5th group of Outgoing Missionaries

Ryan and Elder Fromm (Elder From was AP for our 1st three transfers on the mission)

Top row (L-R): Elders - Fromm, Walser, Shumpert and Bair
bottom row: Elders - Marks, Reyes and Sandavol

President and Sister Reeves with Elder Stewart
(Elder Stewart went home a couple days before the others, because his brother was leaving on a mission).

Christmas

T-B/L-R: Mike, Ashley, Jenny, Nathan, Sadie and Megan Reeves

Mandy Stacey wishing she had received a toy instead of a dress (:

Kate London

Cambria London with her new Barbie, Mariposa

Valerie and Allyson's (Christmas) Choir Concert

Valerie and Allyson
We each accompanied 3 different songs for the school choirs and a soloist.

Our choir (Treble Choir) singing Santa Baby. Valerie and I got together
with two other girls in our choir to choreograph this song. It was fun!

Lights at the Mission Inn

Palm Trees with Christmas Lights!

The Trupp, Reeves and McKell families

L-R: Valerie, Annie McKell (our YW President's daughter), Allyson and
Rebecca Trupp - Our very close friend from school

The Nativity

Brennan as the Donkey, Audrey and Mandy (Angels), a friend (Shepherd) and Bradley (Lamb).

Shelby and friend as Mary and Joseph. Aidan, Maddie and Valerie as the 3 wise men.

After lunch at the Friday Zone Conference, all of the grandkids who live in California came to act out the nativity story for the missionaries while Grandpa/President Reeves read from Luke.

Thanksgiving

Laurie and Brennan

Shelby and her aunt Lana

Cousins, aunts and uncles

Sister Hughes and Sister Needham

Sister and Elder Morris (Office Couple)

Most of our Cousins who live in California - and those who were visiting - came to our
house for Thanksgiving dinner. The office staff also came and Julie and Laurie's families,
along with our brother-in-law's family (The Staceys) joined us for dessert!

4th group of outgoing missionaries

Dropping off Sister Vehikite at LAX

Headed to the airport at 3:00 in the morning!

L-R: Elders Reed, Lenk, Keys, Anderson, Wood, and Sister Vehikite

Newsletter #5

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. We are so grateful for all of you--our beloved friends and relatives. We just completed a whirlwind week (and 4 1/2 months in the mission)--finishing up three weeks of interviews, having a "mission tour" on Friday and Monday, and three stake conference speaking assignments all on one weekend. We love being able to train and meet with each missionary individually. President Reeves does the serious interviews and Sister Reeves gets to see family photos and find out about the lives of the missionaries.

We were so proud of our missionaries when we had our annual (and first for us) mission tour. Elder and Sister Paul Johnson spent two and a half days here with us and our missionaries. We were so proud of our missionaries! They were so good to make sure they looked great and were on their best behavior. Elder Johnson was an incredible teacher (being head of church education) and tried to inspire our missionaries to be "low-maintenance, high-yield" missionaries. Elder and Sister Johnson were so full of love and interest for each missionary. We all loved having them here.

Valerie and Allyson just celebrated their 18th birthdays yesterday on November 14th! They are so grown up! They had a fun party here at the house last night with many new Riverside friends and some cousins. Valerie and Allyson got to celebrate last Saturday with Ryan and our Jessica and Reid who drove down from Utah for a three-day visit with us.

Tuesday morning, six of our missionaries will go home (always so hard on us!) 16 new missionaries will arrive on Tuesday afternoon, which is always a great thrill! We just received a sister from the Temple Square mission (from Singapore). This brings our total of sisters to 8! (Compared to 162 elders! Needless to say, our sisters are very precious!)

We were thrilled with the outcome of Proposition 8 and what we saw happen with the people here. At first, there was hesitancy to get involved, but as leaders and organization fell into place, people really stepped up. Doors were knocked, donations given, pamphlets passed out and a huge effort was made to stand together on street corners holding signs. As most of you know, there have been continuing demonstrations throughout California and other states by those opposed to the marriage amendment. California's governor Schwarzenegger has publicly applauded and encouraged the demonstrations and encouraged doing whatever it takes to overturn the voters' decision in this democratic process.

We can't keep ourselves from mentioning the 80-90 degree weather every day, in case any of you want to join us down here! It is a huge perk for us, we admit! We are so grateful for the many cards and emails you send that mostly go unaswered. Please know how much it means. We wish we had more time to respond; thank you for being patient with us. We truly LOVE being here with these wonderful young men and women and are thrilled to be part of this missionary effort. We continue to see many miracles in the lives of people here.

All our love, Linda, Mel, Ryan, Allyson and Valerie

P.S. We hope to have our Blog updated by Monday.

Valerie and Allyson's 18th Birthday!

We made the boys play the nylon game: they have to put nylons on
while their eyes are covered, with socks on their hands and feet.

Playing the Laps game

About ten kids from our stake/school (and a couple of cousins)
came to our Birthday Party - we had a Blast!

