It has been a week since we last posted or updated our blog. We arrived safely in Augusta, GA on Tuesday the 29th of May. Let me back up and tell you of our trip out. We finished our training at the MTC on Thursday the 24th of May and drove up to SLC to have additional training at the Missionary Relations Department of the Church. The training was valuable and will need to be reviewed often. It lasted until the middle of the afternoon at which time we drove back up to Layton to finish packing our car with most of everything we planned to take with us. I ended up having to put two suitcases up on the luggage rack; they were not too big and so I was not afraid that they would cause too much drag.

We had a nice visit with Shannon and Eric and family and with Rosalee and David and family. We slept in the guest room that night and then the following morning treated them to breakfast at Sill's; it doubled as Rosalee's birthday dinner. After breakfast we took off to Young Chevrolet to see if they had our license plates yet and our remote entry device. They had the remote entry device, but not our plates. We then took the device down to the KIA shop where we found out that we had been given the wrong one, however, fortunately for us, the technician had one in his tool box. He programmed it for us and once done we left for Laramie, Wyoming where my uncle Gradon lives. We had a triple treat that evening; not only did we have the opportunity to visit with uncle Gradon, but also with uncle David and Ellen, uncle Gradon's daughter, my cousin. Ellen could not stay too long, but we had a great visit with her. We then took Gradon and David out for supper. After a nice meal and a great visit together we went home and David headed back to the Denver area where aunt Connie was anxiously waiting for him.

The following morning we left for Gretna, NE where our daughter Becky and her family were anxiously waiting our arrival. We drove for 8 hours and arrived in Gretna about 5:45pm. Our drive to Laramie was about 6 hours; so far our journey was up to 14 hours. We stayed Saturday evening, all day Sunday and then left Monday morning. All the children wanted me to give them roller coaster rides and play monster hide and seek. We did the roller coaster rides and then we went to the Korea House for dinner, where Matt and Becky treated us to some delicious Korean food. After returning home we played monster hide and seek out doors and had a great time hiding, chasing and making a lot of noise.

Sunday we attended church at our old ward, the Papillion ward; we still have some friends there who we enjoy visiting with. That evening, Matt, grilled a pile of brats for us to eat. They were delicious. After dinner we sat down together as a family and talked with the children about what we would be doing on our mission and helping them understand that we would not be back to visit for nearly 2 years. We did the same thing in Layton; I'm sure that only about 4 of our 15 grandchildren really understand the time we will be gone. Hopefully they will not forget us.

We left Becky and Matt and family Monday morning and drove 14 hours to Cooksville, Tennessee. It is about 100 miles past Nashville. We stayed the night in a motel 6. The area is beautiful. The Cumberlan, the Smokey Mountains, it was all gorgeous.

On our final day of driving, we left about 7:30am eastern time and drove until we reached Irmo, SC, where the mission offices are for the South Carolina, Columbia mission. We arrived at 2pm just 30 minutes prior to our meeting time. That gave us time to change our clothes and meet the mission staff. We had a nice meeting with President and Sister Holm, the staff and the Wakefields, who we had been in the MTC with. After the meeting we went out to eat and enjoyed some real good southern cook'n. After dinner, we drove down to Augusta, another hour or so away. We found our apartment after some searching, and found Elder and Sister Berry, our neighbors, in our apartment, putting together our furniture. What a nice surprise! We helped them get it finished and then they left and we brought all our belongings in from the car and as we did so we put most of it right away!

The following day, Thursday, we went out and did some more shopping, and then met the Esteps; they are the Post LDS group leaders. We had a nice sandwich with them, a great visit, and learned more of what goes on in the local area that we needed to be aware of.

Today we went on the post and paid a visit to the hospital, moved our records there and moved our Tricare region so we could be seen by the staff there if we should ever have any medical needs. We also went up to the Red Cross office and volunteered to work with them one day a week. We also arranged to meet with the library staff and volunteer our services there. This evening I texted all our servicemen who I had a phone number for and told them how we were looking forward to meeting them and getting acquainted with them.

That catches us all up; now we are all up-to-date. We look forward to a great work here,  hopefully we will have a positive impact on many young men and young women who will need our love and fellowship.