima.jpg" height="200" width="200" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-b7Q3y0xmljo/VKC8G-ILFEI/AAAAAAAAA5U/F_oHGJVZ-lQ/s1600/Aaron%2Bmuseum%2B1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-b7Q3y0xmljo/VKC8G-ILFEI/AAAAAAAAA5U/F_oHGJVZ-lQ/s1600/Aaron%2Bmuseum%2B1.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yrxVl9C0P-s/VKC8PAjDrFI/AAAAAAAAA5o/xKXeZ0ACJWQ/s1600/Aaron%2Bat%2BDC.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yrxVl9C0P-s/VKC8PAjDrFI/AAAAAAAAA5o/xKXeZ0ACJWQ/s1600/Aaron%2Bat%2BDC.JPG" height="200" width="200" /></a><span style="color: #2f393a; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">On Saturday
we had a leisurely morning at home getting ready to take Aaron to DC and to the
Baltimore airport. We found downtown DC
more crowded than we had expected. It
was a beautiful sunny day for December so I guess that attracted a lot of visitors. Here are Aaron and mom in front of the Museum
of Natural History. We really enjoyed
both this museum and the American History museum. We once again were very impressed by the gem
collection, which Aaron really liked too.
He saw the dinosaurs and bones as well and thought they were excellent. In the American History museum we took our
time in the transportation section and the power machines area. Those areas were very good as well. I suppose everything in the Smithsonian
Museums is done well. Finally our time
was up and we had to head for the Baltimore airport. We had not been to that airport yet, and it
is a nice one. It was easy to get to
and not too crowded. We had enough time
for a quick dinner together at the airport and then all too soon it was time
for Aaron to leave. We had a wonderful
time with him, and we think he enjoyed it too.
We feel so fortunate that all of our children and grandchildren have come
to visit us on our mission. Not all
senior missionaries can claim that. In
the future when we tell stories of the things that happened in Virginia on our
mission they will have a much better understanding of what we are talking
about. We were so happy to have everyone
visit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Even though
we were kind of tired from all the activities during Aaron’s visit we had a
busy Sunday too. A young LDS marine from
Georgia showed up for embassy guard school on Friday. The military relations senior missionaries
from San Diego told us about him. We
contacted him about 3 weeks ago and so we knew he was coming. We took him to church today, but not to our
ward. The embassy guard school is on the
west side of the base, so it is much closer for him to go to a ward in
Stafford. Besides that we are going to
start an OCS class in a couple of weeks and we would not be able to give him a
ride. He was a very nice young man and
made a lot of friends at the ward very quickly.
We have learned that the embassy guard school is very competitive and
only excellent marines get selected to attend.
This young man was no exception.
He was bright and well spoken, and we really enjoyed him. After a short rest at home we attended one
last Festival of Lights concert at the temple.
We took along our friend Will. We
got to hear a big band that was outstanding.
I just love big band music. They
did several jazzy Christmas selections as well as some standard big band
songs. We all really enjoyed it. As a bonus, we ran into the Colsons, old neighbors from Richland, Washington who are serving a mission in Washington DC. it was good to see them. We had
a nice time visiting with Will in the car as well. It
will be our last trip to the Festival of Lights. We sure have enjoyed that program at the
temple. The beautiful lights, wonderful
music, and friendly crowds of people really have been a special Christmas
treat. <o:p></o:p>Dan and Lezlie Couchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10738399282740972815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5585949352073043691.post-25914117053702592512014-12-22T05:36:00.000-08:002014-12-22T05:36:12.693-08:00Merry Christmas to All<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-08m8ZXdyjao/VJcf7w0T3HI/AAAAAAAAA3Q/KMIWIk67gS8/s1600/Temple%2Blights.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-08m8ZXdyjao/VJcf7w0T3HI/AAAAAAAAA3Q/KMIWIk67gS8/s1600/Temple%2Blights.jpg" height="320" width="316" /></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Last Sunday I got to teach a lesson in High Priests group and
talk about being a senior missionary. I
just opened the floor for questions about senior missions, and was flooded with
questions. They asked all about the
application process, the rules for senior missionaries, the costs, the training
at the MTC, and on and on. It was good
interaction and I could tell many of them are seriously interested. After a short rest at home we picked up two
of our marines and one new member. We
took them to the Washington DC temple for a Festival of Lights concert. It was still daylight on the way to the
temple, so Lezlie pulled out the bells and we had some ringing Christmas carols
in the car. Those bells are loud in the
confined spaces of the car! The
Christmas lights and displays are always beautiful at the temple and our guests
seemed to enjoy everything. The concert
was given by Jenny Oaks Baker, a violinist with a small backup orchestra. I am in no way a big violin fan, but she is
just fantastic. She played several
Christmas songs that were just superb.
We were close enough to the front to see her facial expressions and her
movements, and it is obvious she feels the music deeply. A highlight was a number by her four
children. Their ages are 7 – 13 and they
played violin, cello, piano and guitar.
They were excellent too. I can
only imagine the amount of music practice that goes on in that household. One
of my favorites was Amazing Grace. She
explained that although it was not really a Christmas carol that it expressed
her testimony of Jesus Christ. When she
played we surely could feel the spirit there.
Our entire group really enjoyed the concert. We took food in the car and everyone enjoyed
chatting about the show and eating on the way home. It was a delightful evening, and we are so
glad we could take some guests. Our two
young marines are from small towns in Utah and they said they had never been to
a big concert like this before. It was
so humbling to be able to take them. We
got a couple of nice pictures of the temple, one just as the sun was going down
and another with all the lights.</span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We had a great lunch
with one of our single marines on Monday.
This is the young man that had three serious surgeries. He has just recovered enough from his final
surgery to enjoy going out for lunch. We
had a nice time, and were delighted that this young man feels so much more at
ease with us now. He works on the
President’s helicopters and told us he was going to arrange a tour for us. We were overwhelmed. That would be so cool. To see how far we have come with this young
man who would barely talk to us when we met him a year ago is simply
amazing. It is through no skill of our
own, but rather the promptings of the spirit guiding us in what we should do to
help this young man. An added tender
mercy of the day was really the icing on the cake. We ate at Panera Bread and each ordered soup
and sandwiches. The bill was about
$30. The cashier that was ringing us up
was a trainee and the manager was helping her.
At the end of the transaction he stepped up the register and started
punching in some keys. We thought he was just helping the trainee. But then he handed me a receipt and said,
“Thank you for your service Elder, you are good to go.” I looked at the bill and it showed a zero
balance. He smiled and said, “I am a
church member. Thanks for taking care of
some of Heavenly Father’s children.” I
explained that the young man was a marine that was under our stewardship and he
said that is what he had guessed. I
thanked him profusely. What a blessing
to be recognized by someone and thanked.
His words meant as much as the $30 donation. We were so touched. It is so true that we receive many extra blessings as missionaries.</span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In a followup story to our lunch with our bachelor marine,
one of the things Lezlie asked him is what he would miss about not being home
for Christmas. He said that every year
his grandma made spudnuts and homemade root beer at Christmas and he would
really miss that. You could just see his
whole countenance light up as he talked about this tradition with his
grandparents. When we got into the car
Lezlie said that she had a revelation that she was supposed to find his
grandma, get the recipe for the spudnuts, and make some for this young man for
Christmas. We knew that one set of
senior missionaries was from the same town as this young marine’s grandparents
and we knew their last name was Bauer. But
we knew this was the last day of their mission!
We called them anyway and reached them somewhere in West Virginia, as
they had already begun their trip home.
They said they knew a family by the name of Bauer and got us the phone
number. Lezlie called these Bauers. They said they were not related but they thought
they knew of the right Bauer family.
Lezlie called them and it was the uncle of our Bauer! He gave us the grandma’s phone number. So with about 3 phone calls we found the
grandma! Lezlie had a nice conversation
with her and told her how fondly her grandson spoke about her. She said that our marine was her oldest
grandchild and that she had always felt close to him. She said he has had a hard life and she worried
about him. She also told Lezlie that she
was currently battling cancer but had not told our marine because she knew he
was going through serious medical issues himself. She said she was doing okay but that the
chemo treatments made her very weak. This
was going to be the first Christmas that she was not able to make spudnuts for
her grandchildren. Lezlie told her not to worry, that she would make spudnuts
for her grandson. Lezlie and she both
cried. So, she is sending us the recipe
today and we will make the spudnuts, buy some fancy root beer, and give them
to our young marine on Christmas Day. He is coming to our apartment for a Christmas brunch.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-grWJK0eKkJI/VJcgr-hI0BI/AAAAAAAAA3g/hxZI5Sp3fMw/s1600/TBS%2Bgift%2Bsnow%2Bglobe%2Bedit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-grWJK0eKkJI/VJcgr-hI0BI/AAAAAAAAA3g/hxZI5Sp3fMw/s1600/TBS%2Bgift%2Bsnow%2Bglobe%2Bedit.jpg" height="320" width="166" /></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We had a wonderful end of the year family home evening with
our The Basic School group. They will
all have two weeks off, so we will not meet again until January. We went all
out on treats. You can see the evidence
in the below photo. Lezlie made toffee, pistachio pudding desert, and chocolate
mint brownies. They looked beautiful all
laid out on the table. We were a little
sad this night because we knew it would be the last time we saw our gal from
Moldova. She is leaving for California
to finally join her husband at his marine base. We are happy about that. Anyway, we had a great lesson about gifts we
can give, and talked about non-material gifts we can give to others – patience,
love, understanding, forgiveness, joy, friendship, and on and on. There was a great spirit at the meeting and
we all enjoyed it so much. We then did
several carols with the bells, which they loved. One of our gals is a percussionist and she
brought several items for us to use with the bells – tambourines, shakers, rattles,
etc. We had so much fun! All of them were laughing and joking. Then as we were ending up the meeting our gal
from Maldova stood up and said, “We all wanted to thank you for your great
service to us so we got you a small gift.”
They gave us a beautiful snow globe.
It shows a book inside and on the book is a beautiful poem about
friendship. They also had it inscribed with,
“TBS Family Home Evening, 2013 – 2015, Matthew 25:35.”</span><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #2f393a; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"> <span class="verse">This is what the scripture
says. </span></span><i><span style="color: #2f393a; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">For I was an<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314);">hungred</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314);">,
and ye<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314);">gave</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314);"> </span>me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave
me drink: I was a<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314);">stranger</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314);">,
and ye took me in</span></i><span style="color: #2f393a; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">. On top of that they gave us a beautiful
framed picture with 4 of our long term family home evening attendees at the
temple. They had gone to the Festival of
Lights together and arranged things so they could get the picture taken. Needless to say we were quite overwhelmed and
many tears were shed. We feel so
overwhelmed with gratitude just to associate with these young people, and to
have them give us a gift was very humbling.
We feel like we have done some good with these folks. Here is a picture of the kitchen after the treats
were prepared and then one of how they looked on the table at TBS.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2f393a; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Our main
activity today, Wednesday, was attending the chaplains briefing for the new The
Basic School class.</span><span style="color: #2f393a; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="color: #2f393a; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The chaplains
briefing is where all of the religious lay leaders get to introduce themselves,
including us.</span><span style="color: #2f393a; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="color: #2f393a; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This class consists
largely of the group that just graduated from Officer Candidate School in
November.</span><span style="color: #2f393a; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="color: #2f393a; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We had a large group of
visitors that attended out family home evenings at OCS.</span><span style="color: #2f393a; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="color: #2f393a; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So today we had about a dozen of them come up
and say hello and thank us for our service to them at OCS.</span><span style="color: #2f393a; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="color: #2f393a; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Once again we felt totally humbled by their
words.</span><span style="color: #2f393a; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="color: #2f393a; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We feel like we get so much out
of this work that we should be thanking them for letting us be a part of their
lives for their short time at Quantico.</span><span style="color: #2f393a; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
</span><span style="color: #2f393a; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It was just delightful to see them again and we simply felt overwhelming
love for these good young folks.</span><span style="color: #2f393a; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="color: #2f393a; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></div>
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<span style="color: #2f393a; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Our Thursday
began with a long shift at Navy Marine Corps Relief Society. We have been crazy busy there the last few
weeks and today was no exception. On an
average day I might do 1 or 2 budgets. Today
I did four. I was running and hustling the
whole time. But it is good to help these
young marine families. We always love
our work at NMCRS. I also finished a
project for the NMCRS office. The front
door of our office trailer does not face the parking lot and we did not have a
sign on the parking lot side of the trailer.
Some folks had trouble finding us.
So I made a sign to put up on the parking lot side of the trailer. It was not complicated, just a plastic logo
sign on a white board. But it was fun to do a little project with my hand
tools. It turned out well. We were schedule to take two young people to
the Washington DC temple to attend one of the Christmas concerts. But one of them cancelled out and the other
was late. By then traffic was so heavy
we were not going to make it in time for the concert. Instead we took the young marine out to
dinner. He wanted to go to a fancy sub shop
that he knew. We were not thrilled to go
out for submarine sandwiches as we eat at Subway once or twice a week. But that is what he wanted so we went there. It was an excellent sub shop and we did enjoy
the food. But even more important than
that, our young marine loved it. He liked the food but he was also happy to
introduce us to a new restaurant and tell us all about it. He used to go to this chain of sub shops back
home in Chicago with his dad, so it was nostalgic for him too. So even though the concert did not work out
we had a good time with our marine friend.
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<span style="color: #2f393a; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">On Friday
we did a lot of Christmas preparations. We are so excited that Aaron is coming to
visit for Christmas. We have been trying
to make extra special preparations to make sure we have good activities and
good food. We would also like him to
experience a little of what we do on our mission. We
also got to deliver four more sets of Christmas goodies. We were especially happy to find one of our
bachelor marines working on the front gate so we delivered his treats
there. His coworker was pretty happy
too. We also caught up with another
hard-to-catch bachelor at this barracks, which made us happy. That leaves one family among all of our
marines that we have left for a Christmas delivery. We are hoping to catch them Sunday evening. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cGUEucwgpzU/VJgd88s4WnI/AAAAAAAAA4A/nd0tL_6Rx44/s1600/Senior%2BChristmas%2Bparty.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cGUEucwgpzU/VJgd88s4WnI/AAAAAAAAA4A/nd0tL_6Rx44/s1600/Senior%2BChristmas%2Bparty.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a><span style="color: #2f393a; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">On Saturday
we attended our Senior Missionary Christmas party. It was
held at the mission home in Richmond.
This is where the Mission President and his wife live. The other senior missionaries here, the
Andersons, rode with us. We love the Andersons and are so sad that they
are leaving in mid January. We have been
to the mission home a couple of times but had never before seen the entire
house. They gave us a tour this
time. In the basement are enough beds
for 12 young elders. Upstairs there were
enough beds for 10 young sisters. The first and last nights on their mission
are spent at the mission home. It is a
beautiful big home and we enjoyed being there.
They had lovely Christmas decorations including two trees. For dinner they served us ham, scalloped potatoes,
broccoli and rolls, and then a delicious trifle for desert. Then we sang some carols and had a short
Christmas message from President Wilson.
Finally we did a white elephant gift exchange that was great fun. Lezlie and I ended up with a jigsaw puzzle
and a scarf. It is always inspiring and
strengthening to be with the other senior missionaries. They are a bunch of competent, friendly, and
dedicated folks, and we feel it an honor to be a part of the group. Here is a picture that was taken at the party. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2f393a; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Our Sunday
sacrament service was excellent. We had
lots of music including the choir and a special piano, violin duet, all
excellent. Each of the members of the
bishopric gave a short Christmas talk.
Everyone was dressed in their best Christmas clothes, so there was a lot
of red and green sprinkling the pews. We
helped a young marine with his children in primary for the 2<sup>nd</sup> hour
and were about to walk out to go to our 3<sup>rd</sup> hour classes. A member of the bishopric grabbed us and
asked us to teach the 4 year olds as their teachere was absent. So with no prior notice we made up a lesson
for four 4 year olds. Lezlie made up
some questions about Christmas and we asked what gift they would give to Jesus
for Christmas. We had them make some
small ornaments and them Lezlie drew a large stable on the blackboard. The children drew in all of the nativity
people and things. It went well and we
enjoyed being with the kids. We made our
final Christmas goodies deliveries Sunday evening. We had one new marine that we just met last week. He and his wife of six months are here for The Basic School. We got to meet her and their sweet little dog. It was a nice visit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2f393a; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We wish all of you, our family and friends, a wonderful Christmas full of joy and peace. We also wish you a most Happy New Year. We hope to see all of you in 2015. </span></div>
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Dan and Lezlie Couchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10738399282740972815noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5585949352073043691.post-68539467951439157612014-12-21T11:27:00.000-08:002014-12-21T11:27:42.530-08:00He is the Gift – Christmas Video – #ShareTheGift<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uzjFEMmM0Xs" width="480"></iframe>Dan and Lezlie Couchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10738399282740972815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5585949352073043691.post-8870235011971254442014-12-13T14:46:00.003-08:002014-12-13T14:46:39.310-08:00A Happy Early December<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 15.3333320617676px;">We learned this week that Aaron is coming for Christmas!</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 15.3333320617676px;"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 15.3333320617676px;">We are so excited!!!</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 15.3333320617676px;"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 15.3333320617676px;">He will be here just a short time, but it will be wonderful to see him and show him a little bit of what our life is like here.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 15.3333320617676px;"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 15.3333320617676px;">We are happy, happy, happy.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 15.3333320617676px;"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 15.3333320617676px;">He will arrive on </span><span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 15.3333320617676px;">Christmas</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 15.3333320617676px;"> Eve.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We had a couple of long shifts at the Navy Marine Corps
Relief Society over the past few weeks.
I had two long and complex cases, a couple of the toughest ones I have
ever experienced. But we got through it
and I was able to get funds approved for both marines who needed the money
badly. One case was en especially
touching one. A young marine had
recently gained custody of his two children – his wife has essentially just run
out on him. He was struggling to make
everything work, but is has been very hard on him. We were able to figure out how to get his
some money to help him out for a couple of months. He got big tears in his eyes when I handed
him a check for $2300 for rent and child care, and I got quite choked up too. It was a true joy to be able to help
him. We also had our NMCRS Christmas
Party this week, which was enjoyable. We
have come to love and appreciate our fellow volunteers, all of whom willingly
give of their time to help out the marines.
They are a great group of people.
We will miss working with them when we leave. At the gift exchange Lezlie got a hand
knitted scarf from our director, which will be a special keepsake. I got a DVD of the Wizard of Oz! I love that movie. Hooyah!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We were able to attend the Washington DC festival of lights
recently. This is the festival at the
Washington DC temple in December. For
the entire month the grounds are lit with millions of lights. The visitor’s center, which has a large
auditorium, has wonderful concerts every night.
They also have many international manger scenes that have been loaned by
embassies in Washington DC. We took two of our The Basic School family home
evening sisters. It happened to be the
opening night of the Festival of Lights.
We got to see the beautiful lights, tour the visitor’s center, and look
at all the international manger scenes.
The concert for the evening was the Mt Vernon Bell Choir and they put on
an excellent concert. Our favorite part
was when they had a sing along. Singing
Silent Night with bells was beautiful. This is our friend from Moldova at the
temple and then a shot of the wonderful Christmas lights at the temple.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">We had a lovely getaway one day for a few hours. We noted that our annual passes for Mt Vernon
were expiring soon. Our friends the
Andersons, the other senior couple here, had told us they would like to visit
Mt Vernon one day. So we invited them to
go one Friday morning and we had a most enjoyable visit. We got there just as the grounds opened and
had a good tour of the mansion. The
museum and art gallery are always excellent, and we took our time today and
really got into reading all the information and watching all the videos. We had a delicious lunch at Mt Vernon Inn, a
restaurant we have come to appreciate very much. We got some photos by the beautifully
decorated Christmas Trees. It was a fun
morning with the Andersons, whom we have come to love and be grateful for. We will be sad when they leave in mid
January. We spent time at home working
on Christmas gifts after that. It got
cold in the afternoon so we were glad to stay in. This is us and George in front of one of his many Christmas trees.</span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-q-vaR7fn0uY/VIy2c1fUfYI/AAAAAAAAA2M/ReJpAtCGDKA/s1600/Messiah%2B4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-q-vaR7fn0uY/VIy2c1fUfYI/AAAAAAAAA2M/ReJpAtCGDKA/s1600/Messiah%2B4.JPG" height="200" width="200" /></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We had a superb activity on the afternoon of Sunday Dec
7. We
drove to Annapolis for a mid-afternoon performance of the Messiah by the
Naval Academy Men and Women’s Glee Clubs.
