Month: May 2025

When Pepper and I first moved to Montana in 2019, we wanted to get to know people in the area. We jumped into trivia nights, I played with a local bridge club, and we even went to a pickup pickleball game. The pickleball crowd was entirely over-60 people whose athletic ability wasn’t stellar, but whose love of the game was obvious. After learning how to play, we jumped into the games. After a while I was asked to “not play so hard” by the coach/organizer guy. Apparently I was running around too much to get deep shots, and generally playing at a higher athletic level than the rest of the people. Fair enough. (We didn’t go back.)

Fast forward to today, when we played pickleball with a couple of senior missionaries (who are, notably, in their 60s). Unlike the Kalispell club, they’re serious players who are quite good. They taught us a few “tricks” of the game– like how to position ourselves to receive the serve and so on– and then proceeded to wallop us. We posed afterward, looking appropriately serious for this serious endeavor.

It was actually a lot of fun. Prior to this, pickleball held no appeal for me because every game I’d played (not many) had been with people who didn’t really know what they were doing, or had little to no athletic ability. Being on the court with solid players completely changed the game!

Since our friends had driven two hours out to the Valley just to visit us, we all went and hung out with the young missionaries too. Our little group played nine-square and had a blast.

We first met the Farrers about two days after their arrival in San Diego to start their missionary service. We invited them to lunch at a place called Duke’s Old Fashioned Onion Burgers; when we all met there, Sister Farrer informed us that she’s allergic to onions. Hmm. Anyway, we’ve enjoyed spending time with them over the months, and this evening we had one last meal together.

They’re an amazing couple. They’ve been married almost sixty years and have served five missions. Elder Farrer is 85 years old but still going strong. He’s always grinning like he’s thinking of a good joke, and he has fashion tastes like my own.

This is Jerry.

He owns the Brickhouse Deli and has been working there for decades. He’s always wandering the restaurant, talking with customers (he just sits down at your table and joins the conversation!) and handing out free cookies. He’s a hoot, and we enjoy seeing him once or twice a week when we drop in at his place.

We’ve loved the opportunity to work with a local charity to distribute food to people in the area who need it. Today marks one of the last times we’ll be doing this before we leave, so we snapped a picture with the people who run the show.

That’s Roberto, James, and Ariel in the back, with Cari in front. They’re awesome, and have been doing this every week for years. It’s been a privilege to work alongside them.

Of course the food distributions also need many helping hands, and the missionaries always come through. Here’s today’s crew:

It’s been great to do this work and know we’re making a difference in the lives of hundreds of local families.

Having lunch with the missionaries as they join our little Valley family is always a treat. Here are our lunch buddies over the past two weeks:

Every now and then we have a bonus lunch with the whole group. Always a good time!