The Wanderers

We left Provo and the MTC on August 7 to begin our journey to the Mission Home in Lubbock Texas. We left Marci and Brian and Kids, Bill and Karen & family with tearful eyes as we began our 18 month journey without family and friends. We spent numerous hours of studying "Preach My Gospel" in preparation for our soon to be mission work but we loved every minute of it. The Spirit of the Lord was very strong there and our testimonies grew in leaps and bounds.

We decided to make our trip to Lubbock an adventure along the way as we studied in the car to see a few of the sights as we traveled. We drove past the mighty Colorado River and marveled at the majestic red cliffs along the highway. They were gigantic and towering. We saw the Wilson Arch just outside Moab which is close to Arches National Monument. We saw the beautiful Monticello Temple, which is small but beautiful. We passed by rows and rows and field after field of sunflowers. It seems like Dove Colorado is the sunflower capital of the world???? (On the farm when I was a child, we cut sunflowers down and considered them weeds) Here in Colorado they are considered a cash crop. Very Interesting!!!!! We drove through the southwest corner of Colorado into Cortez and onto New Mexico - soon to be our new home. It certainly is the Land of Enchantment. There we saw the famous "Chimney Rock" and "Shiprock" which we found out is not a famous landmark for the Utah Pioneers. Oh well. We passed the four corners area and traveled through every little town and city (the directions on the map were terrible) through sun, rain, and darkness until we reached Fort Sumner. We saw a terrible accident where a car had turned over and after a 1/2 hour of travel we finally saw the ambulance headed in that direction. Made us feel greatful to live in the city. FINALLY, after 16 hours of traveling, we reached Lubbock Texas at 2:00 in the morning. We got ourselves royally lost on the loop around Lubbock. The worker at the motel couldn't help us because he didn't know anything and FINALLY, we found someone who was up at that time in the morning who gave us great directions. WE MADE IT!