It was spectacular for many reasons.
We almost did not go because at church I pulled my back. It was the strangest thing. I was just sitting in class and I crossed my
legs. As I lifted up my left leg
something just sort of popped in my back and a huge pain shot across my lower
back. We got home about 12:30 and knew
we needed to leave for Annapolis by 1:15.
So Lezlie gave me some excellent back first aid and I took some
Aleve. After laying flat on my back for
half an hour I decided to go for it.
Lezlie drove and we found a very convenient parking spot near the
chapel. The first reason it was so
spectacular to attend this concert were the decorations. There were beautiful greenery, trees and
lights in the chapel and it was very festive.
The second reason we loved it was the spectacular music. The orchestra, soloists, and the chorus did a
superb job, and of course we love the music of the Messiah so much. It was wonderful to hear. For me, though, there was much more. I sang in the Messiah every year I was at the
Academy, and it brought back many fond memories - memories of hard practices
trying to learn all the difficult music of the Messiah; of flirting with the
girls from Hood College that combined with us for the Messiah; of being filled
with joy in singing that music; of thoroughly enjoying the short respite from
the hard work of being a midshipman; and of performing for a packed crowd and
being proud of how our hard work paid off.
Singing with the Glee Club at the Academy is what gave me my peace and
my relief from stress. I do not think I
could have made it without the music. So
anything related to music at the Academy is very, very nostalgic to me. After returning home from Annapolis we also
enjoyed the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. Fortunately after a couple of days of taking
it easy my back was fine. Above is me being happy at the Messiah and below is the midshipman chorus.</span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Early in the week we
headed for Stafford and had several nice visits. We delivered Christmas cookies and a message
to four marine families. We told a
couple of them, the ones that live the farthest away and that need us the
least, that this was likely our last visit.
It was emotional saying goodbye to these folks as we built up a lot of
history with them. One mom especially. We helped her out a lot when her husband was
away at school and we spent a lot of time at her house helping her with chores
and entertaining her children. But we
had good visits with all. We then got to
attend a very special Marine ceremony.
In the building where we meet at The Basic School is a small chapel that we have used it occasionally. It is named the Capodonna Chapel after a Navy
Chaplain who worked with marines. He
received the Medal of Honor after he was killed in combat in Viet Nam. He died while ministering to marines and
trying to shield them from hostile fire.
His family recently donated his actual Medal of Honor and Presidential Certificate
to the chapel. So they had a dedication
ceremony. It was quite nice, with some
excellent speeches, good music, and the playing of taps. This was an invitation only ceremony, so we
felt honored to be there. After a quick
dinner at our favorite, Bob Evans, we held our TBS family home evening. We had a fun lesson about receiving gifts
during which we gave all of the group small gifts. Then we brought out the bells and played
Christmas carols. We were a little
worried that they might think the bells were silly, but they really got into
it. They picked up on how to read the
music quickly and did a wonderful job on some carols and on the Marines
Hymn. They were laughing and teasing
each other the whole time. We promised
we would bring them again next time.
Here is our small TBS FHE group playing the bells, two marines, a marine wife, and a
friend. </span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Our Friday morning was quite busy with baking some more and
preparing plates of Christmas goodies to deliver to our marines. We also attach a nice Christmas greeting to
each plate and provide manger scene stickers or scratch board ornaments for all
of the children and of course dog biscuits for all of the dogs on our route . After loading up about
ten plates of cookies, brownies and toffee we headed for the base. Our first appointment was to take a marine
out to lunch. He is married, but his
wife and daughter had traveled home to see her family. So he was home alone this week. He was sad because his wife is gone and
because he is dealing with several injuries.
The marines are deciding whether or not to discharge him. So we just let him talk and unburden
himself. After lunch we visited several additional
marine families in Stafford, which is even further away than the base. We had some really nice visits, some of which
will likely be our last for these families that are far away. After our Stafford visits we also stopped to
see 6 families on base. It was really
good to see all of them, and fun to wish them Merry Christmas. Even though we made multiple deliveries we
still have several more ahead of us. So
we baked and baked some more in the evening.
Nice Christmas music does make the baking easier.</span><span style="background: black; border: 1pt none black; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 0pt; line-height: 115%; padding: 0in;"> </span><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We had a successful Saturday morning and afternoon of more
visits and deliveries of Christmas goodies.
It was great fun, and we saw almost everybody we had hoped to see. It is so enjoyable to see the decorations at
their homes, hear of their Christmas plans, and feel the excitement of their
children. We were able to visit six
families today, which means our list is getting smaller. We have just a few more families to
visit. Then we will be focusing on
getting ready for Aaron’s visit. We are
very excited about that! Delivering
goodies and saying Merry Christmas may not seem like much. But it helps these families, many of whom
very seldom come to church, that someone in the ward knows about them and cares
about them. We call it our cookie
ministry!</span></div>
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Dan and Lezlie Couchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10738399282740972815noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5585949352073043691.post-17360535717271037182014-11-30T13:52:00.001-08:002014-11-30T13:52:16.028-08:00Billings' Thanksgiving Visit<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Our Saturday began with a long drive to Tappahannock,
Virginia. There we attended a senior
missionary activity. It was great
fun. We always love to be around the
other seniors and to be inspired by the stories of their work. Each senior couple shared a short spiritual
thought, and they were all very inspiring and strengthening. Then we headed
south to meet our daughter Anne and Rex, Leah, Alex, Brenna, Eli and Zach on
their drive to our home. It was great fun
because we surprised the children. We
parked at a McDonalds and texted Anne our exact location. Then
Anne and Rex just drove into the parking lot next to us. The grandkids were so surprised! Then we got to drive back
home with them and have a nice visit in the car. Even though it was late everyone talked all
the way home because we were all excited to see each other. We had a quick tour of the apartment – it doesn’t
take long for a 2 bedroom place – and figured out how to bed everyone down in
our small home. It was tight but we
worked it all out. And the apartment was
alive with the sound of happy children.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_Di5CAqgCc0/VHuMFHcE6cI/AAAAAAAAAzw/DYx69LgzO70/s1600/Manassas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_Di5CAqgCc0/VHuMFHcE6cI/AAAAAAAAAzw/DYx69LgzO70/s1600/Manassas.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">On Sunday we got to take all of the Billings to
our ward here, the Quantico Ward. Things
were made a bit tricky by a flat tire on their van that we discovered as we were
loading up for church. But we made two
trips, got everyone to church, and things worked out fine. It was so nice to have them meet some of the
folks we have told them about. Everyone
was very nice to all the Billings. Each
one of the kids had a good time at Nursery/Primary/Young Womens. After
a quick lunch at home most of us drove to Manassas. Lezlie stayed home with Zach, partially
because he was sound asleep taking a nap but also becaus we only had one
van. Everyone enjoyed walking around the
beautiful fields at Manassas. But they
were also respectful in that they knew it was a battleground. We saw a movie and read all about the two
Civil War battles that took place at Manassas.
Alex and Rex read every single historical sign. It was great for eveyone to learn about
history and see some of the background of the Civil War. In the evening we had a pumpkin bread baking
frenzy. Lezlie and Anne, with the help
of Leah, Alex, Brenna, Eli and Zach, made about 40 loaves of pumpkin bread,
wrapped them in saran wrap, tied a ribbon around each, and added a Thanksgiving
spiritual message to every one. It was
quite a production. They did a great
job. Here are the grandkids helping with the bread. </span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cQmMjal41b8/VHuNDzg_uAI/AAAAAAAAA0I/GNmbM4Bqfps/s1600/269.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cQmMjal41b8/VHuNDzg_uAI/AAAAAAAAA0I/GNmbM4Bqfps/s1600/269.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Monday morning could have been a disaster. But it was not. Actually things worked out quite well. We were able to pick up the Billings’
repaired van tire at 7am and get it onto the car by about 7:45am. Rex had a dental issue that was troubling
him, so we walked into the dentist that Lezlie and I go to at 8am when it
opened. They welcomed Rex as if he were
an established patient and told him they could see him within the hour. By 9:15am Rex’s dental issue was fixed and
shortly thereafter we were headed for our visit to the Naval Academy in Annapolis,
MD. It was a gorgeous day for late
November, up in the 60s. We had a
wonderful visit. Rex loved the history,
the grandkids loved all the statues and monuments, and Anne loved hearing my
stories of being a midshipman. We saw the
chapel, museum, Bancroft Hall, the midshipman store, the midshipmen's noon meal formation, the dining hall, and the 7<sup>th</sup>
wing where I lived for 3 years. It was a
great visit, and I was proud and happy to show off my alma mater to family
members. Who knows, maybe someday one
of the grandkids will go there. All of
them have seen USNA now. The pictures are Zach inside a cannon, the grandkids at the Class of 73 bench, and us watching the midshipmen at noon meal formation. After an
unbelievably quick drive home through Wash DC traffic we went to a nearby
seafood restaurant located on the Potomac River. Everyone got to try some local crab and everyone
seemed to enjoy it. We had to do an
urgent missionary visit after that. A
dog who belonged to one of our dear friends at the Quantico Ward died in the morning. This man lives alone and his dog had been
with him almost 14 years. So we really
wanted to go see him and provide some comfort since we understood what he was
going through because of our dog background.
So the Billings family went home and we went for a visit. He cried in our arms as he talked about his
sweet little dog. It was kind of a sad
ending to an otherwise joyful day. He will get lots of support and comfort from
the ward, though, and we know he will be okay eventually. When we returned home we had a Family home
evening with our family about teamwork.
We then used teamwork to make trail mix to take with us on our future
excursions.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We were lucky that an Officer Candidate School
(OCS) graduation parade took place while Anne’s family was here. We loaded up early Tuesday morning and
arrived at the base just before the parade started. All of the grandkids were impressed by the
marching marines, the excellent band, and the loud cannons. It was quite a spectacle for them. After the parade we got to greet several of
the marines that we had befriended at our weekly services, and it was such a
joy to see them on this important day in their lives. We got several hugs and many thank yous,
which all helped Anne and Rex get a better understanding of what we do
here. Next we toured the Marine Corps
Museum, and everyone really loved it. It
was great to see the grandkids learning so much about our country’s history and
about the marines. It just so happened
that we were still there when the OCS commissioning ceremony took place. So we all got to hear the new 2</span><sup style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">nd</sup><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
Lieutenants from OCS sing the Marine Hymn.
It was very cool. Next we
traveled back onto the base and showed the family our Navy Marine Corps Relief
Society offices, which is where we spend a lot of time volunteering. It was fun to show them where we work and introduce
them to our friends there. Then we split
up into two groups and delivered about 30 loaves of pumpkin bread with a
Thanksgiving spiritual message to almost all of our marine families. The kids really enjoyed it especially since
they had helped prepare the loaves of bread.
It gave them a small insight into one of the things we do here on our
mission. We ended the night with our TBS
family home evening. It was a small group
but it went well. We had a lesson on
gratitude and the kids helped by holding up pictures about the lesson and
reading scriptures that were written on the back. Since Zach can’t read we had him hold up a
picture of Marine Captain Herrera, an injured marine whom we discussed in the
lesson. Zach was just supposed to say, “This
is Captain Herrera.” But Zach likes to
pretend he is reading. When he heard the
other kids read scriptures he pretended like he was reading scriptures. So he said, “Behold Captain Herrera….” and then made up some words that sounded like
scriptures to him. He stopped and started about 5 times, and each time he would
say, “Behold Captain Herrera.” It was
quite funny and cute in a very innocent way.
The kids seemed to enjoy the family home evening, and it also helped all
of the Billings see a little bit of what we do here. It was a long, tiring day, but it was also a wonderful
day. These photos show us greeting some
of our marines at the OCS graduation parade.</span></div>
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Wednesday, and Mt Vernon on Thanksgiving Day.
But the weather forecast called for rain, snow, and cold wind. So at the last minute we switched our plans
and went to Mt Vernon instead. We were
lucky to be able to do so because we had tickets for Mt Vernon as well as
things in DC. But we successfully switched
everything around. It worked out really
well. The bad weather kept the crowds
small at Mt Vernon. We did not have to
spend too much time outside, and luckily there was a lull in the rain when we
were out. And we spent a long time in
the excellent museum. The grandkids had
a ball at the there with the many videos and hands on exhibits. It turned out really well and we were so glad
we could visit George Washington’s home.
Even though the restaurant there, the Mt Vernon Inn, was supposedly full
we were able to get a table for lunch.
We had a great meal and fun time there too (see picture). To start the holiday season we watched Elf
that night after we got home from Mt Vernon.
It was great!</span><span style="background: black; border: 1pt none black; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 0pt; line-height: 115%; padding: 0in;"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6dWFjByIqa8/VHuO94W90JI/AAAAAAAAA00/4u_VJqpplFU/s1600/884.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6dWFjByIqa8/VHuO94W90JI/AAAAAAAAA00/4u_VJqpplFU/s1600/884.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Thanksgiving Day is an excellent day to tour
Washington DC. There was very little
traffic and we found things quiet downtown.
We were able to park right near the mall and see even more things than
planned. We first found a parking spot
near the Lincoln Monument and got to walk around it for a few minutes. It is always spectacular. We even got some picture without a bunch of
other people in the background. We then had a great drive around the National
Mall so that we could see most of the monuments and famous building. While Rex and I parked the cars everyone else
got to tour the National Art Gallery, which they enjoyed. Next we saw the National Museum of Natural
History. Everyone’s favorite area was
the gem stones. We loved the diamonds,
rubies and gold. And the ladies and
girls really loved the fantastic jewelry.
After a good lunch at the museum cafeteria we went on to the National
Museum of American History. Our favorite
exhibit there was the original Star Spangled Banner. Eli, our 6 year old grandson who loves
patriotic songs, sang the Star Spangled Banner while looking at the flag. It was very touching. We also enjoyed the Presidents exhibit,
especially the first lady’s dresses and the president’s timeline. We finally made our way across the mall to
the Washington Monument. Anne had
reserved tickets for us, and we got to step onto the elevator almost
immediately after we arrived. It was
spectacular. We had a clear day to see
the view, and we really enjoyed it. We
could see from the Reagan Airport to the Capital Building and way out into the Potomac
River. We finally made the long trek
back to the car, detouring right past the White House for a good view of
that. We had an easy drive home with
almost no traffic. We then enjoyed a
turkey breast we had cooked all day in the crock pot. Rex was even able to stream the Seahawks
football game, so we wound down the night watching a little football. It was a long and tiring day, but boy was it
fun. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-G2gAjxrtnqQ/VHuPqcDZ51I/AAAAAAAAA1I/55P-eEz_Nkw/s1600/312.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-G2gAjxrtnqQ/VHuPqcDZ51I/AAAAAAAAA1I/55P-eEz_Nkw/s1600/312.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FtUDZDzVMig/VHuPqFjByHI/AAAAAAAAA1E/9ozPoKI4JIg/s1600/867.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FtUDZDzVMig/VHuPqFjByHI/AAAAAAAAA1E/9ozPoKI4JIg/s1600/867.JPG" height="150" width="200" /></a><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">For the last day of Billings’ visit we toured Colonial
Williamsburg. Even though we had a
mini-crisis because I forgot the tickets, we got it all straightened out and
had an impressive tour of Williamsburg.
Some of the grandkids’ favorites were the blacksmith, the tailor, the
jewelry maker, and the gun smith. They
really enjoyed asking the historical actors questions. We had an excellent lunch at one of the old
time inns, and some got to tour the Governors Palace. The kids got to try out some colonial era
games too. Although it was a bit cold,
we did have a clear and dry day. We all
really enjoyed Williamsburg and learned a lot about colonial times. We all spent the night in a hotel nearby and
had a nice evening just relaxing in our hotel rooms. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">After a quick breakfast Saturday morning and lots of packing up
the Billings headed south for Houston and we headed north for Woodbridge. It was sad to say goodbye, but we have much
missionary work yet to do in our remaining three months. So after a long, quiet drive home we spent
time putting things away and regrouping to get ready for our weeks’ activities. The apartment seemed sadly quiet after having
two extra adults and four energetic children here all week. It was a wonderful, wonderful visit. We are so grateful to Anne, Rex, Leah, Alex,
Brenna, Eli and Zach for all the energy, time and resources they spent to come
here and visit us. We loved every minute
of it!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Dan and Lezlie Couchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10738399282740972815noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5585949352073043691.post-52688401555624500052014-11-17T09:46:00.001-08:002014-11-17T09:46:17.134-08:00Happy Veterans Day<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Besides a good
checkup at the dentist this Monday we had a wonderful family home evening with
a marine family. We developed a new
Power Point lesson on Teamwork. It went
very well and the children behaved nicely.
They enjoyed it too. For a
teamwork activity we took our bells and had the family play several songs,
which they greatly enjoyed. For a
teamwork snack we gave each family member a small paper bag of some sort of
trail mix food. Then each of them dumped
their bag into a large bowl, we shook it up, and then we had trail mix. That was great fun too. This was a very active church family and it
was such a nice time being welcomed into the home, the family participating
fully, and having such a warm and peaceful setting for our lesson. Being with this family made us realize how
long we have been here. We recall one of
our first visits with them and she was pregnant. Now their little boy is over one and is
almost a toddler rather than a baby. He
was a joy to watch. So we had a wonderful time and felt like the family home
evening was successful.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Our Tuesday morning
was filled with zone training. Half of
our zone, about twenty elders and sisters, got together for some small group
training with the Mission President and his wife. It went well and there were some good
training lessons. After taking some
elders to lunch we dashed down to the base.
We had developed a short spiritual message appropriate for Veterans Day. We decided no treats this time since we just
did Halloween treats and will soon do Thanksgiving ones. So we just taped our message on the front
door of each of our marine families. We stopped at twenty front
doors. That was fun. In between times we also texted about a dozen
of our past marines that are all over the country now. Finally we
visited the home of a less active marine family and provided our teamwork
family home evening. It went very well,
even beyond what we had hoped for. They
loved playing the bells and kept asking to do just one more song. They really enjoyed making the trail mix and
eating it. As we were getting ready to
leave their five year old girl said, “When are you going to come back?” We just laughed, but the dad said we have to
come back again next month for another FHE.
We were so pleased about how well this visit went. We just love this family and want them to
experience all of the blessings available to them if they just get back into
coming to church. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">We spent much of Wed
morning day baking. Lezlie made several dozen of her no-bake chocolate
oatmeal cookies and I baked a double batch of snicker doodles. We
are glad we did extra baking because we had 29 at our Officer Candidate
School family home evening. There were widely varying emotions
tonight. About half of the students were elated and smiling
because they have 12 days left and they know they will make it. Many
other were very concerned because they have to appear before a review
board because of poor academics or leadership. At the board the OCS
Commanding Officer will decide whether they stay or are dropped. If they
are dropped they get them out of there very quickly and within hours they
are headed home. So we tried to offer a lot of encouragement
and good wishes. We had an excellent lesson by Lezlie on
obedience and it went very well. In this lesson she uses pictures
of the candidates that she gets off of the OCS website. The
Marines always love to see themselves up on the screen. As we have said
before we have only 2 church members that attend our mid-week family home
evenings. Tonight I had about ten of the non-members thank us for our
services. They said things like "we love coming here on Wednesday
nights”, “thank you for your lessons that were very helpful to us”, “we
appreciate all of the wonderful food you provided”, “thanks for your
encouragement," and so on.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">It is overwhelming to us that we can be a part
of this pivotal period in their lives. We do not feel like we are doing
anything extraordinary. We are just trying to look after these young
people like we would want our own children looked after in a similar
situation. We learned a lesson about turning things over to Heavenly
Father tonight. We checked the traffic conditions online as usual, and
the map said it would take us 30 minutes to get to the base. We added
some margin and left 45 minutes early. The traffic was terrible and it
took us an hour and 5 minutes to get there. We thought that the group
would all be there waiting for us and we were worried about getting everything
set up quickly. But it turns out they were about 5 minutes late so we had
plenty of time to get our computer and projector set up and get all the
refreshments ready. This is the first time they have not been there
early. God knew we had made our best effort to get there on time and took
care of the rest. We need to have faith that when we make our best effort
God will make sure everything works out.</span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Yesterday, Veterans
Day, we sent messages and emails to many or our marines that have moved on from
Quantico. We wished them all a Happy
Veterans Day and sent our best regards. We received some humbling responses that
brought us great joy. We are including
some of these notes below. We share them
not to claim any credit, but just to let you know how wonderful it is to be a
Senior Missionary and to be an important part of these young lives for a short
period of time. Here are a couple of the
best notes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Elder and Sister
Couch,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I got your text today
and just wanted to wish you a happy Veteran's day and thank you for your
service in the military also. It's always inspiring for those of use who are
currently serving to see the example of people like you who provide examples of
both faithful gospel living and military service. <br />
<br />
I also realized I never thanked you for your gift at graduation, I've been
using the book during my personal study and am enjoying it. I also wanted
to thank you for everything you did during my time at OCS and TBS, it was a
huge support to me. I don't know that you realize how much I appreciated
seeing you that first time at OCS, knowing that I would have a connection to
the Church was a huge support to me and I always looked forward to Church and
FHE to break up the challenges of training and provide perspective as I was
going through OCS. I will always be grateful for the rest of my life that
you two chose to serve a mission so that me and the other Marines like me would
have that support during the challenging adjustment to life in the Marines.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I hope you're doing
well and that the Marines at TBS and the candidates at OCS are doing
well. I've been good, I'm currently in Salt Lake City, working with the Officer
Selection Team. My MOS school starts in January in Camp Pendleton, so
I'll be headed down there then.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Happy Veterans Day to you as well Brother
Couch. You and Sister Couch were our
saviors on Mount Zion throughout USMC training.
