Celebrating Pioneer day here in the South...

On the 24th of July hot dogs, hamburgers, Jell-O salad, and root beer floats were all on the menu for our Pioneer BBQ! We invited three local families (all with Utah ties) and all six missionaries from our ward! We ate, shared pioneer stories, lit off fireworks and watched the Elders try "NOT" to blow their fingers off! What a great way to celebrate Utah's birthday all the way out here in the South!

And they call him Daniel...

So we had our very first missionary come back to visit us after returning home from serving in the Tallahassee Florida Mission! Elder Daniel Snow from Snowflake, Arizona brought his mom and dad back to the Mobile area to tour his mission district just a few short months after he was released. It was great to see him and to hear all about what he was doing now that he was back to being a 'civilian' again! His hair was a bit longer and it looked like he could've used a shave, but he still emulated that awesome spirit he had while serving in our ward! What a great opportunity it must've been for him to serve here in the South!

Dorm rooms, dances, and breaking curfew....

During the second week of July, I spent three days at Troy State University being a chaperone to nine young women at Youth Conference. Dancing until midnight, eating in a cafeteria and having to share a bathroom with four other people were a few of the things that made me re-live those BYU days of long ago!
We met four other LDS Stakes there and had a total of 428 youth and 165 adult leaders. The stakes involved with our Youth Conference were Mobile Alabama Stake, Tallahassee Florida Stake, Pensacola Florida Stake, Ft. Walton Beach Florida Stake, and Panama City Florida Stake. Except for the time we spent in Utah, I had never seen so many LDS Youth in one place all at one time standing for the same truths here in the South that they have there in Utah! What a feeling! It was simply amazing!