Elders' New Apartment, Canada Day and The Fourth of July

We decided that the families of Elder Kroff and Elder Stuart would probably love to see their new apartment as well.  Of course it is always a better picture with a person in it - the elders were happy to obliged.  Be sure to check out the materials in the china cabinet.  They were very proud of their decorating.

 Studying

 

 Front Room

 

 Church Materials

 

Kitchen

Another Kitchen View

 

Elder Kroff's Half of Room

Elder Stuart's Half

 

We asked Elders Quinn and Sheridan if we needed to put pictures of their apartment on the blog and they said "No, we have already sent pictures home". 

 

Most of our week was spent getting organized in our new apartment.  We also had to get the original copy of leases for our apartments (ours and the elders) so that we could turn in a change of address with our visa.  Since the lease is signed by the branch president in Sarajevo, we took the opportunity to drive there, meet with our lawyer and pick up the copies of the leases.  We stopped on the way home to get some gas and the owner of the coffee shop approached Gary and asked "in English" if we were missionaries.  He and his wife lived in Salt Lake City for 12 years.  Both he and his wife had worked at the Marriott Hotel on West Temple Street in SLC.  They have a daughter that was born in LDS Hospital.  They have been back in Bosnia for about a year.  You can be sure that when in Sarajevo we will be stopping there for our gas. 

 

Our daughters returned from their adventure to Canada.  But not before they helped celebrate Canada Day on July 1st.  They were able to ride on the float that Jordan Court's (Northern Stone Design, Ltd.) company entered.  A great time was had by all.  When Dallin (age 2 below) found out they were going home to Utah, he cried "I want to go to my Canada house!" 

 

Dallin thinks the ice cream is Yummy! 

Dallin, Landon and Taylor

Waterton Park

Face Time with Grandma and Papa 

  

The Float

Taylor, Mason, and Dallin

      

The Courts and Winters at Waterton Park



Today our mission president, President Rowe and his mother (she has been serving a mission here) came to attend church with us.  It was a great meeting.  Sister Rowe will be going home on the 19th of July.  We will miss her. 

Elder Kroff, Sister Rowe, Ferid, and Elder Stuart



We hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July.  Holidays are always hard, but we enjoy the pictures and messages we receive from friends and family. July holidays at home are wonderful celebrations; out of the country they are also wonderful, but still just ordinary working days. All the best till next week.

 

 

 

Our New Apartment

Yesterday, Saturday, June 29th was our daughter Reachel Bagley's 33rd birthday.   We were able to Face Time with her and her family.  They were are spending the afternoon in their backyard at the pool as she lives in Arizona. Then according to Facebook she continued to party the rest of the day and night.  It looked that she had a great birthday.  We sure are glad that Reachel is a part of our family.  We are also thankful for her talents.  If not for her, this blog would not happen.  Anytime we have a problem, we call our computer guru. She is a amazing mother, wife and daughter.  We are proud to be her parents.

Saturday was a big day for us as well as we moved to a new apartment.  As many of you know our apartment did not have central heating.  This last winter was fairly mild, but we felt it best to get a different apartment with parking and central heating.  The young elders are also moving to a new apartment as well.  They will move tomorrow - pictures next week.  Since we have office furniture we hired someone to move us.  Thursday and Friday afternoon we spent the day packing up the old apartment.  Saturday morning the movers came and loaded everything up.  We only moved 3 kilometers from the old apartment but it was quite the ordeal.   The movers came at about 8AM and we were all moved into our new apartment by 11AM.  The rest of the day was spent unpacking and getting things organized so that we could cook dinner and get ourselves ready for church on Sunday.  Our new apartment is so nice.  We feel very blessed to have it. 

 

As you can see we have plenty of room now.  It is not to late to come over for a visit.  This summer the weather has been quite pleasant.  Last year when we arrived it was usually hot.   So hot that we had three months of drought.  We have a balcony at our new apartment as we did at our last one.  At night you can sit outside and enjoy the cool night air and smell the Lipa (Linden) trees.  They smell a bit like lemon peel.  It is funny, but we don't remember smelling these trees last year.  It is really quite pleasant to just relax and enjoy the pleasant scent.

 

 

We were able to visit Orasje on Monday.  We visited the Pcelica (Little Bee) Kindergarten.   This project consisted of working with the city and Red Cross to replace asbesto pipe to the school with new PVC Pipe.  The children now have clean drinking water.  The local radio station even interviewed us. station.

 

While we were in Orasje, we went to the neighboring town of Domalijevac.  Back in April we were able to distribute potato seed and onion sets to a few families that were in need.  We went back for some pictures for our project journal.  We have a most delightful visit with one of the ladies that received the help.  She was happy to see us again and expressed her appreciation for the help.  It is such a privledge to be able to serve a mission in this way.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

This past week our daughters Lizzy and Sara were brave souls and drove to Raymond, Alberta, Canada with three boys under 10.  From what we hear all six of the grandsons (Taylor, Landon, Dallin, Mason, James, and Thomas) are having a great time.  We have tried to Face Time with them, but it gets a little crazy?#!*.  We hope that Lizzy, Sara, Rebecca and Jordan will survive as well. 

 

Hope everyone at home has a wonderful 4th of July.  It truly is a blessing to live in America and enjoy all the freedoms that we do.