preparing...

After we finished our time in Oklahoma, we returned to the MTC in Missouri, for just 2.5 short weeks.  During that time in Missouri, we wrote a MASSIVE paper on Cherokee phonemics and grammar.  Whew.  We are glad we got through that!

Not only did we finish up our linguistics program, we also spent time preparing for Papua New Guinea (can't believe we will be heading there in two and a half months!!)  We have a lot to do before then!

We spent time in New Tribes' Tech Center (located on the MTC campus).  The guys in the tech center are geniuses at anything to do with missionary tech issues.  They invent things, test things, and ship things all over the world to missionaries.  We went over there to look at lights, tools and fans, to make some decisions for our (future) tribal house!  We won't buy anything quite yet, but just figuring out what we will want to order when the time comes.

(a tech guy, Randy--showing us all the different lights we could run on our solar power)

We also went to Menards to check out some other things for our tribal house..I'm pretty sure this is not the way these carts are intended to be used :)

Waiting in the health department waiting room... to get yet some more immunizations (just a few more to go!)

I bought a good missionary cookbook :)

We sorted through our stuff, and got some stuff ready to ship to PNG (for our tribal house)--this was not an easy job!  It was hard to know what we will need over there, but yet we didn't just want to throw away perfectly good stuff that we might need in the tribe...sigh.  My brain was fried after we moved this time!

While Nathan and I were busy doing all of that, our kids were enjoying being outside in the gorgeous Missouri fall weather!  They spent lots of time with friends outside, but we also discovered a really great website that teaches kids to draw!  A friend showed it to me, and we LOVE it!  See the next picture…

Here, Layla and Daisy drew Anna (from Frozen).  Isn't Layla's sooo good???  I think she did such a great job!  And Daisy's is just so cute :)

We said "good-bye" to many of our favorite places to go.  The creek is one of them...

And said good-bye to friends.  Never a fun thing to do :(

And now, our chapter of life in Missouri is done.  Hard to believe!  We are back in our hometown, in Indiana--and we will be preparing some more. What a fun, exciting, overwhelming, busy and really amazing phase of life we are in!