Wow!  I can''t believe it's been a whole week - that went fast!!  We've been so busy and loving every minute of it.  No wait, that's a lie!  HATED last night while we sat in traffic for 2 hours waiting for an accident of 4 cars in a tunnel to be cleared out!  Other than that, all is going fantastic!  Our visits with military families are picking up now that we have most of the lists done from our wards.  We've met some wonderful people, some sad people, some interesting people, and some who need our help.
Today we took a beautiful young girl to church to introduce her to the Young Woman's program.  She's 17, was baptized at age 11, but didn't go enough to understand much, except she remembers how wonderful she felt at the time of her baptism and wants to get involved again.  Her mother, who used to be an active member of the Church ended up being highly addicted to pain meds, and is now wasting away because she won't accept that she has a problem.  Her husband comes home from Afghanistan in two weeks, so we'll be spending a lot of time with them helping clean the place - she's a shopping hoarder - this is going to be challenging!
We met with a wonderful family, Coast Guard, who are expecting their 4th baby.  While there, I helped fix a dress that she wanted made for pregnancy pictures that her husband had been trying to remake to fit her.  What a guy!  He was grateful that I could figure it out.
We had a wonderful temple session at the Washington DC Temple yesterday - went with the Norfolk Ward.
I'm so grateful to be on the mission - I love teaching the gospel and helping those who are in need.  We're loving Virginia, too (I can say that because we have central air and an air-conditioned car!)

We've been in our apartment a week and a half now and are finally totally unpacked (except where the heck did Brad's "plethora" stash of scissors go??? (>an amount or supply more than sufficient to meet one's needs<)  Since we  couldn't find them, he was very eager to buy me a new pair!  What a sweetie!
He finished cleaning the office room last night, so his big reward was to go to (guess)....come on, you know the answer!  A FLIGHT MUSEUM/AIR SHOW!!  This is the message I just got from him:
1.  It quit raining
2.  I didn't know this place was part of this facility.  I've flown in planes they refurbished.
3.  I'm in heaven on earth.

Hmmmm - he doesn't say that about my cooking....what's wrong with this picture!

We love this apartment - roomy and light and it has the newest and more comfortable furniture than I've ever owned!

Our living room/dining area is spacious - we tend to use the dining table for a work table - I love sitting near the windows!!

Isn't the kitchen nice - it's best feature is Brad doing the dishes!  OH YEAH!!

The two bedrooms, one of which is Brad's sparkling clean office - look at it now, cuz it's never going to be that clean again - - unless another Air Show becomes available!!

To make it really HOME, we invested in pots, soil, plant starts, and "Vwa-La"  my own vegetable garden!  tomatoes, red, green, and yellow peppers, mint, oregano, basil, cucumbers, parsley, lettuce, onions, and garlic! 

We were also able to go out and serve this week: 

 Helped a young mother who's husband is deployed.  She has two adorable children, one of which reminds me of our little Tommy.  As it turned out, we helped her on Tommy's birthday!  Jonah was born at 23 weeks and has some difficulties because of it - but he has Tommy's same sweet smile and I can't help see that he is what Tommy would have looked like at 4 years old!  I'll post a pic later, because we plan on going over there at least once a week and giving her a hand.  The little boys took to us right away.

Helped a young couple who moved here 6 weeks ago, but because of illness was having a rough time finishing unpacking.  So we helped them finish putting stuff away, then this week we went back with a dinner to share and had Book of Mormon study with them. (They are newly baptized!)  We'll continue our study with them once a week.

Other than that, we've been busy putting together complete lists of the military people who live in the 5 Wards in Virginia Beach that we are over.  The Carters gave us a nice list, but it was missing quite a few.  Today I am busy putting their emails and phone numbers into my phone and computer!  (Actually, I'm not doing that right now - procrastinating by writing this blog!)

Last Sunday we attended 3 of our 5 Wards - tomorrow we'll attend 2 more Wards plus some of the Bishop's meetings in the Wards.

We've enjoyed the exercise room they have here - we REALLY love our morning routine:  

1 hour personal scripture study

1 hour exercise

clean up and eat

1 hour couple study

10:00 a.m. dressed and out the door to GO AND DO!!

Well, back to the tasks at hand.  We're happy serving the Lord - there's no man made drug that could ever get us to feel this high!!

Moving in day!  We are so tired of living out of suitcases and are excited to finally be in our apartment.  It's a very nice and spacious two bedroom apartment, one room being used as an office.  But we plan to put another bed in there.  We are on the ground floor (YES!) and this is our little front porch.  We actually enter the apartment by a back door.

There is a club house with a pool and exercise room - so no excuses on not exercising anymore!!

We've officially started our mission, having made a home visit to a Navy and wife and her daughter (the Carters took us there to meet them).  The Carters have turned over their lists of names of people we will be serving and helping - military people from 5 wards!!  It's a long list and I'm excited to meet all of these people!  

Yesterday, we helped with an LDS Navy Wives meeting - learning the ropes.  These women are delightful and resilient!  My old Navy wife days are coming back to me as I talk with them.

Oh, and the Carters took us on all of the bases around here - this area has A LOT of military bases!  We got to see the BIG ships that are in harbor right now - it was awesome!!!  We don't have any clearance to go on base by ourselves - we hope to arrange a way to do that with the Chaplain so we can visit our people who live on base.

P.S.  Last night we went out to the Hibachi Buffet with the other Senior Missionaries here to say goodbye to the Carters.  I was able to stay with my healthy eating, granted I ate more than I usually do (curse you Buffets!!!), but Brad went on a Mormon drunk - 3 full plates of pretty rich foods.  This morning the poor guy is suffering a whopper of a food hangover!  He says he doesn't ever want to go back there again.  Yeah, right!!!

It's an overcast, misty and cold in the 50's(for Virginia) day in Norfolk, VA.  We drove from Richmond to Norfolk on Thursday and got set up in our hotel room.  It's not the nicest hotel, but it has a fridge, and since we're staying here a week, that is a big bonus!  We got a toaster oven from the Mission Office before we left, so I was able to cook up some chicken for our meals tomorrow.  I tried eggs (can't boil them in the hotel) and, yeah, yeck - that didn't turn out.

The day before we drove here, Wednesday, we went into Richmond (at the suggestion of our Mission President) and toured through the Confederate White House and living quarters of the Confederate President, Jefferson Davis.  Plus we went to a Confederate War Museum that was awesome.  Then we toured the Virginia Capital Building - enough touring - now time to get to our mission!

The day we arrived (Thursday) we went exploring a little - found the beach, pretty close to where we're going to live and had a wonderful dinner out on a pier - Brad had shrimp and I had crabcakes - THE BEST!!!

Yesterday we dressed as Missionaries and went to Zone Conference - wonderful!  Then out to lunch with the Carters, whose place we are taking (that's why we're in a hotel - the Carter's don't leave out apartment until Wednesday, which is great, because we have a whole week for them to fill us in on what they do and where!)  They drove us around, showing us ALL the military bases around here and the Ward buildings.  We'll actually be working with military members of our church in 5 different wards!  There's a lot of need around here for moral, physical, and spiritual support with our military members.  After traveling around, we went back to the Carters' apartment (soon to be ours) and unloaded everything that was packed in our car - the Carters graciously let us put our stuff  in early!  

Then we were treated to a wonderful dinner by the Stake President who is over all the Wards we'll be working in (Ward is another word for Congregation)  They presented the Carters with a card of thanks and a beautiful Virginia blanket.

This morning we're just taking care of business, getting stuff done.  Then out again for the afternoon with the Carters.  Tomorrow we attend Sacrament meeting in 3 of our Wards!