Thank You. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">During our six hour Thursday shift at Navy Marine Corps
Relief Society today Lezlie gave out $2000 to marines. She was busy.
A lot of marines were happy when they left our office. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We were able to take a marine wife out to
lunch on Friday. We took out our gal
from Moldova out. She has been
struggling lately with decisions about her career, both civilian and in the
Army Reserve. So we had a long talk with
her about making sure she stays close to God, prays about these issues, and
seeks answers in the scriptures and in the Temple. We just love this young lady and want her to
find happiness in her situation, but there is not much we can do but be there
for her and pray for her. We also got to
take out one of our bachelor marines for dinner. This young man is the one that married his
high school sweetheart and she divorced him 3 months later. He was heartbroken and year ago when he told
us about this. But today he even made a
joke about it, so he is healing. He is
an outstanding young man and we had a great time visiting with him. Much to our surprise he bought dinner for
us. He just slipped his credit card up
to the cashier when he rang up the bill and insisted on buying us dinner. We were surprised and very grateful. He said he appreciated our support and wanted
to buy us a meal this time. It was great
fun to be with him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Another of our young bachelor marines has been
struggling a bit lately. He is a fairly
new member of the church and is a great young man. When he first moved here a senior marine
sergeant took him under his wing and gave him a ride to church every week. But then the sergeant moved away and our
young man kind of got lost. He had not
been answering our calls or texts. We
stopped by his barracks on Veterans Day and left him a card thanking him for
his service. He contacted us and thanked
us for the card so we invited him out to lunch.
He seemed happy to see us and talked about all sorts of things. He also ate a large lunch that he really
enjoyed. We invited him to come to
church with us and he said yes! So we
were very happy that we got to spend some time with this young man. We also had another great experience. We were able to visit our young bachelor
marine that is having major surgery at the end of the week. We also invited another young bachelor marine
as well as his hometeacher. We all met
at his barracks and we gave him a
blessing. He seemed to appreciate
everyone stopping by and has a good attitude about getting through this last
surgery. It was a sweet visit and we
were so glad everyone we invited showed up.
Finally we got to take two young Elders out to dinner. They said they had been dreaming of some
Mexican food so we took them to a nearby place and had an excellent
dinner. As usual it was very enjoyable
to spend a little time with the Elders and get to know them a little
better. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Sunday was bitter sweet- most of our candidates that thought they would be going home did get dropped. We really become attached to these fine young men and women, and they put so much into being here it is really heartbreaking to see them get hurt, and disappointed. We were excited to have 2 bachelor marines coming to church with us, but the active one got called into work, and the inactive one, just said he couldn't make it at the last minute. </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">However, church was good, and there were some folks there we hadn't seen for a while, so all ended well. </span></div>
Dan and Lezlie Couchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10738399282740972815noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5585949352073043691.post-10733108985534253192014-11-09T14:24:00.000-08:002014-11-09T14:24:01.599-08:00Grateful to Be Here<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We had a very gratifying experience on Monday morning. One of our
marine wives recently told us about a friend of hers that had been asking her
some questions about the Mormon Church because her church had offered a class on Mormonism which had some very interesting concepts which were very interesting, but very far from what we believe. The marine wife asked if we would talk to her
because she was not sure how to answer all of her friend’s questions. So we did.
We prepared as best we could and loaded up our bag with pamphlets,
books, and our scriptures. She turned
out to be a very, very nice lady. She
was not hostile or confrontational at all, just curious. She told us all sorts of outlandish things
she had been taught in the class about Mormonism, and we helped to clarify what
the real story is inside the church. We were pleased that
we were able to answer all of her questions and we realized how much we have
learned on our mission. She was anxious
to hear our story of converting to the LDS church. We gave her a Book of Mormon and some other
things to read, and she said she would read them. Although she was just curious rather
than interested in joining the church, we felt that we taught her truthfully and
represented the Church well. It was a
very good experience and we had a very pleasurable discussion about religion in general . We told her we
would be glad to meet with her again if she wanted. At least we know that she no longer believes
we are a secretive, cultish people that worship Joseph Smith and do not allow anyone in our meetings. We also got to go out with our young female friend from Richland that is here at the FBI Academy.
We ate at a Bahama Breeze restaurant, which was a new one for us. It was great fun with excellent island music and delicious Caribbean food. She just completed her FBI certification as a
Forensic Scientist as a fingerprint specialist.
It is fascinating to hear from her how they do their work. Her certification program was really long
and hard, which is as it should be since the FBI is the best. She is a great gal and we have really enjoyed
getting to know her better here. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We worked a long
shift at Navy Marine Corps Relief Society this week. It was an interesting day. I had a case with a retired Navy woman like I
have never had before. She had
numerous loans for thousands of dollars from NMCRS, and had recently defaulted on two loans. Her story about her needs did not add up and she had no documents to prove it. So I had to sit
down with her one-on-one and tell her no.
She was very angry. It was one of
the worst cases I ever had. But my main
feeling for this young woman was sadness.
She blamed everyone else for her troubles but did not want to do the
real work needed to help herself. In
contrast I had a very nice young male marine from Montana. He did not want a loan but just wanted to
work through a budget so that he could figure out how to save some money. He was pleasant, respectful and
grateful. Quite a contrast from the lady
I dealt with. Today we got a copy of
the performance statistics for our NMCRS office. We are proud to be a part of this office and
we think we did some good work over the past year. So here is our data: Total cases – 829, loans given - 609, grants
given – 78, and total amount provided $498, 604. We helped a lot of marines this year. </span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We got to teach another Temple Preparation
lesson to our friend from the ward.
He is always a joy to visit, and we had a nice time. We will be excited to see him go to the
temple.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-u0acDZQPRro/VF_d_Jl8RII/AAAAAAAAAzA/yT6cqt4u6yU/s1600/Singing%2Bto%2Bthe%2Bcooks%2B1%2B(1).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-u0acDZQPRro/VF_d_Jl8RII/AAAAAAAAAzA/yT6cqt4u6yU/s1600/Singing%2Bto%2Bthe%2Bcooks%2B1%2B(1).JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">On Thursday we
attended a Zone Conference. This is the
zone meeting when our Mission President and his wife attend and give training. This one was a little different because it
involved two zones. So instead of 40
missionaries we had about 80. We had
some very good training, especially from Sister Wilson who taught us to be
happy in our work. One of the Sisters
that works in our ward sang a sweet version of <i>I Believe in Christ</i>. It was
pretty spectacular and the feeling of the spirit was obvious. When she finished there was absolute
silence. President Wilson paused for a
moment before he stood up to speak and it was a delicious moment. The strength of the spirit was enormous. Some women from one of the local wards
prepared an excellent lunch for us – various soups, salad, rolls, and brownies
with ice cream. As is traditional we all
stood in a semicircle around these sisters and sang <i>Called to Serve</i> to thank them.
It is pretty overwhelming to have 80 missionaries surrounding you and
singing with zeal (see pics). All of the
ladies were crying as the missionaries sang.
It was pretty touching. In the
evening we fed dinner to our two elders in the Quantico Ward that are also our zone
leaders. We love these guys and really
enjoyed feeding them and getting to know them better. The senior companion has been here for six
months so we know him well. He has been
here for dinner several times. The other
Elder is a new zone leader. He is the
black Elder from Louisiana that we have mentioned before. He is a very bright and articulate young man
and we have enjoyed being trained by him very much. It is always a delight to feed the
missionaries and we had a good time</span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Friday was Stake
Temple day so we spent a long afternoon and evening at the Washington DC temple. We traveled up to the temple with the other
senior couple here in Woodbridge, the Andersons. We have come to be good friends with them and
love to spend time together. We attended
a nice temple endowment session and then had some time before a
special stake meeting was to be held. We
had barely enough time to leave the temple to go out to eat, or we had plenty
of time to go to the vending machine cafeteria in the basement. We chose the latter. Although it sounds bad, the vending machine
cafeteria is pretty nice. They have
packaged dinners, pizzas and sandwiches with several microwaves. The nice thing about eating there is that it
gave us plenty of time to just sit and visit.
We greatly enjoyed getting to know the Andersons better. They are interesting and accomplished
folks. He was an agriculture professor
at BYU-I and she was a nurse. I don’t
know if we mentioned this before, but in one of those amazing coincidences we
discovered that our daughter Carrie and their son Seth were on a program
together in China about 10 years ago.
Carrie dug into her scrapbook and found this picture of them together in
China (Seth is 2<sup>nd</sup> from the left and Carrie is on the right). And to think that these many years later his
folks and us are serving together as senior missionaries! Pretty remarkable! After our delightful chat with Andersons we
attended a stake meeting held in a special assembly room on the top floor of
the temple. It was a beautiful room and
we had some powerful speakers. It was
great to see so many people we knew from our ward at the meeting. We finally journeyed home via a Wendy’s for
some ice cream. It was an excellent
temple day. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Our Saturday morning we attended a very pleasant baptism. A sweet
young girl, about 12, that has</span><br />
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Down ’s syndrome was
baptized. In cases like this the Bishop
does a very careful interview to make sure the person is capable of
understanding what they are doing and what they are accepting. He did so in this case and determined that
this girl was capable of understanding what she was doing. She was very happy and smiley the whole
time. When she came up out of the water
after the baptism she had a huge grin and let out the most joyful laughter
possible. Everyone was moved by it. At the end of the service she bore a short
but very sincere testimony that she was happy to follow Jesus. Every baptism is good, but this one was very
special. After that we traveled to Mt
Vernon (George Washington’s home) where we met Jerry Hong, father of Matt Hong,
our daughter Carrie’s husband. Jerry was
in this area for a business trip and called to ask us out to lunch. He is staying near Mt Vernon so we met there
and ate in their cafeteria. We had an excellent time discussing our children
and grandchildren. It was fun to share
some stories about Danny, Kaylee and Abby that the other had not yet
heard. We very objectively agreed that
we have the smartest, kindest, most beautiful grandchildren in the world. After Jerry left we took advantage of our
season passes and did a short tour of the Mt Vernon museum. We scoped things out so that we can be all
ready to take Anne and all her family through when they visit us at Thanksgiving. It was a quick but enjoyable tour. What an amazing man – George Washington.</span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Sunday morning began
with a service on the base for our dear Officer Candidate School students. We do love being able to meet with them. We had a good discussion today about
faith. We only had four females today,
and they are all still worried about finishing.
Even though they have only two more weeks there still are some hard
things left. We talked about having
faith in themselves to accomplish this hard goal. Our one LDS gal is quite worried because she
has had trouble with academics. She
has not scored well overall on her written tests so she has an academic board this week. She asked for a blessing and of course we
gave her one. She cried but we know she left feeling
better. Although there were only 4 young
ladies there today they ate almost every bit of the fruit and muffins we
provided. One of the best times during
these meetings is the last 30 minutes when they have eaten their fill and are
just sitting and talking with each other.
They share their triumphs and challenges at OCS and buoy up each other’s
spirits. It is wonderful to see. We feel so grateful that we get to work with
this wonderful group of young people, and we are continually inspired by their
dedication and effort. After OCS we have
to go directly to church for our regular meetings. Today the speakers all followed the topic of
gratitude. A young marine couple that is
new to the ward spoke, and they gave exceptional talks on this subject. We have visited them and they are in a tough
situation right now. He had some sort of
injury so cannot do his regular marine job.
He is being evaluated by a medical board for discharge. They were transferred here from Japan and
they have not yet received their shipment of household goods. So their home is almost bare and they have
only a suitcase full of clothes. But
they stood there and talked about how grateful they were for their family, their
health, prayer, the earth, and their faith.
It was very heartwarming and moving.
We were so glad we were there to hear this humble marine family show
such tremendous examples of faith and gratitude. It made us remember how grateful we are for our many, many blessings. Right now we are grateful for our mission here in Virginia. We are also very grateful for all of our </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.3999996185303px;">family</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.3999996185303px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">and </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.3999996185303px;">friends</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.3999996185303px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">that have been so supportive of our mission.</span></div>
Dan and Lezlie Couchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10738399282740972815noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5585949352073043691.post-40011342133793721892014-11-02T12:56:00.000-08:002014-11-02T12:57:52.283-08:00Halloween week<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-x_Id0h5LtE8/VFaWs_4YYUI/AAAAAAAAAyc/4kpfBIacBK8/s1600/Senior%2BMissionaries%2BOct%2B2014.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-x_Id0h5LtE8/VFaWs_4YYUI/AAAAAAAAAyc/4kpfBIacBK8/s1600/Senior%2BMissionaries%2BOct%2B2014.jpg" height="400" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18.3999996185303px;">We wrote about our fun Senior Missionary activity last weekend. One of the other sisters sent us this nice picture of the group. The man on the far right of the top photo is our mission president, President Wilson, from Minnesota. Unfortunately Sister Wilson was taking the picture. There were about 8 senior missionaries that did not make it to this activity.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We have done a lot of baking recently. Pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal
no-bakes, peanut butter, chocolate brownies. Whew! We did make it to the base and delivered our
Halloween treats to 6 marine families.
All were happy to see us and we had some good talks with folks. We also saw our ward friend Will to whom we are teaching the Temple Prep
classes. We had an excellent lesson with
him and a good discussion. He is a good
man and seems to just soak up the things that we are discussing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Tuesday we attended a Navy Marine Corps
Relief Society training. We drove the other 4 attendees down to
Patuxent River Naval Air Station, about 90 miles. It was an all day training session so it was a long day. The big event was our talent performance. The theme of the meeting was about talents,
so during the lunch break they had a mini talent show. Ahead of time they had asked the various
groups of volunteers from different bases to perform or display any talent.
Our director had remembered our bells from last Christmas. So we dusted off the bells, and Lezlie wrote
down the notes for the Marines Hymn and Anchors Aweigh. We had a few minutes of practice in the car
but that was it. But we did pretty
good considering there was essentially zero practice. At least everyone recognized the
songs. The training was okay but a
little irrelevant to Lezlie and me. But
we enjoyed visiting with new folks, getting to know the other volunteers from
Quantico a little better, and supporting our director. We also had
our The Basic School family home evening and our 5 faithful attendees were all
there. We had a superb discussion based
upon a recent General Conference talk, “Which Way do you Face.” It is basically about the choice between facing
God and obeying His commandments or facing man and doing what he wants you to
do. We had a wonderful discussion and
the spirit was felt strongly. Those
young people are so smart and in tune.
It is a delight to spend time with them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We experienced a busy, busy Wednesday,
leaving the house at 10am and returning home at 9pm. We first attended the Para Chapel meeting,
which is a get together of all the religious service volunteers on base. We got to hear from the head chaplain and
talk about our programs. We then had a
few minutes to deliver some Halloween goodies to one family before our next
meeting. This was a family with 7
children, and the mom’s sister, who has 3, was visiting. So we had 10 kids bunched around the front door oogling the
plate of cookies. But it
was great fun. We attended a chaplains
briefing at The Basic School, which is the time when we get to introduce
ourselves to the new TBS class. But we
did not have any LDS in the class.
Boo! We next had our Officer
Candidate School family home evening, and we had 30 attendees. I know we have said over and over again how
wonderful it is to be a part of this group.
We get to be one of the bright spots in their week, and it is supremely
rewarding to give them encouragement, advice, and a shoulder to cry on. It is so humbling to be with them. We try to cheer them up and encourage them in any way we can.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fRa5sTtF5hI/VFaXTP0xwCI/AAAAAAAAAyk/AVMAYE9sAFI/s1600/India%2B1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fRa5sTtF5hI/VFaXTP0xwCI/AAAAAAAAAyk/AVMAYE9sAFI/s1600/India%2B1.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Today was another day to deliver Halloween
cookies and visit several families. Our
main focus today were our off-base families in Stafford, which is a bit farther
away than the base for us. We were able
to visit 3 families and found that a 4<sup>th</sup> family was on vacation in
Oregon. But we had some very nice visits
with some excellent marine families. We
also had an enjoyable lunch with our single female marine. This is a young lady that works as a security
guard for the president’s helicopter airfield.
She is from Southern Utah and had not eaten much seafood before. So we took her to Tim’s Crab Shack, a very
eclectic restaurant on the Potomac River near us. We only found it through a recommendation </span><v:shapetype coordsize="21600,21600" filled="f" id="_x0000_t75" o:preferrelative="t" o:spt="75" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" stroked="f">
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</w:wrap></v:imagedata></v:shape><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">because
it is way off the beaten path. We had a
great lunch of hard shell crabs, crab cakes and clams. She really enjoyed learning how to get the
good crab meat out of the shell and she ate a dozen steamed baby clams like a
veteran. It was great fun and we had a
really good visit with her. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We finished
our evening with one last visit on the base as we headed back home.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">There is a new family that is in
kind of a sad situation.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The husband had
some kind of accident and is injured.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He
has to use a cane to walk.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He is
undergoing a medical board, which is a long drawn out review of his
situation.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The medical board is
important because they decide whether or not he will can stay in and have
limited duty, be retired with full or partial pay, or just discharged because
the accident had nothing to do with the marines.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So he is in total limbo status right
now.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And the worst thing is, they moved
here from Okinawa and their furniture and stuff will not arrive for another
month.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">There house is almost bare except
for a small kitchen table and their beds.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But they are doing their best to be optimistic about it.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> We felt very blessed to live as comfortably as we do when we saw this young family struggling with medical issues and living in a bare house. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It was another long day of visits and
talking with marines and marine families.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It was great.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> We feel so grateful to be here.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We had a good zone meeting on Halloween day.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Lots of good training and testimonies.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The other senior missionaries and us decided
the young elders and sisters needed something for Halloween.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So we made tangerine jack-o-lanterns and they
made tootsie roll pop ghosts.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The elders
and sisters seemed to enjoy them.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">After
finally getting all of our riders delivered back home we finally got back about
2:00pm.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We had many chores to do at home
so we just stayed in the rest of the afternoon.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">After delivering about twenty plates of Halloween cookies in a week it
was good to have some down time.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Our big activity on this Saturday was to take
one of our bachelor marines out to lunch. After a few problems finding a place for
lunch, one was overcrowded and another was closed, we ended up at Ricky’s
Chicken. We had driven past the place
before and decided it would either be a dive or a hidden gem because it looked a little sketchy. It turned out to be a hidden gem. They had Peruvian style rotisserie chicken,
and it was excellent. Our marine found a
drink he liked, something like “Horchati.”
It is a Mexican rice milk drink
that has a cinnamon flavor. He had been
looking for somewhere to get it so he was pleased. So our chicken sandwiches were excellent as was
his steak and cheese sandwich. We were
so pleased to be able to chat with this young marine. He is our guy that has had two major
intestinal surgeries and has one more to go.
He has really opened up to us and was talking about all kinds of
things. He even was joking and poking
fun at us, something new and enjoyable. In the past he has been pretty quiet. He
talked about what will happen after his last surgery, which is a full medical
board or evaluation. That will determine
whether or not he will be able to stay in the Marine Corps. We greatly enjoyed our time with this marine
and felt like he enjoyed it too. In addition to our nice outing with our
bachelor we were able to visit one marine family that we missed Halloween
week. Except for two families that were
on vacation out of state we delivered Halloween treats to every one of our
marines and families. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We had a small but excellent sacrament
meeting with our Officer Candidate School marines this Sunday morning. We had 5 attendees, which allowed for lots of
good discussion. They are undergoing
such challenging trials, mentally, physically and emotionally. So they really have to dig deep to find
strength and resources to get them through.
