We are looking forward to returning home to our family and friends but as I've said before it will be really hard to leave here after being here and working with this ward for 18 months.  We love these people.
What a blessing this mission has been for us.  Going home will be bitter sweet.  We won't miss the humidity, heat, no-see-ums (bugs) that leave giant welts on us, no way to tell east and west, or the loooooong traffic lights.   We will miss our new found friends and hope and pray that we can keep in touch with them and have the opportunity to have them visit in the near future.  Some are already planning on it.   We can't wait.

This blog is going to be mostly pictures with some captions.  There has been so much going on the past month or so since I blogged the last time, that I don't have the time to write about all of them.  This may be my last blog from here but I will blog the last few weeks of our mission after we arrive home.  I do want to document our trip home.  Then I may put my blog to rest.

On April 30 we had Sister's conference in Sarasota.  It is about an hours drive from here.  We picked up our new Gulfport Sisters and took them with us.  Someone always needs a ride to these meetings and we love it because we get to know the young missionaries.  These two sisters are so cute and very ready to serve and spread the message of the Gospel.  They have so much enthusiasm for the work.  When we arrived at the conference there were around 50-60 young sisters there.  I happened to be the only senior sister in attendance.  I asked the President if I was really supposed to be there and he said yes and didn't know why any others didn't come.  Last year all the Senior sisters were in attendance.  It was a very good day.  Paul did some putting at a nearby golf course, but spent most of the day reading in one of the classrooms.  He has done a lot of reading waiting for me on this mission.  When I was practicing for the Cantata last spring I think he read most of the scriptures through.  I love these extra meetings we have.  We have trainings from the President, the AP's and several missionary companionships.  This conference was centered on raising the bar and obedience.  President Summerhays said: We've been given much.  We need to rely on the spirit to help us move out of our comfort zone...he said that when we hear talks and sing the hymns we should get something out of them and let them bless our day.  We always begin our meeting by talking about what we learned from the hymn, prayer and 4 minute talk.

The beginning of our obedience training

These sisters are doing a role play where they are trying to tell a dinner appointment sister that they can't stay and she is ignoring them.  They are trying to be obedient to the rules.

Sister Miller on the left.  Her family lives in Porterville, California where we used to live.  We miss and love her family.  

Sister Jenkins and Sister Bush.  New missionaries in Gulfport about 15 miles south of us.

The whole group.  Paul stood on a table and took this picture.

May 8 was Zone Conference.  These meetings are inspiritational and informational.  Our training centered around obedience.  We were also challenged to give a Book of Mormon daily; bury our swords of rebellion; taught ways to get the members to help the missionaries; did some roll plays and had a testimony meeting.  It was a very unlifting day.  

Roll play - we call them Real Plays

Study Time

Elders Sholler and Farnsworth - an object lesson on staying on the path 

Elder Sholler - he is in St. Petersburg ward area-we work with him and his new companion, Elder Crowell (from Bountiful-no pictures of him yet)

The Bishop's wife and I are visiting teaching partners and so we took one of our sisters out to lunch for her birthday at a little restaurant downtown St. Petersburg just off the waterfront.   We have made some wonderful friendships.  

 Julie Bangerter, Barbara Jameson, Me

With the end of the school year and the beginning of summer there seems to be something always going on.  

Graduation parties, baseball, extra volunteering at school, ward activities, breakfast, dinner, and more dinners!  I'm just going to put the pictures up and caption them.  A picture is worth a 1000 words (that you won't want to read).

Dinner at the Bishop's home-After we ate we played Hold to the Rod.  

Bishop and Julie Bangerter

Sara Makin's graduation party - one of our seminary students.

William Morris at his last baseball game 

Paul took me to Cody's Steakhouse for dinner for Mother's Day.  We shared a meal which was more than enough.  This has become one of our favorite restaurants and it is just down the street from us.

This cute little baby racoon was caught just behind our apartment.  It took 2 days before they trapped him.  I wanted to go out and let him free.  He looked so sad and scared.  We were told that they would take him to the preserve and let him loose.

Paul got this picture of the Armadillo while we were out doing our inspections last month.

This little lizard was in the bathtub but I didn't notice him until after I got out.  Not sure how he got in there and how I didn't see him before.  I think he is just a baby because his body is a bit translucent.  These little critters are all over the place here.

William loves to play basketball.  Elder Nelson/aka grandpa works up a good sweat with him.   (He's the little boy that lost his mother in March)

Time to quit.  I'm bushed

When we visit with Jeff and William, we always read with him from the Book of Mormon Stories book that we gave him a few months ago.  He's only in first grade and reads like a 4th grader.

