Our flowering Magnolia Tree at the Mission Office

Sister James loves the smell of the magnolia flowers and would pick and bring them into the office each morning.

Sister James in the Mission Office

Sister James is always cheerful and happy to meet an great the Elders and Sisters of the Florida Orlando Mission. She is often pranked by the Assistants!

Visiting the Daytona International speedway, NASCAR fans B&M tour the race track and take a spin in the race car simulators (Bubba Bob came in 8th out of 24 cars averaging 187 mph!)

The Ponce de Leon inlet lighthouse (tallest at 175') we climbed it and know it is the tallest!

Bubba Bob at Bubba Gumps in Daytona Beach!

This is our alligator in the pond and the notice to beware and report!

We had a lovely visit with the Paulsen Family

Jennifer, Ella, Hannah and Jaycee at the bridge on Shingle Creek (gateway to the Everglades and home of the alligators)

This is in the Florida Orlando Mission home backyard, note the alligator pond.

Snakes in the House

We went to a baptism Saturday at church, then went looking for inactive ward members and this is what we experienced! This family works at Sea World and Disney World and there son has 16 big and little snakes in their home. We didn't know this until towards the end of our visit and wal- la out comes a 3.5 year old 8 foot python, Marsha freaked out and ran to the end of the kitchen, I of course made friendly and posed with the snake and son. Every P-Day we get out of the office grind and get to see the sights and smells of Orlando. We had just come from eating ice cream in Kissimmee at Pure Magic which makes the ice cream using liquid nitrogen right before your eyes.

Well after three months in the mission office we are getting proficient at doing our jobs. Marsha knows lots more about the computer programs and still has not killed the computer either by key strokes or axe. Robert has learned the intricacies of IMOS and likes it (when it works). Elder and Sister Darrington (the D's) returned home on 23 March and have been replaced by Elder and Sister Campbell from Juniper Idaho, we are now the trainers and we don't know much, but we know more than them and we know enough (as Elder Anderson of the Twelve said).
We have made some interesting visits to inactive ward members and Marsha has overcome a snake encountered of the worst kind. There are mutated bugs in Florida Orlando called love bugs that have acid in them and eat your car if they are not washed off in three days. Evidently the University invented them to kill off the aphids eating the orange crop and the experiment failed. Now they are eating American cars. We worked hard during the Gladys Knight Fireside the first weekend in March and we gained over 900 referrals from the two day event. People here in Orlando loved it. The missionaries are reaping the harvest of Brother and Sister Knight's testimony in word and song.
We saw the Church Ranch rodeo and are in awe of the rain and thunder storms here. Bug season is coming (April-May) and we are enjoying the nice weather.

MTC Reassignment to Orlando Florida Mission

While at the MTC in Provo the first week of December 2009 we found out that the doctors would not allow Robert to go to the Kinshasa DR Congo mission while on blood thinner medicine because of the conflict with the malaria pills we would be taking. So they assigned us to the Florida Orlando Mission. We drove across the USA the day after Christmas and arrived in Orlando on New Year's Eve! Six days of driving in rain in Texas and Louisiana and the pan handle of Florida. We are now learning how to do office work and it is hard work. We are assigned to the Kissimmee Ward and get to work with 170 young missionaries from all over the world. We are loving the area and learning the new life we have chosen for teh next two years.

Florida Aligators

This was our boat tour on 23 Jan 2010 in Blue Springs on the St John's River when we went looking for manatees and aligators. Florida temps were in the 60s in the morning when we saw this large aligator sunning himself.