A last word

When I reread my blog after finishing it I noticed that the date and time of my work was printed wrong by the computer.





I wrote this blog early today, Tuesday morning, December 23rd.





December 23rd is significant for other reasons also.





December 23rd is the Birthday of Joseph Smith Jr. He was born December 23, 1805.





December 23rd is also the day after BYU let out for Christmas break in December 1960.
I just tried to correct this shot


and make it vertical but I'm
not smart enough yet. That's why December 23rd, 1960 is our Wedding Day.





Today Elder Steenhoek and I have been married 48 years and are still very much in love!!!

A last word

The last Gift.

When I came to work yesterday morning there were still 17 young men who had not received any gifts according to our records. After the mail came 5 more had received gifts. The Assistants are having a meeting with the Zone Leaders today so they will give the gifts that just came in to the Zone Leaders who will in turn give them to the District Leaders who will in turn give them to the Elders who didn't have a gift. A sigh of relief at this point. I'm under such emotional stress about this. That left 12 without gifts. We in the office started calling the flats of each of the 12 Elders without a gift. We always asked for the companion of the minus gifts Elder.
Nine out of the 12 had received their gifts at their apartment address. What a relief. That only leaves us with three Elders who need a substitute Santa and we still have 48 hours to do that....
We can easily take care of that.

May your thoughts be of Chrit and his gifts to you!

Much love, Elder and Sister Steenhoek

Elders and Sisters at Zone Conference gettting ready to watch "Joseph"

Our Zone Conference was filled with spiritual highs.

The day began with inspiritional messages by President and Sister Bullock.

All of us then went to the Preston Temple to be fed a delicious Christmas Dinner.

The next event was doing a session in the Temple.

After the temple session we all came over to the Preston MTC and watched the marvelous picture of "Joseph". The picture you see is at the MTC. At the conclusion of the film President Bullock wished us all al Merry Christmas and gave everyone a Christmas gift. It was a CD of acceptable music to listen to. A profound day.

I met the sister that Cindy taught the Gospel to..Sister Durisova

It was such a thrill to meet Sister Durisova and know that she was here serving a mission because our daughter Cindy had chosen to serve a mission in Slovakia. It was a tearful time.

Singles Get-To-Gethers

Our Singles Get-To-Gethers have been very successful. On this evening we had 18 singles at our flat. Everyone had such a great time. Inactives come to the parties that don't come to church. Go figure. This picture shows four of our wonderful single friends eating dinner. We fed them a big dinner and you guessed it....this time it was Elder Steenhoek's roast dinner.

Elder Steenhoek serving in the Family History Center every Thursday from 5:00 to 9:00pm

Elder Steenhoek has helped so many people at the Family History Center and here at our apartment. He enters them on the New Family Search Program and then makes a hard copy of all the work that needs to be done.

I have put all of their materials into a 3 hole binder for them so they can thumb through it and see all of their work that needs to be done in the temple. Thanks to our son Dan who brought us 72 binders from the U.S.A. I have used 32 of them for Family History.

The ward Family History consultant is in

the picture with Elder Steenhoek. She is

very good and very dedicated to her calling.

My brother, Don Pearson, came to visit us.

Don and Hank are standing in front of the ferry boat that we went on up the Mersey River.

We had such a wonderful week end with him.

Natalia Whinnerah was baptized on Nov. 30, 2008

Natalia is a beautiful 9 year old inside and out.

We love her. Her baptism evening was very special to us.

Sorry it's sideways. I tried to turn it.

Thanksgiving Dinner at the President's home

All seven senior couples were invited to the mission home for Thanksgiving Dinner.

Sister Bullock is such a lovely hostess and the dinner was delicious.

It was a delightful evening of visiting and being thankful for all we have.

Transfer dinner at our home

These are the Elders in our District. We had lunch for them at our home after our last district meeting. All these Elders are the greatest.

We will still get to see them at Zone Conferences every six weeks and talk to them on the phone whenever they need us.

We have temperal blessings to cheer about

When we came to England the exchange rate was $1.86 to 1 English pound.
Now the exchange rate is $1.46 for 1 English pound. We save $.40 on every 1 pound exchange!!!

This is the professional Football Stadium in Wrexham where Soccer is played.

Since we have some avid soccer players, including professionals in our circle of family and friends I had to take a picture of the stadium. It is next door to the university where conference was held.

Stake Conference held at the University in Wrexham, Wales.

Today we had a marvelous stake conference in the beautiful auditorium of the University in Wrexham, Wales. Wrexham has a lovely chapel but it is not big enough for stake conference. Our Mission President and his wife, President and Sister Bullock spoke and they were so wonderful.

Elder Steenhoek is standing in front of the entrance to the auditorium.

Wrexham is about 11 miles from the Adqueduct that I put on the blog before this picture.

The owner of the boat ride and the enthusiatic passengers.