That makes them so open to talking about things like courage, hope,
confidence, leadership, and so forth. We
had a great talk. Also, they have only
three and a half weeks left, and graduation is starting to seem real to
them. They actually are starting to
believe they will make it. One of our
gals, is very worried about her academics though. After half of the written exams she has a 72
point average, and she needs an 80 to graduate.
So we did what we could to encourage her and help her feel more
confident. We have to rush from OCS
directly to our ward meetings, which were very good today. Our lesson is the High Priests Group was
especially good today. It was based on a
talk Elder Holland about pursuing happiness.
He said, “<span style="background: white; color: #222222;">The best chance
for being happy is to do the things that happy people do. Live the way happy people live. Walk the path
that happy people walk. And your chances to find joy in unexpected moments, to
find peace in unexpected places, to find the help of angels when you didn’t
even know they knew you existed improves exponentially.”</span> I thought that was pretty good advice. We have found that this chance in our lives
to spend most of our time focused on helping others has brought us great
happiness. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 18.3999996185303px;">We mentioned before that we got to visit Shenandoah National Park and see some beautiful scenery. Although it was wonderful there we have decided that our heavily wooded Quantico Marine Base has just as beautiful Fall colors. Here is my favorite tree, one that we drive by almost every time we are on the base. </span></span></div>
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Dan and Lezlie Couchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10738399282740972815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5585949352073043691.post-72127593067503352642014-10-26T17:49:00.001-07:002014-10-26T17:49:37.953-07:00Blessings Aplenty<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We are tired today (Wednesday) catching up on our
rest from our long trip. Although a 3
hour time zone change is not much, it still is tiring to fly all day and shift
your bio-clock back to Eastern Time zone.
We spent most of the day on the base at Navy Marine Corps Relief
Society. We worked a long shift and had
several cases. It is always rewarding to
help out at NMCRS. These young marines
do not get paid a lot and sometimes they really get themselves into money
problems. Today we took a few pictures
at our NMCRS office so you could see what our offices look like there. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We again had a large crowd for our Thursday OCS
family home evening, 34 people. We had a
lesson about achieving your full potential.
One of the points I made is that you have to remember why you initially
wanted to reach a certain goal and what motivated you to seek it. Sometimes we forget that initial desire, excitement
and anticipation of pursuing a goal and thus become bogged down or stagnant as
we seek it. I asked them all to remember
why they initially wanted to become marines and how excited it made them to
think about it. Afterward several of
them said that it was good to hear that because in the trials and tribulations
of OCS they had forgotten those initial reasons why they wanted to be here. Heavenly
Father always guides us to say the right things there. We also got to cheer up several of them that
were worried about getting dropped. It
is the middle of their course and a lot of folks are getting dropped for not
passing physical or written tests. So we
tried to reassure them and encourage them.
We absolutely love working with this group of young marines and feel
blessed that we get to be a small part of their journey through OCS.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EcrV4RHj6e0/VE2Vd6aqRgI/AAAAAAAAAyE/6sa4pm2IlEs/s1600/Halloween%2Bcookies.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EcrV4RHj6e0/VE2Vd6aqRgI/AAAAAAAAAyE/6sa4pm2IlEs/s1600/Halloween%2Bcookies.jpg" height="200" width="183" /></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Friday we baked our first round of Halloween cookies to deliver- black cat cookies and pumpkin spice chocolate chip cookies. We also had the Sister Training Leaders over for lunch and a family history lesson. We then went to Dumfries, near the base, and delivered our first 3 sets of Halloween Cookies to some military families that live off base. Only 16 more to go. But we love doing this!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Then on Saturday we had a wonderful Senior
Missionary activity. We met in Charlottesville,
Virginia, which is a two hour drive from our apartment. We had a great visit with the other seniors. We just love these folks and it
was great to catch up. The primary activity
was for each senior couple to talk about some of the most special activities
that occur in their area. We all sent in
a few pictures ahead of time to show some of the things we do. It was just amazing to hear all of the
wonderful service that is being provided by the thirty plus senior missionaries
herein Virginia – volunteering at a senior center, teaching lessons to shut ins, driving
folks to and from church, serving in branch presidencies, providing activities
for Young Single Adults, teaching institute, driving folks to the temple and to doctor appointments and on and on. We were overwhelmed and amazed at what is
being done here in our mission by seniors.
We told about our amazing OCS marines and how wonderful it is to work
with them. After the meeting we had a
great lunch of homemade soup in bread bowls and got to visit with our friends
some more. Then we headed to a very cool
mansion called “Swannanoa” near Charlottesville. Almost a year ago we toured a mansion in
Richmond called “Maymont” that was built by a man who became rich buying, building
and selling railroads after the Civil War.
The mansion we saw today (see pics) was his summer home. It was huge and had gorgeous marble columns, scrollwork, magnificent marble stairways, and intricate fireplaces. It was built in 1912 for $2 million. But the place was really run down. The current owner is trying to make it into a
bed and breakfast, but it will take millions of dollars to refurbish it. Nevertheless, it was amazing to see. It was on the top of a hill at the south end
of the Shenandoah National Park and the views of the forested hills and valley
were beautiful. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">After our visit to the mansion we drove on the Skyline
Drive through a portion of the Shenandoah National Park.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It was spectacular.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We saw splendid fall colors on the forested
hillsides and some incredible views down into the Shenandoah Valley.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It is an amazing park and we greatly enjoyed
seeing it.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But we did make a comparison
with the scenery in our beloved Washington State, and we realize we live in one
of the most beautiful areas of the whole USA.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Shenandoah is awesome, but it is not any better than Snoqualmie
Falls or Mt Rainier.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">After putting 250 miles on the
car we arrived home from Shenandoah tired but happy, which is how we often arrive home. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But our night was not done.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We attended an 8pm baptism at our ward for a
young woman.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It was a sweet
baptism.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We almost did not go because we
were so tired from our long drive.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But
we love to support baptisms, especially new converts.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We were glad we went.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">One of the Sister missionaries that we know
well sang a solo of “I Believe in Christ.”</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It was wonderful.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We did not even know she sang and she had a
beautiful voice.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Her testimony came
through clearly and emotionally in the song.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So nice!</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What a wonderful Sunday. It began in one of our favorite ways, with
our dear OCS group. Today we had four
females attend our sacrament service.
The guys all had liberty, and our one male member told us he was going
to church with a friend in town. But we
had a delightful morning with these amazing ladies. Our lesson was short and as they were sitting
and enjoying refreshments they all began talking about their worries and hopes
concerning OCS. They compared notes with each other about what classes were
hard, who was the toughest Gunny Sergeant, and which physical test was the most
demanding. One was a runner and loved
the 3 mile run but hated the pull-ups.
Another hated the run but loved the pull-ups. Still another liked all of the physical stuff
but hated the written tests. It was incredible
just to hear them describe the difficult training they are going through – a 5
mile hike with full gear and carrying a rifle, and a great deal of it uphill; a
9 mile hike at 4am with a blistering pace; a double run through the obstacle
course; a comprehensive test over the history of the marine corps. It was exhausting just to hear about it. But they are almost over the hump and are
starting to get a little bit of confidence.
After our wonderful OCS service we attended our own ward and had excellent
meetings. It was the primary program, a
Sunday service in which all of the children under 12 read parts, sing and give
talks. We have a huge primary and it was
excellent. Lezlie taught a great lesson
on Temple and Family History work. We
are already starting to realize how hard it is going to be to leave this ward
and we have grown to love the people here so much. After church we had 3 outstanding phone
calls. First, one of our dear marine
friends, Melanie Roy, called us from North Carolina just to say hello and see
how we were doing. She was one of our
original group that we met with for about ten months. She went on our Annapolis, Temple, and Marine
Parade field trips, so we got to know and love her well. She is doing great in her advanced school and
is excited about starting her real marine job, logistics, soon. She is one of the people that will make sure
all the marines in California will get what they need when they need it. It was so delightful to talk to her and she
thanked us for our support during her difficult training here. Second was a great call with Aaron. Although he is still having back problems he
said there has been a little improvement.
He is doing okay otherwise and is busy as ever at work. Finally my sister Karen called and we had a
great visit. All is well in her
world. She recently had an excellent trip
to visit her son Nathan in Minneapolis.
Her other son Ian visited there at the same time, so she got to have a few
nice days with both of her boys. It was
a huge blessing to have all three of these great phone calls. Speaking of blessings I need to tell about
another one we have recently received. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.3999996185303px;">We expect to fund everything regarding our mission ourselves. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Recently however, we have talked about money and the fact that we may need to cut
back a bit on some or our refreshments or trips because we have been spending a
lot on food.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We contemplated, prayed,
and discussed some ways we could spend a little less.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And within a period of two weeks we received
donations for our mission work from two different friends that were a total
surprise.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Both friends, neither members of our church, said that we were
doing good work and they simply wanted to help.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So we feel that we have been blessed and have been given a message from
Heavenly Father that we are supposed to keep doing what we are doing.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We are so grateful for this tender mercy of
these additional funds we were not expecting.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But it is typical of the blessings we have received while here on our
mission.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Doctrine
and Covenants 11:3 </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“ … assist to bring
forth my work according to my commandments and you shall be blessed.” </span></div>
Dan and Lezlie Couchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10738399282740972815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5585949352073043691.post-51087680019796643392014-10-23T08:25:00.000-07:002014-10-23T08:25:16.237-07:00Vist Hongs in Seattle - Danny's Baptism<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Tuesday means District Training meeting most
weeks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So we got our little district of
6 people together and had some good training.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>These young elders are amazing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They teach as if they have been Sunday School teachers for years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We will be gone on the next transfer day
since our trip to Seattle overlaps next Tuesday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So we said goodbye to these good young men
just in case they get transferred.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
will especially miss our District Leader, Elder Holloway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have really enjoyed getting to know him, a
kind, smart, and dedicated young man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.3999996185303px;">(Editorial note: Elder Holloway did not get transferred away but rather was made a Zone Leader here).</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.3999996185303px;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We
also had our The Basic School family home evening tonight.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We are covering several of our favorite talks
from conference as our lesson material.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We had a good lesson on Elder Klebingat’s talk about being spiritually
ready.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We only had two attendees, our
marine wife and her friend. But it was a good discussion and we greatly enjoyed
being with them.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Since the Director of Navy Marine Corps Relief
Society is out on vacation, she asked us to work a long shift today.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We have been volunteering for over a year
now, and we actually are some of the more senior volunteers at this point.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We both have check signing authority, and the
other volunteers working today did not.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So we were at the NMCRS office from 9am – 3pm.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It was a bit slow, but we did help out a few
marines with some minor loans.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">After
dinner on the base and a little shopping at the Exchange we attended our
Officer Candidate School family home evening.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It was lucky we made a lot of refreshments because we had 39 attendees.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Wow!</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">That is a new record for us.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I
tried to capture the size of the group with a few pictures.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Lezlie gave her PowerPoint presentation on
finding inspiration and spiritual insight in nature.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It is a great presentation and the lesson
went exceptionally well, with lots of good discussion and interaction.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">When the refreshment bar opened it was like a
shark feeding frenzy.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">There were not even
any crumbs left from about 90 brownies, 8 dozen cookies, and $20 worth of
fruit.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But it was a joy to see.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I had a heart-to-heart discussion with one
young lady that is having doubts about whether she wants to become a Marine
officer.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We have had a lot of OCS
candidates go through those self-doubts so I was able to give her some
objective input.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I told her that many
candidates go through this because it is so hard, but that she should not take
anything the drill sergeants say to her personally.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">They are just doing their job when they yell
at her.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It was a long but good day.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We are doing last minute travel preps.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We have to leave the apartment at 5:45am
tomorrow morning.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We have returned from our fabulous trip to Seattle
to attend the baptism of our grandson Danny Hong, son of Carrie and Matt.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We were gone Oct 16 – 21, and we had a
wonderful, wonderful time!</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">(Thanks
Carrie and Matt).</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It would be impossible
to describe every enjoyable moment we had, so this will just cover the
highlights.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">After an early but
uneventful flight to Seattle we were picked up by Carrie and my dog Joy.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It was so nice to see them both.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We got to go directly to the school and pick
up Kaylee from kindergarten.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Shortly
after that Abby woke up from a nap, and a few minutes later Danny got home from
school.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We quickly got reacquainted and
got to see Danny and Kaylee’s new room and new things.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Since we have been gone so long we thought
the grandkids might be a little shy or something, but not at all.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">They gave us huge hugs and immediately wanted
to tell us things and play.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> Although Abby definitely thinks Carrie is her best friend, she was very friendly to us, and her smiles and pleasant disposition gave us many happy moments. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Matt’s mom,
LaRue, was also there for Danny’s baptism so we got to visit with her as
well.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We had a great time visiting and
playing.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Friday was a school day. Dan walked Danny and Kaylee to the bus stop. It is hard to believe that they are both getting so old! It was also the day of Danny’s Harry Potter birthday party.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So after getting the kids off to school we
spent a lot of time preparing for the well planned party.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> Danny was student of the week, because it is his birthday week, and he got to bring something in every day to tell about. He asked if we would be his show and tell Friday, so we went in and Carrie gave out cookies and we answered questions from the second grade class. Danny put the airplane drawings we had done the night before on the overhead. Then we went home and the party started 30 minutes later. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Here are shots of the Honeyduke Store and the
wands (Carrie made cool wands with small dowels,
hot glue, and some paint).</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-I34eWyuazXA/VEfEIQ8SkJI/AAAAAAAAAvk/G585otdfCHc/s1600/wand.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-I34eWyuazXA/VEfEIQ8SkJI/AAAAAAAAAvk/G585otdfCHc/s1600/wand.jpg" height="320" width="238" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>After all the
potential wizards and witches arrived we used the Sorting Hat to tell them if
they had the correct wand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I got to be
the voice via a cell phone, which was great fun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They found magical creatures (stuffed
animals) in the yard and held a Quidditch practice, including finding Snitches
in the yard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Finally it was time for potions
class, and Lezlie was the teacher.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She
looked great in her witches outfit and taught a great class.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With some dry ice (angry glacier chips), pop rocks (mini moonstones), vinegar (horsesweat) and baking soda (powdered unicorn horn) and a variety of other ingredients, they brewed potions for Happiness, Good Luck, and Sleeping Well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They finally chowed down on a Great Hall meal
fit for Hogwarts students.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was all so
much fun and Danny had a blast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Below
are some pictures of Lezlie and the Potions Class students, as well as the spectacular Hogswarts birthday cake LaRue made. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-P1VlDXhKDEU/VEfEkUpodiI/AAAAAAAAAv0/W7jezu8X5cQ/s1600/potions.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-P1VlDXhKDEU/VEfEkUpodiI/AAAAAAAAAv0/W7jezu8X5cQ/s1600/potions.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LeYh5EQ5kow/VEfE_1WN0VI/AAAAAAAAAv8/7H1aCY5Bf7Y/s1600/lab.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LeYh5EQ5kow/VEfE_1WN0VI/AAAAAAAAAv8/7H1aCY5Bf7Y/s1600/lab.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TOKdIInfOvI/VEfEii-od5I/AAAAAAAAAvs/HsOJrsQN86I/s1600/cake.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TOKdIInfOvI/VEfEii-od5I/AAAAAAAAAvs/HsOJrsQN86I/s1600/cake.jpg" height="320" width="238" /></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Saturday began with some wet soccer
matches.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Danny and Kaylee both had games
in the rain on muddy fields.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Danny’s
game was quite enjoyable and he played well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>His team won 4 -0, and the kids were old enough to play some good
soccer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Danny made one particularly
spectacular pass to a teammate right in front of the goal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But alas, his teammate did not make the dramatic shot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kaylee’s group had great fun, but
it was more of a chase the ball type game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She enjoyed it and so did we.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
I think she had almost as much fun playing in the mud as playing soccer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After a quick cleanup and lunch it was time
for the baptism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of us family
members were choked up over how many people showed up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was overwhelming to see the support Danny
and the Hong family received from so many different friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One touching attendee was Danny’s soccer
coach, who is not a member of the Church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But he was there with his son, who is also on Danny’s team, full of good
words and smiles for Danny.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was very
nice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course we are not unbiased, but
we thought it was an exceptionally good baptism service.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everything went so well, and there were
definitely strong feeling of the Spirit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Danny was grinning the whole time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Another highlight was Kaylee and Carrie singing I Am a Child of God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At home they practiced and Kaylee danced
while she sang, calling it her baptism dance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Mom said she could not dance at the real baptism and asked if she was
sure she still wanted to sing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kaylee
said yes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it was just
beautiful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was mostly Kaylee singing
with her mom singing along to help her remember the words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was another very touching moment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both the Primary President and the Bishop said
some encouraging and inspiring words congratulating Danny for his decision to
be baptized.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After the baptism all of
the family went to Pizza Hut for a feast, and Danny got to open his family
birthday gifts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was great, great
fun!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here are some pictures of the whole
afternoon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Kaylee is wearing a dress Matt brought her back from India. Abby is wearing one of her many cute hair flowers, so people know she is a girl.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Sunday was Stake Conference
for Carrie and Matt’s stake so we all attended that together in the
morning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was an excellent meeting
with several inspiring and uplifting talks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We enjoyed helping keeping the kids entertained, especially Abby.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We had a pleasant walk around the temple
while we waited for some of the traffic to clear out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We got some nice pictures on the temple
grounds<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In the afternoon it was a glorious, sunny Pacific
Northwest day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nothing is more beautiful
than a sunny day in Seattle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was just
the right temperature for an outdoor activity, so we went to Snoqualmie Falls
and took a nice walk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The falls and the
river were beautiful, and we had an excellent time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was one of those days when Washington is
at its best, with spectacular mountains views, a crystal clear river, and
blankets of evergreen trees dotted with fall colors as far as you can see.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After a scrumptious roast beef dinner we had
a quiet evening at home visiting and playing with the grandkids.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Monday was a school day again, so we saw the kids
off to the bus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We did some packing,
catching up and cleaning up as the evidence from Danny’s party was still in
plain sight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We had to close down
Honeyduke’s candy store because all of us were snacking on the sweets a little
too much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lezlie and I each got some
individual time with each grandchild since Kaylee got home at noon and Danny
did not get home until 4pm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Building
Lego kits, designing and making horses, and playing games with Danny and Kaylee
was super fun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Danny enjoyed trying out
his new bow and arrow as well as his new chess set. Kaylee loved doing anything
with art. It was so delightful to spend time with them and just listen to them
talk about their day at school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am
sure that this will make us miss them all the more for the last 4 months of our
mission, but it was worth it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Monday
evening we had a nice dinner out at Panda Express and enjoyed some good Asian
food.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then we had a fun family home
evening about Family Communication, topped off with eating the remainder of
Danny’s birthday cake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All too soon we
had to get to bed because of our early morning flight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were out to door at 5:15am to catch begin
our long but smooth trip home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So we are
back in Woodbridge, Virginia ready to get back to our mission responsibilities,
refreshed and inspired by our outstanding trip to visit Carrie, Matt, Danny and
Kaylee in Seattle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Seeing the blessings
this dear family enjoys was a very personal reminder of why we are out here in
the first place. The Gospel works… <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We began our week by presenting our new family home
evening lesson on teamwork to a family with seven children. The marine dad is gone for the week so we
took dinner as well as doing the FHE. It
was very successful. Although seven
children under the age of 10 is pretty chaotic, the kids were well behaved,
respectful, and responsive. They helped
get things ready for dinner and then did the clearing and cleanup. They asked us many questions and participated
well in the lesson. They were not
grabbing and whining for more when it came time to prepare and hand out the
treats. So we were quite pleased at how
well things went. We believe the mom was
grateful too, especially for the dinner.
We used all paper goods so there would be no dishes to wash too. We felt humbled and happy that we could help
her out a bit. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Our Wednesday Officer Candidate School family home
evening was amazing! We had 29 students
crammed into our little conference room that is sized for about 15. Thankfully we had made plenty of treats. Lezlie gave a good lesson on “ and out of
small things proceedeth that which is great.”
