Marissa got her Mission Call

It was late at night our time - around 9:15 pm (we had to wait for Robert to come home from soccer practice).  Marissa opened her mission call in the lobby of the Taylor building.  She has been called to serve in the Utah Logan Mission.  She will report on 6/1/2016.  She is so excited!  We are so excited for her.  

Waiting for Robert to get home

Opening the envelope

Robert's works at Tinseltown

In December Robert started working at Tinseltown Theaters.  It is the same place that Jessica, Devon and Marissa had their first job! 

Right away his managers liked him.  Robert works as much as he can.  He works every Friday and Saturday.  They are very good not to schedule him on Sunday.  Robert worked concessions in the beginning.

Later Robert was moved to ushering!  He likes both.

Robert's Basketball team

 Starting in January, the church basketball league started up again.  Robert played all the games he was available, but he also worked on the weekends and played on two indoor soccer teams.  He loves being active.  Robert was an excellent point guard.  We had a nice group of guys - everyone gave their best effort - you can't ask for more than that.

The Team
Robert, Josh Hancock, Sam O'Brien, Noah McKinley, Coach Longhurst, Jacob Bosco
front:  Jeremiah Bosco, Jate Longhurst, Josh Powell, Spencer Hancock, and Alex Hancock
Not shown:  Ben O'Brien, Izen Longhurst

Creasey FC Soccer

Robert was invited to play on the Creasey FC indoor soccer team.  It is a group of friends from NOHS that like to hang out together.  Some of the players are very good varsity soccer players and others are baseball players or girl soccer players, but they are all friends and all have a great time together.

The only sad thing about the Creasey FC club is that they players do not want parents to come to the games.  Not even to take photos.

I guess they want to just be able to relax and have fun together without any pressure from parents, good or bad.

Devon - Week 84

This week was a good week.  We Taught our new investigator, Emily. It was especially good for Elder Wood to get the experience teaching the Restoration.  We asked her to read the Book of Mormon and to be Baptized and she said yes for both.  Her date is March 12.  As we were leaving we saw that she started reading the Book of Mormon.  The Spirit was really strong and I feel like she will be baptize, which is awesome.  

This week at church everyone came to Summerwind Ward but no one came to Meadowlark Ward.  We had a great member Presents we defiantly had the "Right member."  Ryan, our investigator that is agnostic, was not really following his commitments and was starting to get less interested until we brought our recent convert  Eric who used to be agnostic/atheist and has all the same interest as Ryan does.  After he bared his testimony Ryan never took his eyes off him, thats how focused he was.  Marissa, his wife came to a baptism  and will be baptized soon.  Sorry that my email is short this week.

Court of Honor

Brother Lindman and Sam O'Brien ran the Court of Honor.   All the boys received awards.  Robert received his Venturing award and his Varsity pins.

Tonight was a very special night for the scouts in our Branch.  Betsy is the Advancement Chairperson for our troop and crew.  She works hard to make sure Court of Honors are super exciting to keep the boys motivated to earn awards and advance.

Devon - Week 83 - Missionary Conference

This Week there will be a Worldwide missionary conference I think the First one ever for missionaries and Mission Presidents.  Elder Bednard and Elder Oaks will speak as well as a 70 named Elder Neison.  

We had a super great week this.  We had a special Zone Conference all about faith that was given to our Zone personally from President Winder.  It just made me supper excited to do missionary work and it made me think a lot about how I can strengthen and build my faith.  This week we were greatly blessed with 2 new investigators and 4 of our investigators were at church.  Basically we reach many of our goals for the week even though at first we think we would.    Not only were we Blessed but the district as well.  Our district reached the standards of excellence for member presents this week.  This week was the highest it has been for months.  

This week was also stressful because I had to plan district P-day on Monday, Lead District Meeting on Tuesday and go on exchanges with the Zone Leader, Wednesday we had Zone conference, Thursday we had exchanges with Elders in our district; I went with Elder Mosimann who speaks French it was one of my most memorable exchanges.     

Devon - Week 82 - Repentance and handbook changes

Eric Keren and Cheri Graffias are doing better.  

We had some weird lessons this week.  Three people asked us about the new handbook change.  We watch the interview with Elder Christopherson and discussed it with one of them and that helped them understand. The other two didn't have a computer so we couldn't show them the video but we asked them to watch it. 

We had great spiritual lesson with some investigators and less actives which helped them to progress towards their next steps.  The zone meeting training and watching teaching Repentance came in handy especially for a less active that is really struggling spiritually, emotionally, physically, and socially.  It became crystal clear that she needed to go to church and talk to the bishop as well.  She agreed to come to church which she has not been to for years. it was really cool we had a come to Jesus moment. 

We had a lesson with both Ryan & Marissa this week.  We asked them some spiritual questions to understand where they are Spiritually.  Ryan still is trying to wrap God in his head or as he calls it a higher Power.  Marissa is still doing great the only thing that she needs is a testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith.  So next time we go over we are going to teach the Restoration. 

We have this Potential Investigator named Cheryl Stoops that we have been trying to reach for two weeks.  She has a Baptist Roommate that doesn't want us over and is making it difficult for us.  We still haven't been able to teach her yet, but we have texted and she seems interested.  Elder Wood and I are excited to start teaching her.

Fabulous Futsal

Robert finally got to play a FUTSAL game with his friends that attend St. X.  They are called the X-men.  Here he is with Trent, Aaron, and Ryan.  All four of these boys played middle school soccer together in 7th grade!

Trent Stigler, Aaron Green, Robert and Ryan Danehy

Betsy is attending College

Monday, January 4th brought big CHANGE to the Lowe home.

After a decade of waiting, I finally bit the big one and decided to go back to college for her final degree.

I was accepted at the University of Louisville and at Sullivan University (I only applied to those two). I was awarded a grant at Sullivan University so with the reduced cost we decided to go there.

I am taking a full load of classes (4):  Principles of Management 304, Negotiations 401, Ethics and Public Speaking.

I loved the first day!  It was great - all the classes seem exciting and I like all my professors.  The second day was a bit more realistic - massive homework - doubt sets in ...