Fourth of July weekend
Today is Sunday July 3rd. It seems like the time is flying by. We are doing great here. We seem to get busier all the time. Tomorrow the ward is having a 4th of July picnic. We made fliers and have spent several days this past week taking them to all of the less-active members we have made friends with over the last months. We had a list of about 30 families. We have struggled to get in to see some of these families for a while. However, this last week everything seemed to line up. We were able to visit with almost all of these families and invite them to the picnic. We are hopeful that they will come and get reacquainted with the ward members. We are going over to the ward to set up for the picnic tomorrow afternoon. We are also bringing Deanne’s famous potato salad. After the picnic the ward is going down by the river to watch the Ottawa fireworks set off from a barge in the river. Last night we watched the Utica fireworks while sitting on our back patio.
Last Friday President and Sister Shumway went home from their mission and President and Sister Chase arrived. We loved President and Sister Shumway. They created a culture of spirituality and obedience here in the Chicago mission. It seems like all of the missionaries loved and respected President and Sister Shumway. We will really miss them. We had a Senior missionary meeting/dinner with them at the mission home before they left. We are also had an opportunity to go to the temple with our zone and President and Sister Shumway before they said goodbye. It was wonderful. We will remember their goodness forever. We had a mission-wide zoom meeting on Friday afternoon with President and Sister Chase. We are going to love them as well. This next week they are meeting with all the zones to get acquainted with all the missionaries. The Joliet and Naperville zones meet with President and Sister Chase next Friday afternoon. We look forward to meeting them in person. Friday morning we have combined district council with the two districts in the Joliet zone. Most of us don’t have time to return to our areas between the district council and the meeting with the President so we are going to provide lunch for our zone and then the missionaries can go work on Facebook until the second meeting.
Ellen, Nick, Ted and Violet came to visit us a couple of weeks ago. It was very nice to see family. The hardest part about being on a mission is being away from family, especially the grandkids. We are very grateful that we can call or facetime them every week to stay in touch. We did a few things in Chicago with Ellen’s family. We also had them come to church here in Ottawa and showed them Starved Rock State Park. We loved introducing them to our friends in the Ottawa Ward. We do love this ward.
Last Saturday our Stake President invited all the missionaries to his home for breakfast. The food was wonderful, but meeting with the President and hearing his testimony of the Gospel and missionary work was even more filling. His home is about an hour and a half away from our home, but it was well worth the drive.
The weather here has been very pleasant. We have had a couple of hot humid spells, but they only lasted a few days. The nights are cooling off nice so we can sleep with the windows open. We are going on walks along the canal tow path either in the morning or later in the evening. Tonight on our walk we saw deer, frogs, turtles, rabbits, muskrats and groundhogs. We are also enjoying all the birds we see. There are sandhill cranes in one field, turkey vultures all along the river, and beautiful red-winged blackbirds. There are a lot of Canada geese , pelicans and ducks. We especially love seeing the cardinals. We can now identify several bird songs.
We miss all of you, but we are happy here.
Love,
Elder and Sister Curtis
The Senior missionaries gave the Shumways Cubs and White Sox jerseys to show that they united Chicago.
Ted and Violet with Sue, the largest T-Rex ever found
Lunch with Elders after apartment inspections
Miss you!
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