Of those 29 only 3 were LDS, and all the rest came because the LDS trio
invited them. Those three are such
outstanding people. You can tell that
they are leaders among the group. It was
just so rewarding to see all of them chatting with each other and boosting
their spirits. They loved the
refreshments and thanked us over and over again. I got to chat with one young lady from
Seattle who was a huge Seahawks fan. Her
dad has held season tickets for many years and she said she was missing going
to games with him right now. Two girls
told me they had been going to another service but were kind of sad it was so
unstructured. They were glad that we had
a song, a prayer and a real lesson. Once
again mingling with these outstanding young people has lifted our spirits. We are so grateful to be working with them
and giving them a little spiritual and physical nourishment to help them
through this difficult training. We are
also grateful to them for be willing to become Marine Officers and to serve our
country.</span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-u1JEThkKpyM/VDsueI7MY0I/AAAAAAAAAuQ/htgd-o0XUFw/s1600/Wilsons%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-u1JEThkKpyM/VDsueI7MY0I/AAAAAAAAAuQ/htgd-o0XUFw/s1600/Wilsons%2B2.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">After working an excellent Thursday shift at Navy
Marine Corps Relief Society we pointed the car north and began to drive. We drove to the Wilson’s home, dear old Naval
Academy friends of ours. Tom and I were
in the same company all four years. They
live near Gettysburg and we stayed with them when we toured the battlefield
last spring. Lezlie completed a painting
for them, a view of their historic home.
We drove up to present the painting to them and for a short visit. We arrived just before dinner and Lezlie got
to give them the painting, which they really liked. She was able to make a last minute correction
with her “paint first aid kit.” We had a
lovely and relaxing evening, not to mention an excellent dinner, and thoroughly
enjoyed visiting with the Wilsons. Their
country home is warm, comfortable and relaxing.
We felt like we were in a cozy bed and breakfast. It was wonderful to retell old Naval Academy
stories from out time there. Of course we both loved playing with their dog Bailey.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">After a great
breakfast with the Wilsons we headed to Hershey, Pennsylvania, about an hour
away. We visited Hershey’s Chocolate
World, which is right next door to the large amusement park. It was a fun stop. They have a mock factory tour, which is like
an amusement park ride. It told the
interesting story of how their chocolate is made, from beans to wrapped candy
bar. I thought the tote board was
cool. It provided an update on how many
candy bars of each type had been made on that day, and it was thousands. On the recommendation of the Wilsons we had a
dark chocolate hot fudge sundae, and it was delicious. The gift shop had every imaginable type of Hershey’s
chocolate for sale. Did you know that chocolate
kisses come in about ten flavors? I
almost bought a 5 pound Hershey bar, but came to my senses before purchasing
it. For me one of the most interesting
parts of the day was hearing all about Milton Hershey, who was a great
philanthropist besides being such a successful businessman. He built the Hershey School for boys in the
early 1900s. In his will he set up a
large trust fund so that the school would be funded for the foreseeable
future. It is now a private school for
needy boys and girls and runs grades K – 12.
The trust fund still finances it, and those in need pay no tuition. It was a long drive home in the rain, but our
visit to the Wilsons and stop at Hershey were both greatly enjoyable. We arrived home early enough for one more
activity. Meet the Mormons was playing
in Woodbridge, so we invited several different bachelor marines. Only one took us up on it, so we drove to
base, took our marine to the late movie, and then drove him home. It made for a long day, but he was thrilled
to see it. This young man is a fairly
recent convert and it was good for him to see the breadth of the LDS Church. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Our Friday began two days of attending the Fitzhugh
reunion. This is one of the main Virginia
families that Lezlie is part of. William
Fitzhugh immigrated to Virginia for opportunity and land in the mid 1600s. He did well, and after a generation the
Fitzhughs were very wealthy and owned a ton of land here. We first toured a beautiful mansion built by
one of the Fitzhughs, Chatham. Although we had visited it before, we got a superb personal tour this time. The tour guide was very funny and also very
knowledgeable about both the house and the Fitzhughs. It was thoroughly enjoyable. He told story after story about things that
had happened at the house. It appears
that everything about the house was designed to show wealth and power, and it
certainly did that. After his we got to
take a luncheon riverboat cruise on the Rappahannock River, another highly
enjoyable adventure. By now we were
getting to know some of the Fitzhugh cousins, so we had a nice time chatting
with them and hearing their stories. One
very interesting couple were from England.
The man was actually from Texas originally, but he had gone to England
to go to grad school and he ended up staying there. He was an avid Fitzhugh historian, and he gave a wonderful talk after dinner.
I always love boats, so the cruise was great fun too. I enjoyed watching how the paddle wheels
worked. The headquarters for the reunion
was a nice </span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Marriott</span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> in downtown Fredericksburg.
After the boat cruise we had several hours to just hang around, so we
spent a lot of time in the lobby area talking to cousins and resting. I found a small cubby that had a television,
so I got to watch a good portion of the Oregon – UCLA football game. I loved it, because I do not have live tv and
have really missed watching college football.
Finally we attended the dinner, which was excellent. The Fitzhugh lecture was very
interesting. We learned about how the
Fitzhughs had lost their great wealth and large land holdings in England, which
was why William came to America. Mom had
drawn an excellent pen-and-ink sketch of Chatham for the silent auction, which
was to raise money for future reunions.
It sold for $55! The dinner and lecture lasted well into the night so we
got home way too late for senior missionaries.
But we did enjoy the day with the Fitzhughs. Our night was not done though. We had to put together 40 butterscotch rolls,
a fruit plate, and a lesson for our Sunday morning OCS service. But we got it all done. Below are photos of all the Fitzhugh cousins at Chatham and of us in front of the riverboat.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Our Sunday morning began early with our OCS
service. We did a lesson on courage that
we have presented before, and it was well received. They absolutely loved the hot butterscotch
rolls and almost licked the pan clean. We
had some great chats with our beloved marines. An LDS candidate and I gave
one young female marine a blessing. It
was all good. By 9am we were on the road
to Fredericksburg for part 2 of the Fitzhugh reunion. We attended 10:00am </span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">worship</span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> services at the
St Paul’s Episcopal church in King George, Virginia. The church's land and silver communion set were
donated by the Fitzhugh family in the early 1700s. The church was 300 years old but still
had a large and active congregation. They had a reception for the Fitzhughs afterwards with delicious goodies- we felt very welcome. We got to wander around the church and
adjacent cemetery after the services. We
saw many Fitzhugh gravesites. </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Our final reunion activity was to have an
outdoor luncheon at Eagles Nest, a historical home of one of the Fitzhughs.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The current owners bought the
home about forty years ago and have done wonders to restore it and keep the
property up. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">They are very generous in
letting the Fitzhugh reunions hold a luncheon there.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">They actually live in the Eagles Nest home,
but they opened the ground floor and just let us wander through it at our
leisure.</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> The picture does not do this beautiful home and wooded property justice. It was spectacular. There was a family cemetery on this property, also, where the </span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">original</span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> William and his wife are buried. </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">All too soon we had to say
goodbye to our new friends and long lost cousins.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It was a good bunch of people, friendly and
down to earth.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">We wore our </span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">name tags</span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> throughout the reunion activities, so we had many good discussions with folks
about our church and what we are doing in serving the marines in Virginia.</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We are now home trying to catch up on things
we neglected while taking these excursions.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It was all tiring but oh such great fun.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We are grateful that we are able to have occasional
time to explore Virginia and have wonderful adventures here.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We will always have a love for Virginia in after this experience.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Below are St </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Paul's Church and Eagles Nest.</span></div>
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Dan and Lezlie Couchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10738399282740972815noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5585949352073043691.post-52807661038863965522014-10-05T18:35:00.000-07:002014-10-05T18:35:22.860-07:00Marine Ceremonies<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter Day Saints has produced a movie called <i>Meet the Mormons</i><span style="font-size: small;"> which will be shown at major theaters starting in
October. The Church has arranged for all
missionaries in the field to see this movie before it goes to theaters, partly
for fun and partly for inspiration. We
got to see it on this Monday morning.The movie is six separate segments about
the lives of Mormons all over the world – the football coach at the Naval
Academy, a Cost Rican mom who is a kick boxer, a man from Nepal that has
dedicated his life to improving life in the poor villages near his home town,
the candy bomber who is a man that dropped candy to German children at the end
of WWII, a black bishop in Atlanta, and a mom and her son who is a new
missionary. They were wonderful stories
that were moving, inspirational, and enjoyable.
It made us all very proud to be Mormons.
I especially loved the segment on Ken Niumatololo, the Navy coach who is
from Hawaii. Seeing all that footage of
the Naval Academy and of the brigade of midshipmen marching onto the field
before the games brought back many memories.
We really enjoyed the movie and may go pay to see it again. We are enjoying our challenge of reading the
Book of Mormon in one week. We can
really follow the storyline well when reading it all at once. We have found many new “favorite” scriptures
that now have special meaning to us as missionaries. One that we read today that really captures
how we feel working here is as follows - </span><i>Alma
26:3 – And this is the blessing which hath been bestowed upon us, that we have
been made instruments in the hands of God to bring about this great work.</i><span style="font-size: small;"> This is how we feel every day. When folks thank us for doing something we
just feel like we should be thanking them for a moment in time when we were
able to be the hands or feet or mouth that were needed to help them and carry
out the work of Heavenly Father. We feel
so privileged to be a small part of this work.
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OSlvX7SwUcE/VDHabTAOMoI/AAAAAAAAAuA/bKlF4r7TOx0/s1600/Deer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OSlvX7SwUcE/VDHabTAOMoI/AAAAAAAAAuA/bKlF4r7TOx0/s1600/Deer.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Our Tuesday breakfast
included a nice surprise. We usually
open the shades first thing so we can look out at the green trees. We know that the leaves will be gone soon so
we have been enjoying the trees a lot. A
few minutes after opening the blinds we sat down to breakfast. We noticed a deer had come up to the edge of
the woods just outside our window. It
was so peaceful to watch him grazing as we ate our breakfast. He was there for at least ten minutes before
he faded into the woods. </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">We had a full day. Lezlie got inspired to bake
and bake and bake. We made dozens and dozens of sugar cookies. They
were made in the shape of leaves and died various shades of yellow and red, so
they appeared as beautiful fall leaves. In addition we baked 4 loaves of
bread and made some honey butter. We also wrote a nice spiritual thought
based on Psalms 1: 1-3. It basically says that blessed is the one who
walketh in the council of God and "his leaf also shall not
wither." It went nicely with the leaf cookies. So we visited
10 families/bachelors, delivering 7 plates of cookies and 3 loaves of
bread. It was great - we had a lot of nice conversations. At one
point we realized we were going to have an extra loaf of bread and we felt
inspired to take it to a certain young couple. The wife had been to the emergency
room that morning. She has not been feeling well for some time. She
found out that she has an ovarian cyst. While she was not happy, she was
quite relieved to finally have a diagnosis. She was happy to talk to
Lezlie who had something similar many years ago. She and
her husband were pleased with the bread, and we felt we had been at the right
place at the right time. We also had an excellent family home evening
with our The Basic School (TBS). We have been studying the Articles of
Faith in detail and we had a good discussion. We both got another large
chunk of the Book of Mormon read, and we have been enjoying that greatly. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Wednesday - We got to start out our
day by attending an advancement ceremony for one of our very young marines
named Ryan. He has only been in the Corps for about a year and he got
promoted from Private First Class to Lance Corporal. He is a great young
man and faithfully makes it to church each week even though he has no
car. It was fun to support him and meet some of the folks he works
with. One of the other attendees at the event was Dan pictured below with
Ryan. Dan is a Master Sergeant and a member of our ward. Ironically
the Master Sergeant is retiring tomorrow after about 20 plus years in the
marines. So one morning we see a 20 year old Lance Corporal just starting
his career, and the next day we see a 45 year old Master Sergeant
retiring. That is kind of full circle. Ryan is pictured with MSGT Dan, our friend from the Quantico Ward, and us.</span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">After the ceremony we served a long but good shift
at Navy Marine Corps Relief Society. We
never tire of this job. We get to work
with good people and help marines, so how could we not like it. After our shift we were able to make a couple
of additional family visits. Then we had
our second family home evening with our Officer Candidate School students. Last week we had two, and tonight we had 12. Wow! A
third LDS girl had shown up and all the rest had been invited by our LDS
students. We had a great meeting. Most of them were in shell shock and just
sort of melted into their chairs. A few
of them were in tears they were so happy to be in a loving and kind environment. We had introductions all around and we were
so impressed by their backgrounds and motivations to become marines. The other couple that works with us brought
outstanding refreshments of fruit and sweet bread, and the students gobbled
everything up quickly but appreciatively.
We had a nice lesson on Heroes – what a real hero is and what it takes
to become one. After the lesson we got
to mingle and chat with these fine young people. I met - a 31 year old gal that had been a
police officer on the Houston Police Department for six years who had always
wanted to be a marine but could not get in before; a young lady from Pasco,
Washington that knew people we know; a young man that was distraught because
his grandma that helped raise him had died this week; and a former enlisted
marine that had fought twice in Afghanistan, was impressed by the officers and
wanted to become one. It was so humbling
to be a part of the family home evening for them. We are so grateful we get to work with them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">Today (Thursday) we saw the second half of the full
circle of a Marine Corps career. We
attended the retirement ceremony of our friend in the ward, Master Sergeant Dan. He served for 23 years. His ceremony was much more elaborate with
more attendees than the promotion of the brand new marine yesterday. It was held in the atrium of the Marine Corps
Museum, which is an awesome place for such an event. It is a large, high-ceilinged, circular area
with huge pictures of hero marines on the walls, a tank and helicopter
displayed on the ground, and a marine jet hanging from the ceiling (see pictures). Dan received several awards upon his
retirement, and the Marine Corps gave his wife and each of his three children
certificates of appreciation too. It was
very cool. The marines really know how to do ceremonies. The man that has been his
boss for the past several years gave a very nice tribute speech highlighting
the areas of his long career, which included service in Afghanistan. There were many people from church as well as
many of his fellow marines there.
Afterwards they had a nice luncheon reception too. It was a enjoyable and uplifting event. We have been teaching a man in our ward the
Temple Preparation classes in anticipation of his first attendance at the
temple in November. We had a nice time
with him as well, a wonderful man of amazing talent. His house is filled with art, many of the
paintings being his own. We love to go
there and feel of his spirit. We are
excited to help him get to the temple.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">We were happy to be able to help out a marine mom
this Friday morning. She has 4 children
that she home-schools. Her car was in
the shop for a repair and was supposed to be done yesterday at by 5pm when her
husband could help her pick it up. But
the shop did not finish and she needed to get the car this morning. Our van came in handy. We were able to haul her and all 4 kids to
the shop, entertain the kids in our car while she went inside and paid, and
unload all of them directly into her car.
We had our usual monthly zone meeting today, which is when all 40 of the
missionaries from the Woodbridge Zone meet together for training and
companionship. This was a particularly
touching meeting because of a special assignment this week. As mentioned before our mission president
instigated a Book of Mormon challenge wherein everyone in the mission was to
read the entire book in one week. Today
was the last day and Lezlie and I finished it. Hooray! Many of the missionaries talked about how much
they had gained by reading it this way.
As for Lezlie and I we enjoyed it greatly. It is amazing to read it straight through so
that you can really keep track of all the people and stories. We discovered many new verses that inspired
us as missionaries. For example, Ether
12:27 says </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="27"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #486fae; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 115%; padding: 0in;"> </span></a><i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">And if men come unto me I will show
unto them their weakness. I<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>give<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>unto men weakness that they may be humble;
and my<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>grace<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>is sufficient for all men hat<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>humble<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>themselves before me; for if they
humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>weak<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>things
become strong unto them.</span></i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">
This scripture really hit home with us.
When we first came out on our mission Lezlie and I were shy about
calling people or knocking on doors of people we did not know. It humbled us so much to see and hear of the
young missionaries knocking on the doors of strangers fearlessly. And we were just knocking on doors of less
active members. For example, we were
asked to find several lost members that the ward is trying to find. It made us very nervous to call such folks or
march up and knock on their door. We
were aware of this and we tried to work on it when we first got here. Now it has become something we do easily and
confidently. We have had a testimony of
the Book of Mormon for a long time, but this accelerated reading really strengthened
that. We know that it is a true
book. We know it has important guidance
that can help us live happier and more fulfilled lives as well as helping us
get through hard times. We feel
fortunate that we had this opportunity to read it all the way through in a
short time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">We received a nice early Christmas gift from Aaron on
Friday. A few years ago he got me a
deluxe large umbrella, which has been of great use on our mission. But after several years of good use it
recently broke on a windy day. Aaron
kindly agreed to get us a new one as an early Christmas present since we are
just entering the heaviest rainy season here.
This evening we also got to attend a joyful going away party for the
marine family that retired yesterday.
They are moving to San Antonio, TX.
It was a casual, low key affair with just people and refreshments. But
there was such a feeling of love and closeness as many, many friends of this
family showed up to bid them farewell.
The attendees included family members, so many children and teenagers
mingled with the adults. It reminded me
of some of the simple parties we had with branch members when we lived in
Korea. No big program, no fancy entertainment,
and no fancy food - just good people, good conversation, and good cake. A perfect recipe for a fun time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">As Saturday was a General Conference day we spent
most of it at home watching all of the conference sessions. As always it was a great experience of
learning and spiritual nourishment.
Every time one of the General Authorities mentions that there are 88,000
missionaries serving now or when someone blesses missionaries in their prayer
we feel so warm and blessed. I loved
President Uchtdorf’s talk about knowledge brings belief. He pondered what it would be like if we could
go back in time 1000 years and try to explain a cell phone, television, or
airplane to someone of that age. Though
those things were inconceivable then they are now truth. So many things we may not understand now will
become clear to us as we attain more knowledge and experience. Just because we do not understand them they
are still real. The more we learn the
more now things that will be revealed to us.
As always it was wonderful to hear all of the amazing General Conference
talks and the outstanding music. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">This Sunday is the end of yet another busy but
wonderful week on our mission. We had an
outstanding service with our Officer Candidate School group. We had 15 attend today, and they are in the
heart of their hardest challenges. We
had two girls and one guy that were crying.
Another girl was sick and coughing, another injured. Several fell asleep within moments of sitting
down because of total exhaustion. We did
a lesson on the dichotomy of living as a Christian while serving in the
military that deals in destruction. We
have given this lesson about 4 times now, so we have it fine tuned. It went well.
We talk about being a peaceful people. But that precious things, like
family, home, freedom, and liberty, may require sacrifice. Someone must be willing to make that
sacrifice to protect those precious things.
The military provides that protection.
It is always so inspiring and humbling to work with this group. Although it is tiring to get up at 5am to
conduct the early morning service, it was worth every minute of lost
sleep. We again enjoyed a day of
wonderful conference talks and music.
What a good day and what a good week.
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Dan and Lezlie Couchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10738399282740972815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5585949352073043691.post-22918951853515066572014-09-28T16:00:00.001-07:002014-09-28T16:00:04.274-07:00Thomas Jefferson's Monticello<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VRPSZyCQ0Aw/VCiOvE5b16I/AAAAAAAAAsY/NP4qP0H2BHI/s1600/Davis%2Bfamily.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VRPSZyCQ0Aw/VCiOvE5b16I/AAAAAAAAAsY/NP4qP0H2BHI/s1600/Davis%2Bfamily.JPG" height="133" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">After we published our
blog last week one of our marines sent us this picture with a nice note. He is back home with his family after almost
a year in marine training. He thanked us
for our help, but we felt like we got as much from him as we gave. It was an honor to be a part of his life as
he went through some very tough training. He and his family were wonderful to interact with.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hEhzv6IrXwU/VCiO_YkUc4I/AAAAAAAAAsg/svkWGCVQC8s/s1600/Lamptey%2Bfamily.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hEhzv6IrXwU/VCiO_YkUc4I/AAAAAAAAAsg/svkWGCVQC8s/s1600/Lamptey%2Bfamily.JPG" height="200" width="150" /></a><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">On Monday we drove to
Stafford for a family home evening with a wonderful marine family. We
just finished developing a new family home evening lesson on teamwork and
cooperation, and this was our first trial run. It went well. The
children in this family are really well behaved and it was a joy to spend time
with them. The finale in the lesson is to work together as a team to make
microwave caramel corn. It was good! We had a great time with this
family, and it seemed that they enjoyed the lesson and the treat. We
found a couple of glitches in the PowerPoint presentation that we will fix, but
overall it went well. It always feels like a great reward to visit the
active families that welcome us in and are thrilled to receive a lesson.
