The Veracruz Fliers in Mazatlan

Sam's Long Lost St. George Cousin

After alot of search, Sam has been able to find his long lost cousin, Sally, who resides in St. George, Ut. We are excited to know that Sally is in the family.

Allie's Letter to Elder Ames

February 15, 2009

Dear Jordan,
I hope that you are having a great day and now it is even better since you have received this letter from your dear old dog. Dog?! What’s that? Yup, it’s really me, Allie, writing you this letter. I bet you never thought that you would hear from me.

Well, I thought I had better write now that I’ve got over you leaving me. You just up and left one day about 6 months ago and I haven’t seen you since. Are you doing ok? Are you eating good? Are you taking good care of yourself?

I hear them talk about you being in New York City. Wow, I hear that’s a big city. Are there lots of dogs there? Do you see many? Do they ever chase you? I’ve heard that dogs like to chase missionaries, especially non-member dogs. They seem to think that they need to bite them or something. But we member dogs love our missionaries. You know that movie “All Dogs Go To Heaven?”. Well I know better than that. A good, faithful, member dog goes to the higher than that, they go to celestial worlds!

Are you teaching many people? How are you doing working with the members there? Are they helping you in the work? I am sure that if you will challenge them to help you that they will respond. Let them really see that you are there to serve them.

How is your Spanish coming? Are you going to talk in Spanish to me when you come home? I wonder if I have to take a dog Spanish class. What do you think?

Torie had me jumping the other day so I am sending you this picture of me jumping over the stool. It kind of looks like I am just resting there but I am really jumping over it. I have good form don’t I?

I also got a haircut and bath the other day by Dad. I did really well for him and sat there and let him do it. I love getting my hair done.

Well, gotta go for now. You keep up the good work. I miss you but know you are where you are supposed to be.

Write me sometime.
Love,

Allie

The Top 10 Best Dressed Chickens

Taylor Cuzick at church on Sunday!

The Famous "Carnival Cruises Warm Chocolate Melting Cake"

This was one of our favorite desserts on the cruise, so we asked the waiter for the recipe. I actually found it on line so here it is. I made it tonight for the family and it turned out great.

8 ounces semi sweet chocolate (I mixed bitter sweet and butterscotch chips)
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
7 eggs, divided usage
6 tbs sugar
1/2 cup flour
Vanilla ice cream, for serving
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Melt chocolate and butter, cool 10 minutes
In separate bowl , mix 4 eggs with sugar. Whisk. Add flour and whisk again. Add remaining 3 eggs. Add egg mixture to chocolate mixture. Stir thoroughly. Pour into individual baking cups or ramakins.
Bake until just done (a crust will form on the top and the middle will be pudding like) about 15-20 minutes. Interior will be melting, not set)
Serve will vanilla ice cream. I put some strawberries on some and you can garnish wish anything you want. Sprinkle also powdered sugar on top. It is great!

We Had A "Whale" of A Good Time

Whale sighting off the coast of Mexico while on an excursion when we were on our cruise with Leisa's family this past week

The Top 10 Best Dressed Chickens*

My sister Tareisa on a good hair day


Liz Rawson: Try to beat this outfit!



*The Editor, Sam, reserves the right to associate your name with a chicken photo. It is all in the name of humor and one should find it a compliment to be tagged!

Birthday Cake for Linda's Granddaughter

Leisa's "Butterfly" Birthday Cake

FHE Valentine Cookie Decorating Project

Kamrie Is Our Athlete!

Sam Goes Back In Time

This is my Great-Great Grandfather Soren Thompson's store in Bear River City, Utah

Allie's New Haircut and Friend

I gave Allie a haircut for the first time..


Doesn't she look good? (except I could not get her to smile)

Look Mom, she brought home a pig!

The Spirit Delivered The Mail

The Spirit Delivered

As parents of a missionary currently serving, we look forward to Wednesday’s as that is our son’s P day and we should be getting an email from him. Occasionally, we will also get a letter in the US Mail, so when we do, it is an extra bonus. A recent email and a US Mail delivered letter was truly a bonus and one I felt was delivered by the spirit of the Holy Ghost. I normally write a letter to my son on Sunday, mailing it on Monday. I had done so recently. There was nothing significant about that, simply that I had mailed my normal letter. He emailed us on Wednesday as normal,however, he told us in his email that his area was struggling and asked us as a family to pray specifically for his area. They had recently had transfers and he was with a new companion, which he was completely excited about. He had such a great experience with his trainer, who he really loved, and now had a new companion, anative of Equador, who would be able to help him with his Spanish. He had also indicated to his mission president that the past week was one of the most discouraging of his mission because of the challenge with the area and lack of investigators. That Wednesday evening, I felt prompted to write another letter to him. I hurriedly wrote it, offering him words of encouragement, and then asked him specific questions and offered him some ideas. Are you working closely with your ward mission leader? Are you asking the bishop for names of people to see? Less active members, part member families, prospective elders. I also told him to see if they could get a list of unbaptized members over nine years old. I then suggested that maybe they could have a member missionary fireside, and also suggested that maybe they could have the mission president and the temple president come and speak in their ward. Just some ideas that I could offer. My experience as a former bishop had helped me with what I needed to write. I then mailed my second letter off to him on Thursday. Well, on his Wednesday P-day, he had some extra time at the library waiting for computers to be free so that he could email us. Well, he used his time wisely and wrote a personal letter to each of us here at home. I don’t know if he realized how significant his letter to me would be. In this letter, he wrote, “Things here have been going great. But I need your help! I need some ideas of how we can better work with the leadership of the ward. Sometimes they don’t see the importance of missionary work(from his perspective). Any ideas? Well, unbeknownst to him, my letter written on Wednesday evening was enroute to him, and his letter written on Wednesday would be enroute to me, and on Saturday, I, his father, had a sweet experience with the spirit witnessing to me that the Lord was indeed aware of His missionaries and through the Spirit’s prompting for me to write that second letter I was able to offer him some ideas as he had asked for. I knelt in prayer that afternoon and thanked our Father In Heaven for that experience. Carl Ames

Cool Flowers

Allie's The Jumper!

Torie has got Allie jumping now, we captured on camera!

Sam's In Zion!

Sam's In Zion!

Sam's Butterflies

"Superbowl Strawberry Spectacular"