Went out with the other Senior couples for a fun night out.  We went to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner then to Disney Holiday on Ice.

We had a District Breakfast at IHop to hear who is being transferred.  Sister Gillette who is cheering is staying.  Sister Rasmussen is being transferred.  She was happy too.

Elder Farnsworth on the far right is also transferred.  

Saying goodbyes

Elder Farnsworth has been here for over 8 months.  He was ready to move on.  But we enjoyed working with him.  He has been a very good missionary and District leader.

We had a ward Fun Run in this beautiful park to get the youth ready for Trek in July

I walked around the park (2 miles) twice and took pictures along the way

The front bird has a large piece of bread in his mouth and the rest want it. They eventually battled for it.

The water station

Paul taking a water break between laps.  He ran the whole 5 miles (and paid for it the next day). Heather Kennedy.

Tara Arick (YW President), Sera Makin and Mallory Farthing

Our Bishop after the whole 5 miles.  He was beat.

James and Marina Ross and baby.  Look at that hair.  James came late, ran the 5 miles and was done before anyone else.

The reward for finishing

Paul, Carly and Ben Welling

The single sisters in our ward started going to dinner together a while back and then decided that they wanted anyone who wanted to attend.  Basically it's anyone over 50.  We go out to dinner about every 6-8 weeks.  It's been fun getting to know these sisters.

This is Wendy.  She is the secretary at Lynch school where we volunteer.  We have grown to love her.  She is always smiling and happy.  We visited with her and her husband, Bob, the other night and gave them a Book of Mormon with our testimony in it.

The Bishop making breakfast for the seminary kids at 5 am in the morning.  Brother Fulton, first counselor in bishopric

Seminary kids and Sister Burgeson their teacher.

Mallory Farthing.  It was her graduation party.  They served a beautiful buffet of food and we had just eaten with the missionaries.  So we just pieced a little.  The smoked pork was delicious.

Mallory, her stepdad, Ben Welling, Brother and Sister Hesse and Sister Kennedy

Mallory, Carly, her mom, and Ben

Sisters from the ward.  Sister Rachele Larsen and Sister Maureen Hesse

Sister Swapp (I teach her kids piano each week) and Brother West (Elders Quorum President)

Paul with his class - Miss Pace.  We gave our teachers a gift of the Book of Mormon with our testimonies

Me with Mrs. Al's class.  The boy on the right in back is Kaleb.  I worked with him this year.  He made some good progress towards the end of the year.  I was really proud of him.

This is our District for now.  It seems small since we lost a sister companionship. There are only 8 of us. We all gather together after District Meeting for lunch.  We've started to bring our lunches; mainly because the missionaries are always out of money.

Thursday, June 6th was Paul's birthday and he wanted to go to the museum, rain or shine.  As you can see it rained.  In fact, we were having "Andrea", a tropical storm with tornado warnings throughout the day.  When we went out to get into the car it not only was pouring rain but windy too.  We used our BIG umbrella and we were still soaked to the bone by the time we got settled into the car.  Of course, that didn't help my hair any.   It was pretty straight most of the day.

This blurry picture gives you a little idea of the storm.  The waves were coming up over the barrier.  Last storm we had, this road was closed for flooding. 

We went to the Mosi Science Museum and had a good day learning all kinds of things.  There were lots of kids there.

The next few pictures I took in an IMax theater.  We went to three movies but I only got pictures from two of them.  This first was about the flight and migration of the Monarch Butterfly.  It was so interesting.

Then... 

JAWS!  Actually a documentary on Sharks 

The Birthday Boy

The Kings, our new converts and friends in our ward, took us to dinner at Bonefish Grill and then gave Paul this Sudoku book.  I think it is his new favorite game.

Nancy and Joe King have embraced the Gospel.  They have been very busy since being baptized.  She has a calling in Relief Society and they both were called to be ward missionaries.  They have already had an opportunity to bare their testimonies and share gospel experiences.  

Today, the 8th, we were blessed to attend the Orlando Temple for the last time while we are here.  We went with our Bishop and his wife.  They have become some very good friends.  We had a wonderful day.  The weather was good going there but we were met with a down pour on the way home and it has rained ever since getting home.   We are definitely in our rainy season.

We send our love to the Gillette's and pray for Jeans quick recovery. 

We'll see you soon.  We'll be home sometime the end of July.

Love you all

     Elder and Sister Nelson