It is not usually that way with the less active families. So it was a fun
evening. Here is a picture of the family
except for the dad – he was at the base doing his marine training. They were enjoying the caramel corn we had just
finished making. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZBdKdTOsM2E/VCiPQI8_HpI/AAAAAAAAAso/Vk-X7D_Ws7I/s1600/Lamptey%2Bgrad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZBdKdTOsM2E/VCiPQI8_HpI/AAAAAAAAAso/Vk-X7D_Ws7I/s1600/Lamptey%2Bgrad.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Wednesday worked a
good shift at Navy Marine Corps Relief Society. But it was pretty
slow. We always take other things to do when we are there so that we
don't just waste our time sitting and waiting for clients. Besides our
volunteer work we visited 3 marine families and attended a The Basic School
graduation. It was good to check on these families – two of them are
inactive church members and need a lot of loving. One of them that we have been visiting for
about 6 months is getting out of the Marine Corps and moving back to Utah. So we stopped to say goodbye and wish them
well. We also got to stop at the home of
a marine couple that just moved in, and they were great fun to get to
know. He will be very busy in The Basic
School for six months and she is not planning of working. So we may spend time with her so she doesn’t
get too lonely. The TBS graduation was
wonderful. Two of our marines graduated (see
pictures). We feel really close to the
single guy that is standing with us here.
We saw him through OCS and TBS too.
So we have met with him once or twice a week for 9 months. The shot in the auditorium shows the honor
graduates standing in front and all the rest of the class in the front rows of
seats. Our guys were not honor
graduates. They were</span><span style="background-color: black; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 1pt none black; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 0pt; padding: 0in;"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> just h</span><span style="background-color: black; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 1pt none black; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 0pt; padding: 0in;"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">appy to be graduating. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This evening (Thur)
was our first meeting with our brand new Officer Candidate School class. We had two LDS students attend. First was a young lady from New York
City. She had many cousins, uncles, and
other family members that had been in the Army, so she wanted to serve. But she chose marines because she felt they
were the best. We also had a young man
that was a former enlisted marine. He
was enlisted for four years, during which time he served in Iraq and
Korea. He got out, finished college, and
began working in a bank. But he and his
wife thought working in a bank in Utah was a boring life, so he applied to be a
marine officer. We had a nice discussion
with them and a short lesson about having the courage and faith to <i>Stand Alone</i>. We asked them to invite some friends next
week and they said they would. Since
this was our first chance to meet with this new class we had no idea how many
would be there. So we took brownies,
cookies and fruit to feed twenty. We had
a lot of leftovers! Although the two of
them ate a bunch, there still was a lot left over. So we sent a huge plate of cookies home with
the chaplain, who had 8 kids, and we froze the rest for future missionary
dinners. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lWWE-XDETiM/VCiPv0YQISI/AAAAAAAAAtE/TefUUSspwcE/s1600/Monticello%2B1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lWWE-XDETiM/VCiPv0YQISI/AAAAAAAAAtE/TefUUSspwcE/s1600/Monticello%2B1.jpg" height="273" width="320" /></a><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We have long been
planning to go to Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s home, this fall. We did not want to go over the summer because
of the heat and large numbers of tourists.
And we wanted to go before it got too cold. So we found ourselves with no scheduled
appointments, lessons or classes today, Friday.
We invited the other senior couple from here, the Andersons, and we set
out for Monticello at about 7:00am. Most
of the 2.5 hour drive was through the back country of Virginia, so we saw many
beautiful trees, farms, and hills. We went through Orange County where the
Conways lived. There were some gorgeous
horse farms along the route. Our visit
to Monticello was excellent. It is a
beautiful spot, and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation that runs the place does a
superb job. Everything was well
organized, tours, movies and shuttle buses were on time, and the grounds were
immaculate and beautifully landscaped.
Besides the old growth trees and shrubs, there were many flowering
bushes and plants that were in full bloom even in late Sept. We had a delightful tour of the home. Jefferson was a brilliant man, and he loved
to learn about anything and everything.
So there were items in the house from many different avenues of his
learning – artifacts from American Indians, things Lewis and Clark had shipped
back to him on their journey, dinosaur bones, many beautiful paintings, both European
and American, a telescope, maps of all kinds, busts of famous people in
history, musical instruments, writing tools, furniture from all over the world,
and thousands of books. There were many
clever devices invented by Jefferson, like serving carts with wheels, a lazy-susan
type shelf that rotated so that food could be passed into the dining area,
double doors that closed together when you just pushed on one, dumb waiters,
and many more amazing little inventions.
The house is on the top of a hill, so the view of the surrounding
Virginia hills was spectacular. He was
an avid gardener who was continually trying to get a higher yield and grafting
plants for better varieties. The gardens were magnificent. We have never felt so comfortable, or that I
would like to live at such a place more. It was a house of learning. There were
some beautiful things, but it was not pretentious. It was totally designed and arranged for
comfort, convenience, functionality and learning. And it was very aesthetic as well. We wanted
to sit down and play the games, read the books, study a new language, and ride
one of Jeffrerson’s horses down the hill through the beautiful fields. It
appeared that in spite of much personal tragedy, Jefferson truly relished and
took advantage of life and every possible opportunity he had. It occurred to us that it was truly a house
of learning. A safe and comfortable and beautiful place to rest his soul and to
experiment with anything he wanted. It was delightful. However, after the house tour, one of the
more sobering parts of the visit was the slave tour. The guide took us to the area where Jefferson’s
slaves lived. Although he spent his life
working for liberty for the American people and professed to dislike slavery,
he still followed the norms of the time in Virginia and had many (nearly 200)
slaves to run his farm. The tour guide
told us many stories about the two sides of Jefferson – the man who wrote the
Declaration of Independence stating that “all men are created equal” but who
used hundreds of slaves to take care of his farm. He said that Jefferson’s slaves were not
treated any better or any worse than most Virginia slaves at that time. He also
discussed slave children that Jefferson fathered with his deceased wife’s half
sister who was a slave. All of the children were freed or disappeared
mysteriously, but their mother was not freed, even at his death. And much of
her family were sold to pay his debts. It is interesting to evaluate such dichotomous
circumstances in historic context and the contrast between the enlightened
Jefferson willing to give so much for his country and the common man. And the Jefferson looking out for his
personal welfare by owning, being so dependent on for his wealth, and taking
advantage of other human beings led to some good and reflective conversations
on the way home. After our excellent
visit to Monticello we met up with another senior missionary couple that is
serving in Charlottesville (the Wares) where Monticello is located. We really like this couple and had a great
visit with them. We had a nice Mexican
dinner at an outdoor seating area in the university district, which was really
fun. The weather was spectacular, about
75 degrees with a slight cooling breeze.
The couple that lives here teaches Institute at the University of
Virginia, so they took us on a great tour of the “grounds.” UVA was founded and designed by Jefferson, so
it was a nice follow on to our tour of Monticello. He wanted UVA to be new and unique, so there
are many things that are different than a regular college. For example they do not call the area the
campus but rather the “grounds.”
Students are not called freshman, sophomore, etc., but rather first
years, second years, etc. The campus was
designed so that the students lived among their instructors, with many public
and recreational gardens and areas. The architecture on the campus is
outstanding, and some of it looks a lot like Monticello. So our
tour was great fun too. After a long
drive home we finally got back into our apartment about 9:30pn. We were pretty tired, but oh what a great day
we had. We feel privileged to be able to
take a day and see some of the amazing historical sights in Virginia. The above picture is the front of the house and
also the rear. Below is the </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;">rear </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">view of
Monticello that is on the back of the nickel. It was a wonderful day and we are so glad we got to visit Monticello. It is one of our favorite spots we have seen in Virginia.</span></div>
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<!-- Blogger automated replacement: "https://images-blogger-opensocial.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/proxy?url=http%3A%2F%2F4.bp.blogspot.com%2F-lWWE-XDETiM%2FVCiPv0YQISI%2FAAAAAAAAAtE%2FTefUUSspwcE%2Fs1600%2FMonticello%252B1.jpg&container=blogger&gadget=a&rewriteMime=image%2F*" with "https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lWWE-XDETiM/VCiPv0YQISI/AAAAAAAAAtE/TefUUSspwcE/s1600/Monticello%2B1.jpg" -->Dan and Lezlie Couchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10738399282740972815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5585949352073043691.post-9964231450788494042014-09-15T19:27:00.002-07:002014-09-15T19:28:24.371-07:00Gifts of the Heart<div class="MsoNormal">
As is typical for a Monday, which is the young missionaries’
preparation day (p-day), I ( Dan) drove several elders to the grocery store for
their shopping trip. It is always fun to
be with them and they are so appreciative of any little thing we do to help
them. We made a few key treat deliveries
on base – one to a less active mom that runs hot and cold, and today she was
very friendly; one to a fairly recent convert that has been undergoing some
major health issues – he loves peanut butter cookies; and finally a large
basket of fruit and cookies for our young marine that just got back from his surgery. All of these short visits went well and we
felt successful. The transition that
takes place in our relationship with these folks is amazing. At first we are visiting them because we are
missionaries and it is part of our job.
But we very quickly come to know and love them as dear friends. Like our young marine that just underwent
surgery. We have been seeing him for a
year now, and he seems like a grandson rather than an assignment. We just love him to pieces. Our next task was to drive a young woman from
our ward to Richmond. She is going to
be serving a full time mission beginning in October. The Stake President decided it would be a
good idea for her to serve a mini-mission to prepare for her full time
mission. She is bit of a slow learner so
he thought it would be a good test run for her.
Today was the scheduled day for all of the new missionaries to arrive
from the Missionary Training Center. The
first thing they do when they arrive from the airport is to meet at a church building, fill out
some paperwork, and have dinner. So we
took the young lady from our ward to Richmond to meet up with and join the new
missionaries. But it was more than just
a transportation chore. We also stayed to
help serve the new young sisters and
elders their dinner. The two senior
sister missionaries that work in the office prepared the dinner and we served
it, carrying out the full plates of food, clearing empty plates, and serving
the desert. It was great fun getting to
interact with these brand new missionaries.
They are nervous but also eager to get started in their work. After a long drive home (185 miles round
trip) we are tired but happy. That is
usually our state of mind at the end of our great missionary days here in
Virginia. </div>
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Navy Marine Corps Relief Society (NMCRS) had a long training session today. We were in a classroom from 9am to 3pm. It was pretty good training and we really
like all the other volunteers. It was
fun to spend time with them. We were
able to make some successful visits after our training. We met a family that just arrived on base, an
Army officer and his wife and two children.
The Marines hold a large class each year that is specifically designed for
mid-range officers. There are slots open
for inter service officers. So this
young Army officer got selected to attend, which means he must be a pretty good
officer. It was enjoyable to get to know
his family a little bit. They are from
Florida real near where grandmother and papa Douthitt live. Finally we held our weekly family home
evening at The Basic School. We had only
two in attendance, a young male marine and a female TBS staff member. She is an athletic trainer whose job is to
get the marines back into training as soon as possible if they get
injured. Even with just two we had a
great discussion and lesson. When there
are smaller groups like this we get a chance to know them better. </div>
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We served a long shift at NMCRS. Some of the other volunteers could not work
today because of the long training session we all attended yesterday. So Lezlie and I were the only volunteers
there. We took care of a lot of
marines. I handed out my largest check
ever, $4500. A marine and his wife had
missed several mortgage payments and the bank was starting foreclosure
proceedings on their house. They missed
the payments because his wife has Multiple Sclerosis and could not work for 3
months. They had been using her income
to pay their house payments. It was a
complex case, but we worked through it and got him his money. We were able to make a couple of family
visits on base, both to less active families.
It is a bit sad doing these visits.
We can see so clearly how living the Gospel could help these young
families with the challenges they are facing in their lives. But they have to see that for
themselves. We hope that the thin
connection with church that we are trying to maintain helps them at some time
in the future. This evening we had a
most enjoyable dinner with a marine. He
is a senior enlisted guy, a Master Sergeant.
He is retiring next month. His
wife and two children have already moved to San Antonio, Texas so that the kids
could start school there. So he is a
bachelor this month. We took him out for
a nice dinner, and it was great to get to know him a little better. His formal retirement ceremony will be early
in October, and his family will return for that. We were thrilled to receive an invitation to
his retirement ceremony and an open house to say goodbye to the family.</div>
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We had a second full day of training for NMCRS. Today was more of a personnel training
curriculum – how to deal with different personalities, how to improve the
office, how to deal with conflict, etc. At our meeting today we heard some pretty
impressive statistics. Last year NMCRS
did the following; provided assistance to 65,358 Navy or Marine personnel, both
active and retired; provided $48.6 million in loans and grants; employed 170
paid staff members and 3,791 volunteers.
We are proud to be a part of this group that is helping so many young
marines, sailors and families. </div>
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I (Dan) got the chance to teach a lesson with a young elder
today (Friday). His senior partner had
to interview some folks for baptism and they also had this lesson
scheduled. So they asked me to fill
in. The young elder was quite
nervous. He has only been out for 8
weeks and this was the first time he had ever been the leader for a lesson. We taught a man from Ghana who is about
sixty. He was very kind and open, and
was quite interested in learning the gospel.
The young elder did a great job and invited the man to be baptized in 3
weeks. He asked him not to answer
immediately but to think and pray about it for a couple of days. He took the invitation very seriously. I contributed a few stories to the lesson
that seemed to add to the topic. It was
an enjoyable experience. </div>
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Our Stake has an annual event called “Gifts of the
Heart.” Essentially this is a giant
garage sale but everything is free. For
many months prior all the local members are reminded to save things that they
would take to Goodwill or get rid of. On
Friday night folks drop off their donations.
Lots of donations! We had to drop
off a van load of stuff for members and we worked a shift as well. The donation drop off was amazingly well
organized. There were signs, traffic
directors, and barriers all over the parking lot that directed you into two
lanes by the back doors. There were
about 100 youth volunteers there, and as soon as you stopped they swarmed over
the car like locusts. The car was empty
in about 2 minutes. Volunteers worked
late into the night to sort items into various categories and distribute them
around the church building. Lezlie and I
spent two and a half hours sorting clothing.
The gym had about thirty tables, each with a helium balloon hanging
above. The balloons were labeled with
the type of clothing – Men Large, Women Medium, Boys, Infants, etc. We sorted about a twenty large bags of
clothing. It was amazing to see all of
the donations and all of the volunteers (see pictures). It was a tiring but rewarding night. <br />
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</v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]-->When we got home
tonight we found a very nice note on our door.
It was from the Elders that we helped today with the lesson and a
ride. It was touching and humbling to
receive their note of thanks. For your
information, Mark 8:34 says, “<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="34"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #486fae; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"> </span></a><span style="color: #2f393a; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">And when he had called the people<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="clarityword"><i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">unto him</span></i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>with
his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him
deny<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>himself, and take up his
cross, and<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>follow<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>me.”</span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JheMeoi3GTA/VBef4K61-hI/AAAAAAAAArI/nVlYwwan8gg/s1600/Elders%2Bat%2Blunch%2Bw%2BRyan%2BLynch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JheMeoi3GTA/VBef4K61-hI/AAAAAAAAArI/nVlYwwan8gg/s1600/Elders%2Bat%2Blunch%2Bw%2BRyan%2BLynch.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a>Saturday was another
opportunity to serve at the “Gifts of the Heart” event. We had only planned to work the shift last
night. However, a young marine wanted to work a shift today and asked for
transportation, so we said yes.
Unfortunately, Lezlie has come down with a rotten cold and did not want
to be sneezing and coughing on folks. So
I took our marine by myself. One of
the advantages of senior missions is that you can split up if it makes
sense. So we today we did. The marine was appreciative and happy to go
help out. We did not have to work as
long as we thought because there were so many helpers that they got things done
faster than expected. But we did help
somewhat, hauling out boxes of trash, putting bags of left over items into
trucks to be taken to Goodwill, breaking down boxes, and moving chairs back to
classrooms. There were many young elders
there and some of them needed rides home.
I left my marine friend with a group of 8 missionaries and they all had
lunch together at a nearby spot while I took some other missionaries home. Our marine is a new convert and we think he
needs all the interaction with church members he can get. So it was great for him to spend some time
with the missionaries (see picture).
After taking some more missionaries home I took our marine friend back
to the base. </div>
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We had a pretty routine Sunday, except that Lezlie missed
church. She has been battling a nasty
cold and had too much sneezing and runny nose symptoms to go to church. I attended alone, and boy did that feel
strange. Everyone noticed and asked
about Lezlie and wished a speedy recovery.
After she slept about 12 hours she has felt much better this
evening. I am sure in a couple of days
she will be fine. So we spent a quiet
day reading and preparing lessons for the week.
We are going to have a new adventure teaching the temple prep class to a
young man that was baptized about a year ago.
He has become a friend or ours here.
He is the man that we have mentioned before that has significant medical
problems. And even though he is not a marine, we try to help him out whenever
we can. The ward is not planning on teaching temple prep until November and our
friend is anxious to take it. So we get
to go into his home and teach the lessons.
We received a wonderful note from
Carrie today. She said,” <span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We miss you so much. But sometimes I am so
overwhelmed with gratitude because of the blessings that seem to be directly
related to your missionary service it makes me want you to stay on a mission
forever. Not really. Please come home. Just know that we are greatly
blessed. The Lord is mindful of us and takes care of us.” We were so
thrilled to receive this note. As senior
missionaries we have been promised that our family will benefit and be blessed
as we serve. This note as well as other things we have heard from the family confirms
that this promise is being fulfilled. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Dan and Lezlie Couchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10738399282740972815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5585949352073043691.post-42040258064448751662014-09-07T15:24:00.001-07:002014-09-07T15:24:12.193-07:00Senior Missionaries Can Dance<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We started our week
with a successful set of visits on the base.
We saw four families that we have missed at church for a while. We provided them treats, informed them of the
time change for our meetings (9am instead of 1pm), and invited them to come to
church next week. We love these young
marine families and worry about them like they were our own children. We just
want them to have all the blessings they can receive by coming to church. Later we had a great family home evening at
The Basic School. We had a good
discussion about the creation. These
young people are so intelligent and thoughtful.
They had amazing insight into and thoughts about the creation. We learn more from them than we teach them at
every lesson. They enjoyed a delicious cheesecake
prepared by Lezlie. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Late on Tuesday night
we heard from the two senior sister missionaries that do visits at Walter Reed
hospital. Our young marine recovering
from surgery there took a turn for the worse since we saw him Sunday
morning. On Monday evening and Tuesday
he could not keep any food down at all.
They had to insert a stomach tube to keep him from throwing up. So we changed our original plans for the day
and drove to the hospital first thing this Wednesday morning. Our poor young marine.
He looked miserable. It is
difficult and painful for him to talk with the stomach tube down his throat, so
it was hard for much communication to take place. The senior sisters were there too, and the
four of us visited him for a while. There
were a lot of shrugs and nods from him. We
left soon, though, because our patient was getting tired. We had a short visit with the sisters and
then met our marine wife that works at Walter Reed hospital. This is the young lady that is originally
from Moldova. We took her to lunch in
the hospital cafeteria. She is going
through a lot of changes right now and is trying to figure out her path
forward. She has concerns about being a
marine wife and wants to have her own career.
So she kind of poured out her heart to Lezlie. We really love this girl and wish we could
provide more help. But she has to figure
out things for herself. She is going
away for a month for some Army reserve training, so we will not see her for a
while. We just listen and remind her to
pray and stay close to God as she is making these big decisions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--z2zXbLwedg/VAzQRBdG2vI/AAAAAAAAAp0/GxwlgQTJFmE/s1600/Traffic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--z2zXbLwedg/VAzQRBdG2vI/AAAAAAAAAp0/GxwlgQTJFmE/s1600/Traffic.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Once again our main activity of the day was to visit our marine in the hospital. However, this is not a trivial activity as it
takes at least an hour to drive to the hospital and more than that if there is
any traffic. As you can see from the
photo here of Interstate 95, there was traffic.
We were totally stopped several times on the highway. We were happy to find our patient in much
better shape than yesterday. He had the
stomach tube removed and talked up a storm.
He said he was feeling so much better.
His only complaint was that he was very hungry but was only allowed ice
chips. They will start him back on
liquids tomorrow. After a nice chat we
gave him time to rest and left the hospital.
We located a nearby Barnes and Noble so that we could buy him some
hunting magazines. He is a big hunter
back in southern Utah. His family owns a
thousand acres outside St George so they hunt on their own land. After procuring the magazines we went to the
temple. Our plan was to do a short
session of temple work. However, as we
pulled in we remembered that there was a young couple from our ward getting sealed
(married) in the temple today. We
hurried inside and managed to find them just in time to attend their
ceremony. It was very nice, and they
seemed pleased that we made it. It was
touching to see them and their family sealed together for eternity. We then made a late afternoon visit with our
young marine. He had even improved since
the morning. He was quite pleased with
the hunting magazines, and talked to us a lot about his work, his hunting, and
his travels with the marines. If he is
discharged medically from the marines he wants to live in Washington. He has a favorite aunt and uncle there. So we talked to him a lot about living in
Washington State. Our visits were very
good today, and we were so pleased to see him looking and feeling so much
better. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Friday was our monthly zone meeting. This took up most of our morning and early
afternoon because we transported 8 missionaries to and from the meeting. We always learn something from these young
missionaries and we love being with them.
