Poulsen Mission

Well today has been an emotional day for the Blog writer.  Seth and I decided to fast and fasting always seems to bring a spirit of greater sensitivity.  We had our Stake Conference today,  and it was so nice.  All the speakers gave such meaningful and spirit filled remarks.  Dad and I feasted from the table of many wonderful people's experiences and life's lessons learned.  We came away so uplifted,   We sat by a wonderful couple from our Ward,  The Packs.  They told us of the recent miraculous events surrounding the illness of a 2 month old grand son that was hospitalized for RSV.  Apparently he was at the point of death when the family and extended family began praying and fasting for him.  Within 24 hours he was showing signs of improvement and is now home with family.  They expressed the heartfelt gratitude of grand parents who knew that God had been involved with their lives and that their grand son had been spared.  Upon leaving to go home. They wished us well and told us they had already begun to pray for us and would continue to do so.  What a blessing to be members of this Church.
When our Bishop and Stake President arrived we felt so grateful to have them.  Under the direction of Seth,  the father of our home we sang the first verse of "I know that My Redeemer Lives."   Then Seth gave a very beautiful prayer setting the tone for our time with President Barfuss and Bishop Seargent.  Then each person shared a few remarks before President Barfuss gave us our blessings.  I was very much impressed with the love that was shown and expressed by our leaders.  It was good to have our dear Bishop in our home and feel of his love for us and appreciation in our music callings.  Bishop Barfuss mentioned the miracle of us being in this position to go, after passing through the financial downturns that had been a part of our learning and tutoring experiences over the last few years.  He had been our Bishop at the time and he had prayed for us.  The Lord now had made it possible for us to serve together as missionaries... and to be able to go to Chile.
The great impressions that came upon us both as we received our blessings was the powerful endowment and mantle of the endowment  that came to us from our Priesthood leader, holding the power and authority of the Priesthood keys which had been conferred upon him by the general authorities.  He spoke as moved upon by the Holy Ghost and shared so many beautiful blessings that it is impossible to remember them all.  I will enumerate a few:   He blessed me with good health,  with the power to call down the influence of the Holy Ghost upon those we teach.  He blessed me that I would fulfill promises made to people I had known before coming to this earth.  He blessed me to be patient and kind with my spouse and that our love and unity would grow.  He spoke of our faith growing and our awareness of God's love growing in our lives.  He blessed Seth with the ability to learn the language,  with the power to share his testimony with greater power and conviction.  He blessed him to be aware of our health and taking care to use wisdom and good judgement.  He spoke of patience and hard work tempered with wisdom. He also blessed Seth with an awareness of the sacred responsibility and privilege it is to carry the name of the Savior and to be a witness of Him.    We felt so blessed that for me at least the tears were flowing freely.
Afterwards,  with all the emotion I felt,  I forgot to take a picture with our leaders.  Wish I wouldn't have done that.  (groan)
Mom had made us a yummy beef stew and some rolls, with cinnamon rolls for dessert.  She was so kind to do that for us.  How sweet she is.  We will greatly miss her.
We finished off the evening with skyping our children and seeing our little ones.  We love you all and will miss you.... but tomorrow we begin the first leg of our journey at the MTC.

We were so blessed to have our 4 kids come and support us for our Farewell.  It was so fun seeing them together as siblings,  just hanging loose and enjoying the time back home.  They had a silly time together out in the forest on Saturday playing with their airsoft guns.  They were hilarious, and just acting like kids again.  Dad and I really enjoyed them  A very special part of the weekend was our Saturday Temple time together.   The vision of eternal families is re-inforced and strengthened as you see your kids united with you in the temple.  We really love our kids and their families so very much!

Sunday,  our talks went well.   I shared some thoughts about the continuing work of the Restoration,  and Dad shared some family missionary stories.  We were very supported by our family;  Norma came up to be with us staying for the weekend,  Ralph, JoAn, Ginger, Teresa, Yvonne and her kids, Dawnette and her family, Brook and her children, Mom, Audrey, Frank, Christian, James, and some dear friends,  Gary and Sharon Wright, Eleanor Brainard, Diane Benson, Kaylma and Warren,  Elaine and Gregg, (who are a part of our Ward family) Pam Bunker,  Chris Snyder and her son Dan and family, Cheryl Campbell and her husband,  and Steve and Chris Moon.  All of the brothers and sisters in our Ward were very thoughtful and kind and wished us well.  Later in the evening we had some good times with family sharing our music and playing a few games.  Stephanie,  the kids' cousin came up and she and James created a fun little partner song to put on You Tube.  We enjoyed listening to them.  It was a great weekend. Thanks everyone for your kindness and support.

It's hard to believe we are off to Chile in just a few short days.

PS  Another fun part of the meeting was a song sung by some of our youth in Spanish.  So cute!!  And if you are wondering why there are no pictures of us when we were wearing our Sunday clothes,  it's because I was too busy being a Martha, and enjoying it.