John is a New College Student

We moved John up to Rexburg, Idaho yesterday. We found him an apartment in Sunrise Village apartment 47. It is the lower left apartment of a 4 plex. It should be cool during the summer. His roommate's name is Ian (the same name as Lee's roommate during his freshman year). Also, Ian plays the viola (Marie can celebrate about that). And the books on his bookshelf looked like he was studying Construction Management (the same as John). It looked like a magical match. When we met him, he said he was a 2nd semester freshman. He is on Summer/fall track but started last fall.
We helped John get his I card. On his first try, they said his hair was too long over the ears. Although I had thought about bringing hair cut scissors, I had left them at home. The girl at the I card place said his hair was OK except for over the ears so we left trying to figure out where to get a quick hair cut without him needing a car. Then we remembered the tiny surgical scissors in my purse left over from Lee's time in the hospital. They were definitely sharp enough to cut hair, but were they big enough? We took him up the street toward the Rexburg Temple and then turned east by a big water tank, and while he stood in the gutter by the car, I stood on the sidewalk (so I could reach) and with the wind blowing and the rain soon to start, I cut the hair around his ears. No problem with leaving hair around... it all blew away. It was kind of funny to see everyone's reactions as they drove by and stared. After the hair cut, he used water from the water bottle to "comb" his hair. They were very happy with his hair when he came back less than a half hour later. Mission accomplished.
We showed him around campus, and got him some dining dollars, showed him the computers in the library, and where his class would meet the next day. We bought a few things he needed at Wal-Mart and went to Bajio for dinner and then drove home. It was a very late night before we got home, but it was a very successful trip.

Lee's Mission Call

Early in December Lee finished his mission papers and the Bishop and Stake President sent them in. On Dec.19th it showed up in the mail. Lee's mission call came in the mail in the afternoon, but no one was home, so Lee brought the envelope into the house from the mail box and hid it under the couch in the livingroom. Later that evening, he told us that it had come. Marie and JP were at our house because we were planning to play Christmas music as a family that evening. When we learned that Lee's call was here, JP sent Emily to get his camera from Grandma Linda's house. So Grandma came down to see him open his call too.
For the past week or so, everyone had been making guesses for where he would go, James Argentina, Angela Philippines, Me Sweden (i don't have any idea why) Levi Olsen said Russia, Grandma said Denmark she said she had guessed it for all her sons and none had been called there yet so she guessed it again, Lee said he was going to go to some place in South America.

So when he opened up his call, Grandma was on the phone with Gordon and we were on the phone with Wade and afterwards we called Mike and Carrie's family to tell them where he got called to. Lee read the "Dear Elder" and then he went along and it said "you are hereby called to serve in the" and here he stumbled and couldn't pronounce the name of the mission "the Bacolod Pilippines Mission" then Angela was like"yes whoohooo" because she guessed the right place. Then further down it said "report the the MTC in Provo UT on March 26th." I think he was happy to know that he would learn the Tagalog language.
The next Saturday one of Emily's friends who had recently returned from the same mission came over to our house. He showed us some pictures of the mission and said that there is the hot rainy season and the hot hot season. Some time soon after Mike and Carrie's Family called and said that the missionarys had come to their house for dinner one of them was from the Philippines, he talked to Lee for a minute trying to teach him how to pronouce the name of the mission, Lee said he finally stopped trying to help him and just said "yah you'll do great ." On Sunday Night January 27th we went to a family's house in our ward. They invited us to do a family night thing and they also invited a friend of theirs who had just returned from the same mission to show slides and answer any questions Lee might have. The new returned missonary said he was tall at 5' 9" and with red hair. The missionaries advice was to bring a couple of umbrellas and learn to cook before you go there (your companions will love you).
While we were there, we learned that President Hinkley had passed away.

Lee’s Travel Study

This summer, Lee signed up for a BYU Idaho travel study class. They would be going on a tour to the Eastern United States and studying US history, American literature, and Early Mormon history (Doctrine and Covenants). He left August 23rd and the tour lasted 3 weeks. He returned to Rexburg 1 week after the fall semester started. On their way home, they stopped in Salt Lake and we sent a box of stuff to Emily. The teacher said they had enjoyed having Lee on the trip. He said," We couldn’t get Lee to comb his hair, we couldn’t get him to cut his hair and so we just called him "Kramer". (Due to his BYU I standard hair cut that doesn’t touch the ears or collar but Lee wanted it left long and curly on top.)

Dad and boys go on Trek

This year our stake decided to go on a trek from Martin’s cove through the sweet water then over rocky ridge and ending soon after. They left on July 11th at 4:30 am and arrived home at 4:00 pm on July 14th. Lee was mid way through his summer semester so he rode down on the shuttle to Ogden and Pres. Manwaring (our stake pres.) picked him up and took him to Wyoming .