Opening Presents

Zone Conference with Elder Paul Johnson and his wife

Elder Paul Johnson from the quorum of the 70, and
his wife came to tour the Mission during November 7-10

Slide Show! (finally figured it out)

RM visit

Elder Henrie went home with the second group of outgoing missionaries and he brought his parents down last weekend to tour the mission. The Henries came over to meet the family and have breakfast with us.

3rd group of Outgoing Missionaries

Office Staff and AP's with President and Sister Reeves and outgoing missionaries

L-R: Elders Rahlf, Alvis, Stinson, President and Sister Reeves, Sister Foliaki

This group went home October 7 (but I could not get the pictures to download until now).

Mom's Newsletters

Hi everyone, I was reading through mom's newsletters and she mentioned that she would ask me to put the emails on the blog. I didn't know she had thought of that and I realized that there are many, I'm sure, who don't receive the newsletters, so they are now posted on the blog - if you haven't read any of them and would like to get an update just click on the archives and look for "Newsletter #1, #2..." and so on. Enjoy!
- Allyson

Newsletter #4

Dearest Friends and Family,

Our children are doing a great job keeping the pictures on our blog up-to-date, if you have time to take a look at melreevesfamily.blogspot.com

Thank you to so many of you who have emailed us!!! You are so kind! We so love to hear from you and wish we had more time to respond! Some of the highlights this past month:

*Our daughter, Carrie and husband, Brian Warnick gave birth to Tanner on September 15th. He is beautiful and adorable, of course! We are so happy for them and anxious to see him!

* We enjoyed the mission president's seminar in early September in San Diego. We were instructed by Elder Perry, who is currently the head of the Missionary Department and was so amazing at age 86! He had a bad cold, but it didn't stop him from being powerful and full of energy and testimony. We are excited for the new program he and the Missionary Department is putting into place with "Ward Area Books", which all of us will hear more about soon in our wards.

*It is amazing to us to attend many of the baptisms that our missionaries have and realize how many wonderful people the Lord has been preparing for the Gospel. About a year ago, one sister ran across some small snapshots of some of her ancestors. She became obsessed with enlarging and framing the photos and putting them up all around her living room and dining room. She started to read all she could about their pasts. A few months later, two of our missionaries knocked at her door. She invited them in and was thrilled as they told her all about eternal families and the plan of salvation. She was baptized two months later and is "on fire" with the Gospel.

*Ryan, Valerie and Allyson are surviving getting up for early morning seminary and have some wonderful teachers at the high school! They are making new friends; they are trying hard to be good missionaries at school!

*Daughter, Laurie Stacey ran the St. George Marathon this morning! (Ryan drove up to Utah with her and Eric drove down from Cedar City and got to watch her run over the finish line.) We are very proud of this little mother of four. We think part of her "madness" has been the willingness of her good husband, Sully, to watch the kids (sometimes for several hours) while she has prepared for it. We mothers know how great it feels to escape when we can!

*We send home four great missionaries on Tuesday morning and pick up 14 more in the afternoon. This is Linda's "big" cooking week. ( It's kind of refreshing, since it's been pretty difficult to downsize of late! She's having withdrawals not needing Costco every week!)

*Daughter Julie Bourgeous has been trying out homeschooling her three oldest children (of five). It is challenging, but exciting.

*Mike & Jenny's new baby is so healthy and darling. We are all so grateful to our Heavenly Father. Jen & Nyall's preemie, Kate, turned one.

*We don't mind still having 108 degree weather two of three days in October so far!

*Greg's enjoying staying with Jon and Leah in New Jersey and interviewing.

*Jessica & Reid have had the time of their lives back in Reid's mission in Africa. Reid loved being able to introduce Jessie around the mission. They'll be back to Utah next week.

We love you all and so appreciate your love and prayers. Linda, Mel, Allyson, Valerie and Ryan

General Relief Society Broadcast

Valerie and Allyson got to go with Mom/Linda and the Sisters to the General Relief Society Broadcast this last Saturday. The Sisters don't get to see each other very often, so they were very excited (especially because Sis. Foliaki is going home next transfer -Oct. 6).L-R: Sisters Brimhall, Foliaki, Mitchell, Carter, Liew, Vehikite, Allred and Valerie and Allyson

After the Broadcast we went to the home where Sister Carter and Sister Brimhall are living. They live in a homeshare with a couple from the Temecula Stake. Most of the Sisters have served in Temecula (except Sister Mitchell and Sister Foliaki) and lived with this couple, so we visited their home and all of the Sisters, including Valerie and Allyson, sang a medley to them.

Welcome to Riverside!

All of the kids in our stake are really good friends - and they all like to toilet paper each other's houses - so two of the girls from our stake (the next ward over) decided to Welcome Ryan, Valerie and Allyson to Riverside by toilet papering the Mission Home - what a nice complement!

Sorry if you can't see this picture very well - it says "Welcome 2 Riverside!"