We then had two elders over for dinner.
These two elders are in our Zone Leaders and they are also in our
ward. So we work with them a lot and we
feel close to them. We had a good meal
and visit with them. We love to get to have
personal time with these great young men.
It is so much fun to get to know them better. Finally we got to attend a very nice
reception for the couple that was married in the temple yesterday, mentioned
above. It was a wonderful gathering with
many attendees. The decorations were beautiful
and there were some delicious refreshments.
A nice talk about temple marriage was given and then they played dance
music. We danced, and I think it may
have been the first time that many of them ever saw missionaries dancing. But senior missionaries <u>can</u>
dance. We had fun! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Saturday was a great day! We had a fun senior missionary activity. After our long drive to Fort Lee, an army
base that is about 120 miles away, we met at the base chapel. After some visiting and catching up we had an
excellent training session. In addition
to a great lesson from our mission president each of the senior couples got to
stand up and talk a bit about what they are doing and how it has built their
testimony. There were about 25 missionaries
there, and it was fantastic to hear about all of the work they are doing and
blessings they are receiving. We heard story
after story about the miracles and tender mercies everyone is experiencing and
the blessings they and their families are receiving. It was quite overwhelming to know that each
of these senior missionaries are having real and positive impacts on many people’s
lives. And to think that there are
thousands of senior missionaries doing similar things all over the world! We just feel humbled and blessed to be a
small part of Heavenly Father’s work in taking care of his children. After this enjoyable and uplifting meeting we
ate lunch nearby and then toured two fine museums on the base. First was the Quartermaster Museum. In the army the quartermasters take care of
all sorts of things, all the way from supplies to training animals (like horses
and dogs), to sewing flags and driving fuel trucks. It was an interesting museum that showed how
important these behind the scenes people are to the military. The Army Women’s museum was fascinating too showing
how women were integrated into the army.
There was an interesting story about how women in WWI were contracted by
the army so did not get any veterans benefits.
So after that a woman in congress spent years trying to get women
directly integrated into the army so that they could get veterans
benefits. She was finally successful and
by WWII women were officially part of the military. Two pictures below are from the women’s
museum – Lezlie as a WAC and me sitting with a WAC figure. After the museums we visited a very unusual
Civil War site. Late in the war the
Union army had basically surrounded Petersburg, Virginia and were trying to
starve out the Confederacy. The two
sides had established strong lines and were dug in about 100 yards away from
each other. There was a section of the
Union line that was held by a Pennsylvania regiment, mostly coal miners. Their commander was a mining engineer. They came up with a scheme to dig a tunnel
underneath the confederate lines and come up behind them. They were highly successful in digging their
tunnel, which was an amazing feat. It
was 510 feet long with several ventilation shafts, and the confederates had no
idea there was a tunnel underneath them.
But their use of the tunnel was not as successful. They decided to blast their way to the surface
at the end of the tunnel and wipe out some confederate artillery in the
process. The explosion created a huge
crater. After recovering from the initial
blast the confederates lined the rim of the crater. As union soldiers would rush out into the
crater from the bottleneck of the tunnel the confederates would shoot
them. The union soldiers eventually had
to retreat back down the tunnel after losing over a thousand soldiers. So we got to see the actual crater. We are standing in front of it in the below picture. After the crater we made the long drive
home. It was a long drive but worth
it. We had a great day with the other
senior missionaries. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Today, Sunday, we found out that our marine in the hospital
was discharged and made it safely home to his barracks. We were very happy for him. After church we delivered two meals to marine
families on base that are having some illnesses. Our church time had changed to 9:00am so we
are enjoying our late afternoon at home. And we still love being senior missionaries. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Dan and Lezlie Couchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10738399282740972815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5585949352073043691.post-29930217297485431292014-08-31T18:53:00.002-07:002014-08-31T18:53:41.846-07:00Trip to Florida<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">From Aug 21 – 25 we
traveled to Venice, Florida to visit Lezlie’s elderly parents. We had a
pleasant surprise when we arrived. Avis was out of compact cars so they
gave me a red Chrysler 200 convertible for the same price. It was fun to
take a few rides around Venice with the top down. But mostly we found
that the sun was so bright and hot that we just kept the top up. We found grandmother and papa (Lezlie’s
parents) doing just okay. They both have multiple health issues and are
finding it harder and harder to take care of the house and each other. We
tried to help out as much as we could. We
quickly made friends with their new cat Precious. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>She is a small calico who is very
sweet and friendly – she really loves people and grandmother and papa are
really enjoying her. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>We
immediately began taking care of several handyman jobs around the house, which
was not really work for me, just
fun. I fixed a hose, bought and installed a new pool filter, fixed a
trellis, worked with the sprinkler system, and resolved some issues with the
television. Lezlie glued down some floor tiles in the bathroom that
were peeling up and tripping papa. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>She
also fixed a broken hand on their large wall clock and gave Grandmother some
Facebook lessons. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>As was
expected, it was very hot in Florida, even worse than Virginia. The
humidity was tough there. One day I took papa out for breakfast and he
seemed to enjoy it very much. Even though he has multiple health
issues he has not lost his appetite, so he had a good breakfast. He had
eggs, hash browns, toast and pancakes! Later
that day Lezlie took grandmother out for lunch and shopping in old town
Venice. One evening we drove to the beach in the convertible to see the
sunset. It was a very nice evening, and we enjoyed being by the
water. Grandmother liked riding in the convertible. When I was out running errands one day I
saw two young elders on the street. It was about 98 degrees so I
gave them a ride, which was appreciated. They both were soaking wet with
sweat. These are the young missionaries that have stopped by grandmother
and papa's several times to visit and do service for them, so it was good to
meet them and thank them for helping grandmother and papa. Saturday
morning we attended a fundraiser for Hannah's volleyball team. It was
breakfast at Applebees, and Hannah acted as our waitress. We also got to
see Liz and David. Also Lindsay was there. She had driven from Tampa where she currently
lives. On Sunday grandmother attended church with us and it was a very
nice service. There were excellent talks about the blessings that come
from obeying the commandments. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>There
was also a beautiful special musical number, a solo by an alto with a gorgeous
voice. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>It was wonderful to
have her there with us and she seemed to enjoy the service. David, Liz
and Hannah visited Sunday evening and we had a small birthday party for
Hannah. She had turned 15 the week before. Everyone had a nice
time. Lezlie and I enjoyed playing with her two dogs, Benji and
Ariel. They are both small dogs and very smart. Hannah has taught
them many tricks. Although it was fun to play with them, it also made us
miss our dogs. Our flight home Monday afternoon was delayed for over two
hours because the pilot’s seatbelt was broken. They had to fly a new
seatbelt bracket in from Atlanta. As a result we missed our connection to
Washington DC, so we stayed overnight in Atlanta with Lisa and
Pete. So our airline difficulties turned out to be a blessing.
Even though it was a short visit, we had great fun visiting with Lisa and
Pete. So our trip to Florida was a
success. We got to help grandmother and
papa a lot, but best of all we got to have some unstructured time to just visit
with them and find out how they are doing.
It was a good visit. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As soon as we
returned home we swung right back into action.
We worked a long Wednesday shift at Navy Marine Corps Relief Society. We had a good shift and helped out a few
marines. We also got to visit one of our
marine wives that just had a new baby girl.
We had done several things to help her out before the baby was born, so
it was wonderful to see her healthy new little girl. She and the baby are doing well. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">On Friday I (Dan) did
a lot of driving. A lot! In the middle of each transfer cycle (6
weeks) a meeting is held called the Return and Report meeting. All of the brand new missionaries and their
senior trainers attend a meeting with the Mission President. He asks all of the new missionaries how their
first few weeks are going and separately asks the trainers how their new
trainees are doing. Anyway, I picked up
six elders early this morning and drove them all the way to Richmond and back
(about 200 miles). Although it was a lot
of driving, I love doing it. It is a
pleasure to be around these great young men, and long rides in the car lend
themselves to good conversations. I
heard about one young man’s dream to be a doctor, stories from another one that
swam competitively in high school, and heard about another one’s love of
music. It was wonderful. After all of that driving I got home to find
we were needed on the base. Our marine
family with no car needed to make a trip to get groceries. So we drove to the base and took care of
that. Thinking we would get home around
9pm and get to collapse onto our sofa and rest, we got another phone call
. The Zone Leaders, who are our ward’s
missionaries, are having a baptism tomorrow morning and needed to come over to
use our printer to print out baptism service programs. This is another one of the small ways that we
contribute to the mission. But it is
also fun when they come over and we enjoy visiting with them. They are on fire as far as missionary work
in our ward. They have had 33 baptisms
this year which is amazing. And there are
a lot of great new people in our ward because of them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Our young bachelor
marine with the medical issues had his second surgery yesterday, so today,
Saturday, we drove to Wash DC to see him.
He did really well and we found him in good spirits. He said that his doctor reported that the
surgery was very successful. He had
teased us about sneaking in a “Five Guys Burgers and Fries” cheeseburger for
him. So as an alternative we brought him
a gift card to Five Guys and told him it was something to look forward to when
he recovers. He was eating jello and
broth today. It was good to see him
smiling and optimistic. He felt so bad
for so long that it was just wonderful to see him sort of come to life after
his first surgery. Today he seems even
better. He is glad to be 2/3 of the way
to having his problems taken care of.
Walter Reed hospital, where his surgery took place, is very near to the
Washington DC temple. So we went to the
temple for a couple of hours. The temple
is closing next week for a month so that the roof can be replaced. Also today is Saturday of Labor Day weekend. So, the temple was extremely crowded. We had planned on doing an hour of work, but
we would have had to wait for an hour to begin. So we just sat inside the
temple and looked at the giant mural in the entry hall. It is a very beautiful and inspirational painting. Then we took a long walk through the gardens
outside the temple. Beautiful! We returned for another short visit with our
young marine before heading home for the night.
We are so grateful to be able to support this young man and help him in
a small way while he is undergoing this difficult medical treatment so far away
from home and family. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Since we found out
that our young bachelor marine in the hospital had no family coming to visit we
decided to pay him another visit this Sunday morning. Our church service begins at 1:00pm so we
were able to drive to the hospital to see him in the morning. Our young friend is still doing well and was
much more animated and talkative today. I
think his anesthesia finally wore off. He
is glad to be eating semi-solid foods again like fruit and applesauce. Our relationship with him reminds me of
Doctrine and Covenants 64:33 – “Wherefore, be not weary in well doing for ye
are laying the foundation of a great work.
And out of small things proceedeth that which is great.” For six months all we did was take this young
marine out to lunch and dinner. At first
he hardly talked at all. Each time we
invited him he said yes and each time talked a little bit more. We thought we were not doing enough for him,
and simply taking him out for a meal seemed like an insignificant effort. But now he is turning to us for comfort and
talking to us about family, fears, and future dreams. He even told his folks that we were his local
grandparents, which brought us great joy.
We had excellent church services with good talks and lessons today. We got to sit by one of our female marines
that we had not seen for a while. It was
good to catch up with her. We were also
pleased to see one of our very young bachelor marines at church. He just arrived about a month ago and is a very
new member of the church. We were afraid
he would not make the effort to come to church, but he got a ride with another
member of the ward. It was a joy to see
him there. As we begin the month of
September we realize that we have reached a significant milestone. In two day we will reach the one year
anniversary of the day we reported to the MTC.
So much has happened in that year that it is hard to believe how quickly
the time has seemed to pass. A year ago
we could not have imagined the joy we find in serving others and in being simple
instruments in the hand of God. We are
just normal, average people that have this short period of time to dedicate
ourselves to serving others and thereby serving the Lord. It has brought us such fulfillment and
gratitude. We have been involved in so
many amazing things and have received so much.
We are grateful to be senior missionaries. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Dan and Lezlie Couchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10738399282740972815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5585949352073043691.post-71996020438873202432014-08-19T14:08:00.001-07:002014-08-19T14:08:39.382-07:00Chris and Stacey's Visit<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We had a couple of nice marine visits on Monday. We took one young lady, the sister of a
marine, birthday brownies, sang happy birthday to her, and congratulated her on
her recent mission call to Montana.
Cool! We also dropped off a plate
of brownies to a less active family that we have been trying to stay in touch
with as best we can. They were friendly,
but did not invite us in. We had a nice
but short chat on the porch. We do worry
so about some of these families.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">On Tuesday we had an excellent The Basic School
(TBS) family home evening. We thought we
might have only one person there, but we ended up with four. Our dear sister that is from Moldova returned
from a month away for Army Reserve training, so it was wonderful to see her
again after so long. We had a lively
discussion about recognizing and appreciating blessings from God.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We traveled to Richmond well ahead of the time we
needed to pick up Chris and Stacey at the airport on Thursday. We have had too many traffic jams headed that
way and wanted to make sure we were on time.
So we spent a little time at the Virginia Historical Society Museum
doing family history. We had a great
dinner at Chicken Fiesta, an amazing grilled chicken restaurant. We also got to visit a Civil War battlefield
site near the Richmond Airport called Cold Harbor. It was quite interesting. Finally we made our way to the airport and
picked up Chris and Stacey, which was wonderful. We were so happy to see
them! Although it is usually about an hour and a half drive home, we hit a lot of traffic, and it took almost 3 hours, so
we had a good visit just to catch up on things.
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wDhVU1eHXbY/U_OrSHctJjI/AAAAAAAAAos/a8nDX4OtPzo/s1600/Chris%2Band%2BStacey%2Band%2Bus%2Bw%2BLincoln%2Bmonument.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wDhVU1eHXbY/U_OrSHctJjI/AAAAAAAAAos/a8nDX4OtPzo/s1600/Chris%2Band%2BStacey%2Band%2Bus%2Bw%2BLincoln%2Bmonument.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Friday was our Washington DC tour day and it went
well. We left early and drove to
Franconia, Virginia, which is the location of the Washington DC metro stop that
is furthest south and closest to us. We rode the subway to the Smithsonian Museum
area. We had a beautiful day that was
sunny but not too hot or humid. We
walked all around the National Mall and saw the Washington, Lincoln, and Martin
Luther King monuments. As usual they
were all beautiful and inspiring. We
also saw the sobering Viet Nam memorial.
We finally arrived at the National Museum of Natural History and it was
excellent. We all really enjoyed the gem
section, which included the Hope Diamond.
There was a good exhibit of the birds of Wash DC. The mammals section was really good too – my favorite
was the leaping Tiger. I think we could
have spent all day at that museum.
Finally we got a bit tired so headed out of the museum. We made a quick stop at the National Archives
and saw the originals of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill
of Rights. It was pretty moving to see
these significant historical documents.
We walked back to our metro stop and were lucky to have seats on the
subway all the way back to Franconcia.
We next made our way to George Washington’s Mt Vernon. Although the estate grounds were closing when
we arrived, we only went there for the restaurant. We had a wonderful dinner at the Mt Vernon
Inn and Chris and Stacey got to taste their famous peanut soup. It was a long and tiring day, but it was just
wonderful to visit with Chris and Stacey and share the amazing sights of Wash
DC with them. It was especially fun
since it was Stacey’s first visit to Washington DC. What a great day!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We were delighted to share an Officer Candidate
School graduation with Chris and Stacey this Saturday morning. It was another beautiful day, sunny and
breezy. We have sat through a few OCS
graduations that were rainy and cold, so this one was very nice. Chris and Stacey got to meet the chaplain we
work with at OCS who was very friendly and welcoming. They enjoyed the pageantry that the marines
put on – marching OCS students, an excellent Marine Band, multiple awards, cannons
firing, and a short speech by a Marine General.
It was all great. We then got to
go say congratulations and goodbye to our LDS marines. We were thrilled to see one of them because
last Sunday he was quite worried he would get dropped. He had failed his final PT test and he only
had one more chance. It turns out that
he did not do enough situps for the final test, but they sent him to a review
board. The commanding officer of OCS
decided that he was an excellent candidate otherwise and gave him a waiver on
that final test. He allowed him to stay
and finish the course and graduate. We were just overjoyed to see him. He
quickly came over to us and gave us each a big hug. That was a huge reward for us. We saw one other guy (see the picture
below). His mom had contacted us many
times, so it was wonderful to finally meet her.
She told us a heartwarming story about the impact our lessons had made on him. We were touched deeply when we heard the story. It was a great parade and Chris and Stacey
seemed to enjoy it. </span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WMME3vZnMis/U_OruQgSeFI/AAAAAAAAAo8/ChG-ML3bRww/s1600/Giudetti%2Bat%2BOCS%2Bgrad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WMME3vZnMis/U_OruQgSeFI/AAAAAAAAAo8/ChG-ML3bRww/s1600/Giudetti%2Bat%2BOCS%2Bgrad.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">After a quick tour
of the marine base we visited the National Museum of the Marine Corps. This is an exceptional museum, and even if you
do not like the marines you can enjoy this place. It is very well done with lots of great
artifacts, realistic displays, videos, quotes, etc. After an enjoyable museum visit we had lunch
at the Tun Tavern, which is located inside the museum. The original Tun Tavern, in Philadelphia, is where the first marines
were recruited for the Revolutionary War.
It also is a hidden gem of a restaurant, and we had a delicious lunch
there. Next we headed south for a visit
to the beach. Chris had told us they
wanted to visit the ocean, but it is about 5 hours to drive all the way to the
Atlantic Ocean. So we found a nice
little beach town south of us on the Potomac River. Although it was not an ocean beach, it was
still very nice. We had a typical
stuck-in-traffic drive to get there. But
that allowed us some more visiting time.
On the way to the beach we visited Chatham, a colonial era mansion as
well as a Civil War battlefield. It was
built by a Fitzhugh who is a distant relative to Lezlie. The small visitor’s center was excellent and
it was a good stop. When we arrived at
Colonial Beach, Virginia we enjoyed ice cream cones on the boardwalk. We took a long walk along the sandy
beach. And we sat in the sand to enjoy the
people, sun, wind and waves. It was wonderful! Although it was not like a west coach beach,
we still had a good time there. We drove
to the very tip of the beach, which is located on a peninsula, and had dinner
at a pleasant seafood restaurant. Chris
and Stacey wanted to try some real Maryland crab cakes, and they were not
disappointed. We all had some excellent
seafood. After a long drive home we were
glad to get some rest. It was a full and
active day, and a highly enjoyable one too.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We took Chris and Stacey on an early Sunday morning
drive to walk around the Manassas Battlefield Park. This was an important location during the
Civil War as there were two major battles here.
We enjoyed walking around the park, but were also sobered by what took
place there many years ago. It is
incomprehensible to imagine the loss of life at many of these Civil War
battles. After a quick picnic lunch in
the car we headed home. Next we all went
to church. It was enjoyable for us to
have many of our ward friends, marine families, and other missionaries meet
Chris and Stacey. It helped them get a
feel for what we do on our mission. We
also heard some excellent talks about service.
One of the speakers mentioned the need for more senior missionaries and
we felt proud that we were providing that service. We had a relaxing afternoon and then a good
spaghetti dinner. However, after eating
spaghetti we felt like we needed another walk.
So we drove a short distance to a small county park near our
apartment. In addition to taking a nice
walk we also were able to see many birds.
We spotted an elusive Cardinal, the state bird of Virginia and some
beautiful Egrets. It was a pleasant
evening walk in a nice wooded area, most enjoyable. After teaching Chris and Stacey how to play
the card game Euchre, Stacey and I teamed up to beat Lezlie and Chris
soundly. Hurrah! It was great fun! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We were sad that Monday was Chris and Stacey’s last
day. But we had a good morning and early
afternoon together. We first stopped at
the base and visited the Navy Marine Corps Relief Society offices where we
volunteer each week. We were happy to
show Chris and Stacey where we spend a lot of time and glad they could meet our
director and one of the other volunteers.
