Written by Faye.

Still here…. still busy, but with different things than I thought I would be busy with. Some missionary applications are still coming in from the islands and some from New Zealand but they don’t take that much of my time. The sister I work with who gets the list of mission calls tells me that right now missionaries are getting calls to their own islands and countries.

Quite often during the day I am wearing my apron in our little kitchen cooking or baking something. Cooking anything used to be a real chore after Ashton died. I couldn’t wrap my brain around cooking. But my love of it is coming back! Carter asked me to make another chocolate cake. I didn’t want to make another one because who needs chocolate cake EVERY DAY? No one does! But then a friend helped me realize THAT’S HIS COMFORT FOOD… and then I totally understood. I got it! MY comfort food is anything involving corn tortillas. I get it! His is chocolate and mine is Mexican food. My mom made lots of Mexican food when I was young. We have been eating tostadas a lot and now I’m finding new enchilada recipes. Tonight we are having taco salad. There’s a store here that sells imported food from the US, with some Mexican food ingredients. I can get some really good corn tortillas. They don’t have good chili powder though. I’m still trying to find some chili powder. 

I never would have thought that the highlight of my week serving a mission would be what I was cooking! But times are weird right now and that truly has been the highlight. I want to document it. It’s Saturday and there’s some shredded Mexican beef in the crock pot right now. I finished making that chocolate cake, it’s been cooling on the counter and I just poured the chocolate ganache over it. Carter has been licking up the chocolate that dripped on the counter. I had fun making it and he is already having fun eating it. It’s so interesting … the things that make us happy these days! Just for the record… after the initial slice which we will have tonight….Carter puts it in the freezer and eats a sliver every day after dinner. That’s so Carter. I eat some too, but not every day like he does. 

It’s winter here and one thing nice about our apartment is that the bathrooms have heated floors. There’s a switch on the wall that turns on the heated floor. Kinda nice. We keep it on all winter. There’s no central heating. We just have little heaters that we plug in the wall, but we don’t use ours very often. We are on the sunny side of the building and the sun does a good job shining in between the cloudiness and rain.

We are having our 4th of July celebration on Monday the 6th with the senior missionaries. We’ve been asked to be in charge of the program. Carter will be the MC. We’re having a patriotic sing-a-long. One of the missionaries working in the Auckland mission office who used to be in the Air Force is speaking to us and I’m showing 2 of my favorite acapella groups singing some great patriotic songs. Then we will be having ice cream sundaes with all the toppings. This is my favorite Star Spangled Banner that will be played at the beginning:

Happy July 4th! I love my country even though it’s struggling right now. I know it’s the land God chose for the restoration of His church. I know who wins in the end and I’m so grateful I can trust God and His plan for our country and my life.

And…. Happy Birthday to our oldest grandchild Hannah, our 4th of July baby! She’s 15! Wow!