Canal boat ride on the Pontcysylite Aqueduct

You can travel on canals to nearly every city in England. There seemed to be no way to connect the waterways in the city of Llangollen. An Engineer named Telford devised a plan to build the first all-steel Aquaduct across a ravine to connect the waterway. He did build it. It is 126 feet high. After the Aquaduct was complete he went up in the mountains near the head of the stream and redirected part of the water into a new channel that would come out into his aquaduct to connect it to the canal on down the mountain. The plan worked. It was amazing to see. I rode on the boat but I couldn't see over the side 126 feet down. Thank goodness!!

A view of the castle from the water.

Elder Steenhoek and Dan standing in front of a castle in North Wales

Elder and Sister Steenhoek with son Dan

The Three Chimineys, where we have gone to eat.

Ray Meadows, our new convert

President and Sister David Bullock welcoming us to the England Manchester Mission

Teresa'a family saying Goodbye at SLC airport

Dinner with forever friends

We had a wonderful night at Teresa and Matt's home renewing friendships built many years ago.

Our last hurrah before leaving for England

Cindy and Mark and Teresa and Matt took Elder Henry and Sister Ada out to a fancy restaurant for a fitting farewell. The food was delicious and the company was perfect.

My Grandson, Bryce, had me make him a costume

While I was resting at Teresa's I created a costume for my highly imaginative nine year old grandson Bryce.  Each morning he had new ideas for additions for me to make to add to the costume.  It was great fun and it kept me busy without moving around much.

Missionary Training Center family

There were seventeen wonderful couples and three lovely sisters in our group. We became fast friends and exchanged emails. Our assignments covered the globe.

The Preston Temple

Everyone have a wonderful month. We love you, Henry and Ada

P.S.
I just read my blog and
realized that that last item
I typed comes up first so
please go down to the
beginning where it says 'Dear Family and Friends' to begin reading
this blog.

I promise that next month I will get it right.

Two weeks before leaving on our mission we were asked to change missions

We received a second letter from President Monson inviting us to go to the Manchester, England Mission instead of the London South Mission. We are happy to serve anywhere.

Yesterday we received an e-mail telling us where we will be living. Our new address is

37 Lady Bower Close

Upton Wirral CH42 9PJ

England

United Kingdom

We checked on the computer and found out that we are living close to Liverpool where many of my Swedish and English ancesters came to get on a ship to come to America

and cross the plains to Utah. We also found out that we live in the Liverpool Stake and are in the Preston Temple District.

We were 'Set Apart as Missionaries' by President Bragg

It was a very spiritual experience to be set apart as missionary companions. We are so looking forward to being companions in the mission field. David and Heidi were there with us and that made the experience even better.

We have enjoyed being on Temple Hill for five years where Henry has served five, seven hour shifts a week for five years. I have cherished serving Thursday nights in the Baptistry with him. Every Thursday our patrons were Young Adults from all over Southern California. It was Heaven on Earth!

We have become so attached to our Westwood First Ward family that it is very difficult to start

a new chapter in our lives but this is the best time to serve a mission. We will never forget our memories here.

On July 19th we flew to Arizona for Brandon's Eagle Court of Honor.

We were so impressed with all the effort that Brandon put into his Eagle Project and in earning all of his Merit Badges.

The Eagle Court proceedings were terrific. There was a detailed display of scrapbooks, pictures and artifacts showing Brandon's years in Scouting. There was a whole wall of pictures of Brandon super imposed on magazine covers. There was a wonderful video of his Scouting Days.

He gave each Grandmother a neckerchief with the names of all of her children and grandchildren who had received their Eagle, embroidered on the neckerchief. For dessert his mom served all of his favorite snacks. We were so glad that we could be there.

We hired our grandchildren to help us move out of our apartment.

After our farewell the Relief Society sisters put on a wonderful luncheon for our ward family, our friends who came from other places to wish us well, and our wonderful family.

After everyone left but family our children packed up everything and put our belongings in a U-Haul. On Monday Steve and our grandson, Taylor, took the truck out to our home in Romoland and unloaded it into two of our garages. Wow, what a job and done so quickly and smoothly by all of our great help.

Sunday morning before church with the family

Here we are all ready for church. What a wonderful supportive group!!

Swimming Party

After we finished at the temple we practiced the songs that the children and grandchildren were going to sing at the farewell on Sunday.

We then went to In and Out and bought lunch and headed for the LaBrea Tar Pits. Everyone loved the dinosaurs.

We came back to Los Angeles and enjoyed a relaxing swim and barbeque at the Wallace home.

In the evening we had a birthday party for all the July and August birthdays.

Baptisms for the Dead

Dear Family and Friends,

Welcome to our first blog as missionaries.

We were excited on the Saturday before our farewell when our Grandchildren who were twelve or older went to the Los Angeles Temple at 6:00am to do Baptisms for the Dead. Each child's father baptized his children. It was such an uplifting time. After the baptisms the adults did endowments. Hank and I were so happy.