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Ahh, our driveway. It’s what allows us to have a magnificent view of Flathead Lake. And it’s one of the most infuriating things about our house. There are many stories here in my blog about the problems it’s caused. Now that winter is definitely over, once again we have a layer of fine gravel on the entire driveway– the result of sanding it during the winter months to keep it passable for Kyra and Hannah while they lived here.

I’d resigned myself to sweeping it again, which is a tedious two-day chore. But Hannah suggested I get a leaf blower. Hmm. If it’s powerful enough, it’ll just blow the little rocks out of the way. Since raking the pine needles every fall is another tedious chore, I figured I’d see what a leaf blower would do. I picked up a Husky electric model and went to work.

Sure enough, the gravel wiggled and danced and then slid right off the asphalt! It was still a slow job, but I was finished in two hours instead of two days, and didn’t have to push a broom a thousand times. The end result looks pretty nice.

I’m interested to see how it does against the pine needles. But at least my spring driveway cleanup won’t be as bad any more…

Now that we’re back, I have a list of house projects that I’ve been compiling over the past year. On that list– and something that seemed like a fun activity today– is getting a new hot tub. The one we have is almost twenty-five years old, and is starting to show its age. It leaks, several jets have failed, and it feels kind of cramped. I have no idea how much a hot tub costs, or how you even pick a good one, so the best way to answer those questions is to go to the hot tub store!

Kyra and Hannah like this one. It’s huge.

I like this one. It’s tiny.

Most of the time it’ll be just the two of us using the hot tub, but when we have company we’ll need something that’ll fit at least four people. We test-drove (test-sat?) this one and all agreed it was a good compromise between huge and tiny.

I’m not quite ready to place an order yet, but at least we have answers to our questions. We’ll see what happens…

Although we’ve finished our mission, the road home is long. That means plenty of time to stop and see people…

When our young missionary friends heard we’d be in Orem, three of them said “Hey, my parents live there– you should totally stop in and see them!” So we did.

Sister Packer’s parents:

Sister Tennis’ parents:

What a blast to spend a little time talking about these fine young women and the good times we’d had together. Parents always love hearing about their missionary kids, and we loved learning a little more about their lives and families. (Unfortunately our third stop to see Elder Searcy’s parents didn’t work out.)

Later that day we reconnected with a gaggle of friends from our days in Longmont. All of them live in Utah now, and it seemed worth throwing a party. The Nielsens, Robisons, Galazes, von Niederhauserns, and Bartholomews all congratulated us on the end of our mission. Interestingly, the Bartholomews just started serving a mission of their own in Heber!

It was also good to see Tara and her family. She and Trent came out to visit us on our mission…

We hung out with Cil and Jim…

And we met up with six of our senior missionary friends for dinner! They’d all finished their missions a few weeks before we did.

After a few more days with the boys, and a few pinball games…

… it was time to finally go home. We started the long drive from Utah to Montana. And when we crossed into Montana, I was reminded why I love living up here.

The scenery was so familiar, and yet it was strange to see it again after so long in the desert of the Imperial Valley and the green hills and beaches of San Diego. It did my heart good.

Back in Bigfork, the first order of business– even before unpacking the car– was to jump in Kyra’s shiny new car and head down the road to Rosa’s for some pizza.

Kyra’s been house-sitting for us, although she took a few days to visit us in San Diego last August. It was nice to see her again.

Yep, it’s good to be home. We sent this picture to all our California friends to let them know we’d made it safely back.

Well, this is it. The end of the mission.

After over a year in California, we packed our car (absolutely stuffed it full) and headed out of town. As we were shoving the final items into the car, a few of the missionaries stopped by to say their final farewell.

I’ve said it many times in my blog posts over the past year, but these young missionaries were one of the greatest things about our mission service. All of them are amazing, talented, smart, funny, hard-working, spiritual, dedicated servants. I learned so much from their examples. We’re going to miss them just as much as the other (older) friends we’ve made here.

We pulled out onto “The Eight” and headed east. These highway signs are so familiar. We’d either turn north to Brawley or south to Calexico. Today we chose Yuma.

Since we drove right through the Imperial Sand Dunes on Highway 78, we simply had to stop one last time.

We cruised through southern California, into northwest Arizona, then Nevada, and ended up in St George Utah. It was awesome to spend the night with our sort-of-in-laws (Kaitlyn’s parents Brett and Andrea).