We love volunteering at NMCRS and that office is an important part of
our mission. We drove on south to Belle
Grove, the Conway mansion that has been converted into a bed-and- breakfast. We had arranged to have lunch there, and it
did not disappoint. We had a delicious
lunch of crab salad, fresh baked rolls, cookies and brownies. Absolutely wonderful! The owner, Michelle, then took us on a
detailed tour of the mansion and we all enjoyed it immensely. Besides being an outstanding cook, Michelle
is an avid historian, and she tells wonderful stories about the house and the
history surrounding it. The fact that
Lezlie’s ancestors built the original house and lived in it for 3 generations made it all the more enjoyable. We made one more quick stop on the way to the
airport, another small Civil War battlefield (they are everywhere in Virginia.) Finally we had to say goodbye to Chris and
Stacey, sad to see them leave but happy for such a great visit. Thank you Chris and Stacey! We had a great time!</span></div>
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Dan and Lezlie Couchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10738399282740972815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5585949352073043691.post-85662467150605872582014-08-10T17:08:00.000-07:002014-08-10T17:08:10.437-07:00Officer Candidte School Graduation Week<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We have found that although we had a busy, busy
week, we did not write a lot in our journal and we have no pictures to
share. So we must have been too busy to write or take
pictures. Monday is preparation day
(P-day) for the missionaries so I spent a good part of the morning running
missionaries to the library, barber shop and grocery store. After various chores at home we went out to
dinner with our niece Cindy Stremel, her husband Jeff and their daughter
Sarah. They just returned from a 2 year
Air Force deployment in Germany and Jeff just retired from the AF as a Lt Col. They are staying with friends right here in
Woodbridge waiting for Jeff’s vehicle to be shipped over from Germany. It was wonderful to visit with them and catch
up on their adventures overseas. It is
always great to see family members. Even
though we don’t see them very often we had a very enjoyable dinner and visit
with Cindy, Jeff and Sarah. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We had an excellent District Training meeting on Tuesday
morning. Our new District Training
Leader is outstanding, and he organized some great lessons. He is a little unique in that he is from Louisiana. A great majority of the young missionaries
are from the West. We were amazed to hear that he is from LA because he has absolutely no southern accent. Quite the contrary, he has a beautiful deep and resonant speaking voice and is very eloquent as well. We were also able to
take our marine family with no car shopping at the commissary. We were glad to be able to help them
out. Before our The Basic School (TBS)
family home evening we got to visit one of our marine families in
Stafford. The TBS family home evenings
are not like the past when we had 6 – 10 each week. But we had 3 folks show up and we had a
really good lesson. We are getting to
know our newTBS marine, a recent Naval Academy grad, and we really like him. We love meeting with our marines. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Our only activity during the day was attending the
Chaplain’s Briefing for the new TBS class.
During this meeting each of the various lay leaders gets to introduce
themselves. Then afterwards any folks of
your faith can find you. We had one LDS
marine in TBS and we had already met him at our family home evening. He is a great guy, but we were hoping to find
someone else that was LDS in the 200 plus marines. But alas, he was the only one that stopped by
to say hello. I (Dan) then helped out
with a youth temple trip. At the last
minute they were short on Priesthood for the session so I drove up to the
temple and worked by recording names. It
was fun to interact with some of the youth of the ward and see their dedication
to serving in the temple. We enjoy
helping out the ward when we get the chance.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thursday was a great Officer Candidate School
day. The day before graduation they have
Family Day. At 9am the parents, family,
and friends meet in an auditorium for a presentation about what the candidates
have been through for the past ten weeks.
It is pretty amazing to hear and see videos about all that they have to
do at OCS. The staff members are
introduced and the commanding officer answers some of the questions that
parents may have. We arrived early and
stood just outside the door so that the parents of our marines could find
us. And they did! The families of all three of our LDS marines
found us and said hello. They all
expressed gratitude for the services and family home evening we had held and
said that their sons had been grateful too.
It was so wonderful to meet them after exchanging multiple notes and
phonecalls with them to and from their sons.
Meeting the families is one of the most fun parts of OCS. Although they thank us, we feel like we
should be thanking them for wonderful sons and daughters they have raised that
teach us so much by their examples of dedication, faith and hard work. Following OCS family day we worked a long
shift at Navy Marine Corps Relief Society.
However, it was certainly easier than last week when we were moving
boxes and furniture. We helped 3 marines by giving them checks to help them out of their financial
difficulties. Upon returning home from
NMCRS we quickly put together dinner for two of our sister missionaries. It is always great fun to have the young
missionaries over and we love getting to know them better. We tried something new that one of the
sisters told us about. They are called
Navajo Tacos. They are similar to
regular tacos, but you use a flattened, deep fat fried biscuit instead of a
tortilla or taco shell. They were
delicious. After an excellent dinner
with these two young sisters I accompanied one of our ward members to the base
to help him do his home teaching. He is
assigned to one of our bachelor marines but he had never been to the
barracks. So I took him in and showed
him how to get signed in and everything. We had a good visit with our marine that is
undergoing the major surgeries. We hope
that this will spur the home teacher into making his own visits to the barracks
to visit this young marine. It was good
to see him looking so healthy, but he is a bit worried about his next surgery
coming up in 3 weeks. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gt3vjdTngqU/U-gD2t80n6I/AAAAAAAAAoM/PThUnAwjdCQ/s1600/Sisters+Montgomery+and+Brady.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gt3vjdTngqU/U-gD2t80n6I/AAAAAAAAAoM/PThUnAwjdCQ/s1600/Sisters+Montgomery+and+Brady.JPG" height="200" width="150" /></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Our Friday morning was spent attending the OCS class
graduation parade. The other new senior
couple here, the Andersons, have never been around the military at all, so we
took them to the parade and for a tour of the base. It was a really good one because the weather
was perfect. The Chaplain gets us
reserved seats under an awning, so we get to be in the shade. It was a standard military parade – the marine
band, lots of marching marines, cannons that fired to honor a general, flags,
awards, and a short speech by the general.
The best part is when the platoon commanders dismiss their troops. Within moments the precise ranks of the
marines disintegrate, families go running out onto the parade deck, and
hundreds of marines and their families greet each other with hugs and
smiles. It is wonderful to be a small
part of the whole thing. The Andersons
seemed to enjoy it, and we had fun visiting with them throughout. Later we made visit to a marine wife and her
children. It turned out that a another
LDS mom was visiting with her two children.
So I entertained all 7 kids while Lezlie and the two moms talked. But it was all good. These young moms need a little break and a
little advice from an experienced mom.
We went for two in a row on feeding young missionaries. We had two other sisters over for dinner, and
we did a repeat meal on our Navajo Tacos.
It was delightful to visit with them and get to know them better. Both of these sisters have already completed
some college and both are studying to be nurses. As I have said many times before, these young
people inspire us with their dedication, knowledge, and maturity. We love to be able to associate with
them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We had a quiet Saturday, spending time cleaning
house, shopping and planning. We thought
we were having a nice little dinner of leftover spaghetti at home. At about 4:30pm I got an email from the
military relations couple at marine base Camp Lejeune North Carolina. They wrote about a young bachelor marine that
was transferring to Quantico and gave us his contact information. So I was prompted to call him right
away. And so we found a 19
year old marine that just arrived. I
asked if we could take him out to dinner and he said he was not busy
tonight. So ten minutes later we were in
the car headed to the base. We took this
young man to Applebees and found out all about him. He went to marine boot camp in San Diego and
he joined the church there just this past March. Since graduating from boot camp he has been at
a marine school in California and another school in North Carolina. He is in the barracks, has no car, and has no
roommate yet. So he is a little
lonesome. It appears that he may have
joined the marines to escape a tumultuous home life. He said his folks were getting a divorce, and
that he and his two sisters both knew this was coming several years ago. He said his sisters are both kind of wild and
are both into Wicca stuff (I think they consider themselves witches). He said that some guys join the marines and
feel all stressed. He told us that
joining the marines was a relief from the stress he felt at home. It was kind of sad. He also told us of a sweet experience at boot
camp where he felt the presence of his favorite grandpa who is dead, expressing
how proud he was of this young man for finishing boot camp. So it was a nice evening to get to know this
young man, and we hope we can help him out since he is such a new member and
does not seem to know too much about church yet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">We had our last Sunday sacrament service at OCS for
the summer session. It was a little sad,
because we only had one guy. But he
needed us today, so we were glad to be there.
It turns out that on Friday he failed his final PT test – he did not do enough </span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">sit-ups</span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">. He is from Oregon and his
family has already started driving to Quantico to see him graduate. He will be a senior at U of Oregon this
fall. When we arrived he was in the room
working on an essay. They get assigned
essays when they goof something up and he had to write a 300 word essay about
something. So he is feeling a lot of
pressure. So we chatted with him for a
while, had our sacrament service, did a lesson about standing alone, and gave
him a blessing. Then we fed him
muffins. So he has been very much in out
thoughts and prayers. He is a great
young man and we have admired his faith throughout our meetings. We know that whatever happens things will
work out well for him in the future.
After our early morning OCS service and a short missionary coordination
meeting we headed back to the base to give our new young marine, that we met
last night a ride to church. He seemed
to enjoy the meetings and met a lot of people.
He said he would like to come back, so we will working out rides for him
to church since he has no car. We had a
Sunday School lesson that was exceptional and unique. At the start of class the teacher, an 85 year
old woman, told us all about her rock collection, and passed around several
rocks for us to see. Then with no
comment about the rocks she started her lesson on charity. The rocks were just sitting there on the
table in front, and we were all wondering, what about the rocks. After about twenty minutes she read a
scripture about being charitable to all.
She noted that sometimes there are people that are just hard to
love. Then she used the rocks to
describe different types of people and how we must try to love them. For example, she had a geode that was rough
outside but inside had a beautiful crystal.
The rock is like some people that are rough and crusty on the outside,
but our love for them can help us to see how beautiful they are on the
inside. It was a wonderful object lesson
and everyone in class was following very closely. And now it is Sunday evening after a busy
week for us. We have a joyful
tiredness. And we are so excited that
Chris and Stacey are coming to visit this week! </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Yesterday we got a wonderful gift in the mail. Anne recently visited her sister Carrie in
Seattle, so all 8 of our grandkids were together. The moms organized the kids to make tracings
of themselves that are life sized. Then
they decorated them the way they wanted.
They are very cool! We have them
posted on our kitchen wall. Now when we
come home we say hello to all of the grandkids Thanks to all of you. We love it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Dan and Lezlie Couchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10738399282740972815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5585949352073043691.post-36711545531485473752014-08-03T17:37:00.000-07:002014-08-03T17:37:21.407-07:00Adventure in Moving<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Monday was great.
We were able to get our car repaired and it was not too
expensive. The mechanic said that a
fitting on a radiator hose just gave out because it was old and continuously
hot, so it got brittle and cracked. He
said we were lucky that it happened in town and had it towed because if we had
tried to drive it we could have overheated the engine badly. We were grateful to get the car back, and
also grateful that things did not turn out worse. Although we were delayed in getting to
Richmond and we had some unexpected expenses, we did have the rental car to
fulfill our responsibilities yesterday and we were not stranded outside of town
with no car. We did some special work
for Navy Marine Corps Relief Society (NMCRS).
The building where we are located is being renovated. They are installing a brand new heating and
cooling system as the old one has asbestos in it. So we are moving our operations into a double
wide trailer. We spent about 3 hours at
the office helping get ready. Lezlie
packed many boxes while I threw away trash.
That may not sound like much, but we had a lot of trash. It had to be
carried down some stairs and about a hundred yards around behind our
building. It was very hot and I did
about ten loads. So it was tiring. But we were glad to help. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It was one of those days where everything changed
with a 7am phonecall. Today, Tuesday, is
transfer day. As of 10pm last night we
were not going to have to drive anyone to Richmond for transfers. We planned to help with the NMCRS move some
more. But at 7am we got a call from the
other senior couple who was to take some elders to Richmond but had some
issues. Moments later we got a call from
the sister training leaders who had extra sisters returning from Richmond that
needed a ride. After getting it all
sorted out it ended up that I drove to Richmond and hauled 5 elders back
to Woodbridge. Lezlie stayed home to bake
and work on her lesson for our family home evening. So it was a long driving day. It is always fun to go to transfer
meeting. It could be classified as
controlled chaos bordering on total bedlam.
The meeting itself is pretty inspiring.
There are about 150 missionaries in the chapel. After some very nice testimonies by a few of
the elders and sisters that are leaving they start calling out the names of who
will be paired with whom. As soon as
they call the two names the elders or sisters get together, share a big hug,
and then sit together. It is a touching sight
to see, as these young people that don’t know each other at all run up and give
huge hugs and grins to each other. We
had a very special, touching moment that was truly extraordinary. The church has a program that for lack of a
better title is a “trial mission” program.
For young people that may have a learning disability, are autistic, or
have some sort of handicap, the church allows them to serve a 2 to 3 month
mission in their home state. They are
carefully evaluated during that time to see if they can and should serve a full
time mission. We recently had such a
young man in our area, and we got to know him because he lived in our apartment
complex. He was a really guy,
just a little shy, kind of awkward socially, and did not say too much. At this meeting the mission president
sensitively announced that the church headquarters had approved this young man for
a full time mission, that he had received his mission call, and that he wanted
to open it in front of those in attendance.
The young man and his parents went to the front and he nervously opened
his call. It was for Tucson, Arizona, and when he read it everyone stood up, cheered and
clapped in support of him. It was very cool! The young man was just beaming while his
parents stood to the side crying.
Following the meeting everyone adjourned to the parking lot, luggage was
loaded onto trailers or into vehicles, and all the missionaries tried to find
their ride back to their new area (see photos). It
took about a half an hour for me to be paired up with the five I was supposed
to take home. We had a quiet drive back,
because all of the elders fell asleep as soon as we hit the Interstate. But we did chat a bit, and I was once again
impressed by the caliber of young men serving missions here. After getting them all where they needed to
go, Lezlie and I headed south again for our The Basic School (TBS) family home
evening. We only had two attendees, but
we still had a nice lesson and discussion.
One of the two was a brand new TBS student, and young man that just
graduated for the Naval Academy. It was
fun to get to know him and talk about his experience at USNA. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">We spent about 5 hours working at NMCRS helping with
the move on </span><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Wednesday</span><span style="line-height: 115%;">. It was quite
tiring, carrying boxes down a flight of stairs, loading them into trucks and
vans, and then unloading them at the other end.
But we did a good job. There was supposed to be a Marine work crew to help us, arranged by a Marine volunteer. Unfortunately the men they had </span><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">recruited</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> were all on restriction, so couldn't come help- ironic since they train to be strong and fit a good portion of their waking hours...Lezlie called a couple of our young elders and it just happened they
were nearby. They quickly rearranged their schedules and were there within 15 minutes. So
for a couple of hours they donated their time and effort to helping
with the move. They carried several
large, heavy sets of shelves down the stairs and then unloaded them at the
other end. All of our volunteers were
impressed with their efforts. So we had
a hot, tiring morning and early afternoon, but we did good work. In the evening we held our Officer Candidate
School (OCS) family home evening, which was attended by eleven students. Lezlie gave an excellent lesson based on a
paper Anne had written. It was based on a </span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Japanese</span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> word for thank you, and was about
realizing and appreciating the great blessings you receive by doing your best
to live the gospel. It went well. (Thank you Anne). We really did a great job on refreshments
too, serving hot fudge brownie sundaes with bananas tonight. Every one of them had at least two servings,
and they all loved the hot fudge. So it
was an excellent meeting, and we did well in feeding them spiritually and
physically. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We spent several hours on Thursday at NMCRS helping
with the move. I believe I walked up and
down the stairs about 50 times today. We
did not have anything heavy left to move, but we had a multitude of small boxes
with every conceivable type of office supply.
We also had a well stocked kitchen in the old office, so we moved tons
of napkins, paper plates, plastic silverware, cups, and on and on. But we were happy to do it. The new office is taking shape, and even
though it is a bit chaotic right now we were able to help several clients. The IT folks did a great job getting our
computers moved and up and running quickly.
Once we had computers and a printer to print the checks, we were in
business. The other part of this whole
moving process was the accumulation of stacks of items that the boss was going
to haul to Goodwill. We just do not have
enough room for everything at the new office.
However, our Stake is having an event in a month called <i>Gifts of the Heart</i>. Everyone in the Stake donates items that they
would otherwise give to Goodwill or sell at a garage sale. They advertise by word of mouth and to the
local charitable organizations that help with needy families. Then they give everything away. So we took a couple of van loads of items for
that event. It was a great help to the
boss because she was going to haul all the stuff to the Goodwill herself. It was nice stuff too – some metal shelves,
office supplies, good books, Christmas decorations, an artificial Christmas tree, many baby clothes and
blankets, etc. Just as we were leaving we got a call from a
marine couple who are leaving this weekend.
They had received orders suddenly and were inviting a couple of friends for dinner before departing, and
they asked us to come. We felt greatly
flattered. So we sat in the car and
rested for about an hour and then met them and their other friends at a nice
Mexican restaurant. It was delightful to
visit with them and meet their friends.
The friends had a two month old baby, a girl that made me think of
Abby. After an excellent Mexican meal we
went to their apartment for an hour to help them pack up their kitchen for
their move. She is pregnant and not supposed to lift
heavy things. We got all of their
dishes, pots n’ pans, silverware, etc. packed up, so we were a somewhat
helpful. All too soon we had to say
goodbye to them. They are the last of
our marine group that started OCS about the time we got here. We will really miss them a great deal. (I am in casual clothes in this picture because
we came directly from moving boxes for NMCRS).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">On Friday we met up with the new senior couple here
and drove into DC. We went to the temple,
met up with some other senior missionaries, and attended a temple session
together. It was very nice to be in the temple with all
of them. We had a few special moments
talking about our missions in the temple.
Then we all went to a Brazilian Steakhouse in DC. We just found it by looking on the map and
picked it because it was close to the interstate. It turned out to be a pretty high-class spot
with valet parking, beautiful </span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">decor</span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">, a large crowd, outstanding food, and an expensive
menu. It was a the type of place where
they serve you unlimited meat from skewers.
We had a wonderful time visiting and getting to know the other three
couples – all really great folks. We do
not get much chance to socialize and just talk for a couple of hours like that,
so we all enjoyed it very much. And we
ate some outstanding food as well. It is
wonderful to get together with these good people and hear about the things they
are doing in their areas. At times we
feel a bit isolated, like we are here in Woodbridge all alone doing our best to
take care of the marines and their families.
When we hear about what the senior missionaries are doing in other areas
of the mission and hear about the miracles they are experiencing it makes us
feel less isolated and part of a much bigger work. The blessings we all receive
as senior missionaries are awesome. Although we are doing totally different
things we have heard so many stories from other seniors about the miracles they
have experienced that we know God’s hand is in the middle of this work. It was also great fun to talk about our
grandchildren and show each other pictures of them. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Our OCS Sunday sacrament service was
a bit sad. We found out that one of our young LDS guys
got dropped yesterday, just a week before graduation. We knew that he was having some issues, and
that the company commander thought he lacked the leadership skills to be a
marine officer. But he was a wonderful
young man that we had come to love.
Also, Lezlie had talked to his wife on the phone several times after he
had given Lezlie lengthy messages about his struggles at OCS. After
a short rest at home we arrived at church, hopeful to see two of our less
active marine families that said they would come to church. By about 5 minutes after the start of
sacrament meeting we knew they were not coming and we were kind of sad. But then we saw our young man mentioned above
that was dropped from OCS school yesterday.
He walked into the chapel with his beautiful wife and two young
daughters and sat right next to us. Our
sadness disappeared. After a
wonderful, spirit filled meeting we got to visit with them for a bit before
they headed south to go home. His wife
and daughters had come to visit for the weekend, and when he got dropped from
the school they decided they would just stay overnight anyway before heading
back to southern Virginia where they live.
It was just wonderful to meet his wife and two cute little girls, about18
months and three. He was a little
disappointed in not graduating from OCS, but was also peaceful about the whole
situation. He said that he knew the Lord
must have something else in store for them so they were not worried. It was humbling to have both of them thank us
for our help while he was here at OCS.
We felt like we should be thanking him for being such an inspiration to
us. Another small miracle happened. We were standing just outside the church
building where we had taken some pictures.
The absolutely perfect person to speak with them happened by. I am sure God sent him by, because he gave
them some inspired words of comfort and guidance that were just perfect. The man that came by was our previous bishop
who has long worked with the marines and is very familiar with OCS. The things that he said to them were just
perfect and were comforting and hopeful to them. It was a pure miracle that he came by just
then. After an all too brief visit they
had to start their long drive home. We
hope to visit them in southern Virginia one day before we finish our
mission. Once again we feel so totally
blessed to be here as servants of Heavenly Father, stepping in and out of the
lives of these precious young marine families.
We love doing this work. Here is
a picture of this young man and his beautiful family. </span></div>
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Dan and Lezlie Couchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10738399282740972815noreply@blogger.com0