So this past weekend, I set off with some good friends (and old companions) for St. George for a little mission-wide get-together and our mission president's homecoming. We all piled into Harmony's car and were on our way. Luckily we like each other and are used to not having a lot of space :)
As you may or may not know, I work with the senior couples at the MTC. A few months ago, I worked with a couple, the Howards, who were going to be serving in the St. George visitor's center. They only had about 3 weeks notice about the French, so we worked together almost every day for two weeks. They were so fun to work with and so enthusiastic about their third mission. I let them know I was coming down, and they invited us all over for lunch and a few games. Hawaiian haystacks, yummy. They have a great view of their temple from their house.
Harmony (my mission daughter), Holli (served in Fiji and went to Bingham also, so we had some good reminiscing time), the Howards, me, Laurel, and Lindsay:
After a memorable trip to the temple, we went to our hotel to get ready for the reunion. Finally a good reason to wear our New Cal dresses! We were having serious zone conference flash backs... does this picture look familiar? Yes, it does, because we took this exact same picture at every single zone conference. Minus the dresses :)
Another weird thing was that we felt a little bit like we were crashing the Fijian's reunion since there were so many more of them, and they were all so happy to see each other after a long time... whereas we all see each other pretty regularly. But it was so much fun to see some of the couples who served in Fiji who we just loved so much, and of course, to see the Ostler's again. They look so relaxed after having worked themselves silly for three years.
Sunday was the Oster's homecoming! We had quite the adventure getting there taking a little red dirt road, but we finally made it to the church, an hour early :) So naturally, we got the best seats. It was kind of foiled though, since they made us sit in the choir seats. Sister Ostler talked about their mission, the logistics of it. They sure covered a lot of ground in our mission-- she said they went on something like 370 flights in three years. Crazy, huh? She talked about how great the missionaries and the couples were (yeah, yeah, we know, right?). After her talk, all the returned missionaries stood up and we sang the mission song. We convinced them to let us sing the first verse in French, and then we all sang the whole song together in English. It was awesome. Afterwards, President only had about ten minutes to talk... he talked about some miracles that we saw on our mission, such as the Sekeme family and Soane & Vaea's little family. He talked about what wonderful work that the senior couples did out there. I really loved the plug for seniors to go on missions. AMEN! Of course, he also talked about 2 Nephi 31 (I don't think it's possible for him to give a talk without talking about this... AKA the doctrine of Christ, nice work President), and the Book of Mormon. It was just great. We were so lucky to have such a great President!
Their angry faces?
After the homecoming, we gathered at the Ostler's beautiful home, which is right on a lake and a golf course. We had a nice lunch and of course took a picture with everyone. I just realized how much we love group photos, apparently. I promise that there were other people there, like 3 times as many as us who served in Fiji, and a handful who served in Vanuatu. It was fun to meet some of them and hear about some of their experiences in other areas of the mish.
Before driving home, we stopped to take some pictures at the temple:
Well, we're happy that the Ostlers are home, relieved that they made it through their mission alive. And also, I think this just reinforced our gratitude for our mission and how close we all became, and how we're able to continue our friendships after the mish.
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