Summer in full swing!

Summer is always busiest at the end of July and the first of August.  I thought that while we were on our mission that it would change....  not a chance.   It has been a crazy and wonderful 3 weeks and we are barely into August.

We loved the Senior Missionary Conference.  We all met in Montreal on the 25th and went to lunch, drove to MT. Royal to get a picture of us all together looking over the city, tried to go the art museum downtown, but that didn't work out,  so it was off to the Mission Home where we got to know each other a little better and have a wonderful meal. (The young ones in the pic are the Patricks. President and Sr Patrick have 4 kids here with them and just had a daughter get married the week before.  Can you imagine doing all that while being the Mission Mom!!!)

We met some great people that day.  One couple of special note.  The Badouxs are from Namur, Belgium.  They are the first Senior Missionary couple to leave from their stake.  He is 87 years old!!!! (2nd from the right in the back row and his wife is just in front of him) They said they wanted to go on a mission, and that they wanted to go to Chicoutimi  in Quebec. (why you ask.....  because their daughter had moved there and their grandson lived in a neighboring city!!)  And they got it!!  They are 4 hours NORTH of the mission home .  What an amazing couple. They are great missionaries and we loved getting to know them and learning from their wisdom.  It was good to have some time with the other missionaries as well.  It was fun to find out that there were 2 missionaries that served in Elder Petersen's mission about the same time that he was there.  Elder Westover from Sandy and Elder Hatfield from Seattle.  Each of the missionaries have a great story and we are blessed to be here with them.

The next week was devoted to the missionary fireside.  The ward missionary committee (Ward mission leader and full time missionaries) put on one each year.  We decided to use the Pioneer theme and focus on both past and present pioneers.  We had a good turn out and those who attended seemed to have a great time.

 President and Sr Patrick were our guest speakers and they did a wonderful job of teaching about member missionaries.

 We sat around a pretend fire pit (ie: fireside) on blankets and camp chairs

 Sister Tehaamatai accompanied the hymns on the guitar

 Don't these Elders look fine in their pioneer vests!!

The fish pond is where the members got the stories they acted out for the activity. 

We had a photo booth in the Foyer to have family pics taken, and then we finished the evening with dinner and dessert.  The desserts were kind of fun.  We decided to have the members each make a recipe of one of the missionaries family favorites.  So we had a great variety of desserts from Tahiti, Georgia, Washington State, California, and Utah.

AND

during this whole evening...  I had my phone in my hand.  Not in my pocket, purse or sitting on the counter.  It was in my hand the whole time because Dani was in labor!!!  

Finally, during dinner we got the call and she had safely delivered our beautiful 

Amelia Jean!!!

What a beautiful family!!!!  We are so happy!!!!!  It was really sweet watching Elder Petersen worry about her during her day and a half of labor and then tear up when the news came.  He is a great Dad and Grandpa and New babies always hit the soft spot in him.

AHHHHHH....  life is good!!

Monday we did a District outing and took the missionaries to Coaticook.  It is one of the towns in our area and it is one of the places that is good for them to visit while they are here. It has the Longest Suspension Bridge in the World!!! 

There is a great walk that goes through the forest.  They have created an evening walk with lights that we will be doing next week...  we will tell you about that in our next installment.

The walk leads to the bridge,  and there is a

boardwalk along the river that created the gorge,  (it is hard to see how deep it really is....  but it is deep enough that some of us got wobbly knees and were ready to get off it)

a tower on the mountain top overlooking the whole valley, (can you see the missionaries on each of the levels?)

(here we are at the top)

a cave, 

and a trail along the river at the bottom of the gorge

 Leading to the river.

We were walking to the other part of the park and I decided that I didn't want to walk all the way and back (I was being lazy I thought) so Elder Pete and I turned around and walked back to the entrance to get the car and drive down to meet the missionaries.  Well, just as we got to the beautiful covered bridge to pick them up it started raining.  Before they got in the car it was raining REALLY hard.  By the time we had driven a block to the stop sign it had turned to hail and was coming down so hard that we had to pull over because we couldn't see the road.  This was a crazy storm.  The hail was not pea size...  it was almond or dime size.  They were huge and I have pox marks on my windshield to prove it.

(I hoped to insert a video of the hail storm, but have yet to get it from the Elders....  so I will post without it and hope to get it at a later point.)

If we had been walking back to the car at that point there could have been some serious body injuries.  So I guess I wasn't being lazy after all...  just following the spirit.

After enduring the storm we went to the FAMOUS Coaticook Ice Cream Factory!!

An update on Louise.  She is doing better than any of us expected.  She is mentally and physically back to the same point she was 3 or 4 weeks ago.  No one can explain it to us, or give us any information for the future... because they don't know either.  But we are enjoying every day with her and know that she is in God's Care.


We have a lot more to post, but we will go ahead and send you this one and put the rest in the next one.  We don't want to wear you out!!

Have a great day!!
Elder and Sister Petersen