cactus and palm trees, all in white, second parents

i was so excited to olivia (aka prochazka) sent me a message on facebook telling me that she was going to be in phoenix for a conference.  remember that last march she was our tour guide in switzerland when we surprised simoncini at her sealing.  she spent so much time with us so we wanted to show her a good time here in phoenix when she came even though we only got her for a few short hours after long days of conferencing. 

when i was thinking about what we should take her to see, i had remembered on the mission her talking about how cool she though the mesa, az temple was.  it isn't like most other temples because it doesn't have an angel moroni on it.  anyway so i knew that would be one of our first stops.  we went to the temple and found some cactus that she thought was so cool.  she loved seeing the palm trees and the cactus. 

i also wanted to hike camelback with her since i think it gives a great view of the city.  too bad we took a wrong turn on our way there so only made it about half way up before we decided to turn around so we were walking down in the dark.

there is nothing like friends from the mission.  i truly believe that you always have a special bond with mission friends because of the things you go through and experience together.  i has seemed that this has been mission friend month.  we started off the month with one of my companions weddings.

 
a few of the other sisters from the great montana billings mission drove down from utah to be there.  so i got to spend time with 2 companions that day.

these last couple days we have spent with blake's mission president that were down visiting friends.  what amazing people.  we got to go to dinner with them and another missionary that served with them as well as his wife.  then the next day the went to blake's seminary class with him and then we went to lunch with them and spent some more time with them.  i loved being with them and feeling of their spirit and their love for the Lord, the gospel, and for blake.  we unfortunately didn't get any pictures but here is a picture from their mission. 

blake and i both loved our missions and the people we served with.  and we very much love when the come visit so we can spend time with them and be reminded of the many miracles that we witnessed together.