In the morning we stopped in to see our friends the Jongewards, who had just moved to St George from Brawley! In other words, we’d said goodbye to them just a few weeks ago as they headed out of California. And here they are again. Weird.

We enjoyed lunch with our friend Tania, formerly Sister Maravilla on her mission. She finished a few weeks before us and is home with her family before heading to school. Don’t tell the other missionaries, but she’s one of our favorites.

Late in the day we made it to the Villa, where our boys were waiting.

It was so good to see them after a year apart.

It feels a little strange to be a “civilian” again, to not wear my name tag any more.

As we close this chapter of our lives, I have much to reflect on. I’m grateful for the opportunity I’ve had to serve the Lord for a year, doing so many things that had an impact on people, meeting so many amazing friends, and fully dedicating myself to one purpose in a way I’ve never done before.

This is the end of our mission, but it won’t be our final mission.

We’ve loved the opportunity to teach seminary on our mission. High-school youth in the early morning present an interesting teaching challenge, not only because we need to engage them with thoughtful discussion and spiritual fulfillment, but because we have to keep them awake! On the other end of the spectrum, we’ve loved the opportunity to teach Institute. It’s traditionally a class for young adults, but there aren’t a lot in our area so we’ve adapted and taught older adults. Our classes are on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, and tend to delve quite a bit deeper into gospel topics.

Well, this was the end. We finished our Tuesday evening class with (of course) a party, and took a group photo afterward.

This evening we had another party with our Wednesday evening group, and another photo.

Although most of the “regulars” are in these pictures, several were missing and we had others who came occasionally. All of them were great fun, and brought a lot of great insights into our discussions. Thank you to Willa, Eileen, Jerry, Karen, Dale, Veronica, Monica, Celia, Keja, Valentina, Natalie, Vicki, Dave, Marilyn, Woody, Lorraine, Cathy, Judy, Tom, and Miles!

These missionaries have a knack for sneaking some pictures on my phone…

Today was the last day of seminary for the school year. We’ve spent nine months with these amazing high-school youth, and although I admit not every class was a home run, I think we did a decent job of it. I’m always impressed by these kids’ willingness to get up at five in the morning and participate in discussions about the gospel. And frankly they’re just fun.

Another great thing about our seminary work was our co-teacher, Jen. She hates early mornings– even more than I do– but somehow managed to conjure up an amazing amount of energy and spirit every day she taught.

After the youth left, we cleaned up everything and took one last photo of our classroom.

Seminary is hard. It’s hard to get up early, it’s hard to prepare lessons every day, it’s hard to engage sleepy high-schoolers. But it’s also so very rewarding.

This week is becoming a series of “last”s! This morning we had our last district council with our little group of Valley missionaries. As usual, it was good to work with them and discuss the things they’re doing. They asked Pepper and me to share some closing comments, and both of us got a little emotional as we talked about how much we’ve loved our mission, and especially our time with them.

Afterward, a bunch of us headed to In-n-Out for lunch. Two of them asked for a final photo with us.

If it’s not evident from the plethora of blog posts I’ve written, it’s these young missionaries that have been one of the best parts of our time here. They’re amazing and funny and hard-working, and they give me hope for the next generation of leaders in our world.

Our young single adult (YSA) group has been a really cool part of our mission experience. We’ve seen the group grow significantly during our time here, and we’re excited for the direction they’re going. Today was our last activity with them, so of course we had to have a party.

Yasmine shows off her handiwork on the cake they made for us.

We had a good dinner and lots of laughs. Of course we finished the night with a final group photo.

Celia had college class and couldn’t make it, but she joined us via phone (see her a little right of center?). And one of the ladies’ boyfriends, Luis, showed up. That broke the usual tradition of me and a bunch of women.

What an awesome group!

Today was our last p-day with the missionaries. P-day is always a good time, and we’re going to miss hanging out with them. When we walked into the church, no one was around, which was strange. We checked one of the rooms and suddenly they all jumped out and screamed “Surprise!”. Party horns blared and confetti exploded.

It happened to be Sister Brown’s birthday, so there was a “dual” cake. Everyone was sad that we’re leaving (NAY) but happy for her 20th birthday (YAY).

Here she is, dancing to some Mexican fiesta music we turned on.

There was, naturally, a piñata. After Elder Ginos and I took our swings, Elder Searcy finished it off.

It was a lot of fun to celebrate with the birthday girl and the rest of the gang.

I love these yahoos.