Active Preparation - 6 Days Left Before Departure

Kathy and I are busily preparing for our mission and getting the essentials ready, like this warm hat J. I work for a great company called Preferred Sands and one of our mines is located in Genoa, Nebraska. I had the privilege of attending their holiday party on January 4^th and they gave me this hat as a going away present.  It has been difficult to do things for the last time before we leave and visiting all of my friends at the corporate office and all of the plants has been one of the hardest.

We are diligently praying for help, studying the language, reading about the history and weather in St. Petersburg, studying the gospel and spending as much time as possible with Family.   Our kids have have made this past month wonderful by giving us their time, smiles and support. We have played games, hunted, shopped, laughed, golfed, played tennis, ate, ate, ate and laughed along the way. We are soooooo blessed to have such a wonderful  and close family.

Over the holiday we had the honor of rescuing a sick bald eagle from the wild. I was able to hold it in my arms for over an hour until help could arrive.  My son in law Taylor got the whole thing on Video and it captured national press because there were a bunch of eagles dying in our state over the previous two weeks.  Our bird was instrumental in helping with the diagnosis of West Nile Virus within these birds and they are now able to treat the sick ones going forward . It was such an honor to hold our national bird and he has been the key to solving this rare infection.  The following link shows the video of the eagle and part of our experience.  There are several followup news stories talking about the diagnosis of the disease. http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nightly-news/53921042#53921042

We speak in our church this Sunday, January 11th at 11:00 am before we leave. It has been tough deciding which message to share with our ward members, friends and family.  We hope you follow our Journey and join us as we follow the example of our savior, learn to love the people of Russia and support all the missionaries in the mission. Please connect to the blog so you get updates.