The MTC was thoroughly enjoyable and we felt the Spirit of Missionary work there.
We took two days to drive to Nebraska, spending a day with the Gabels, whom we knew from our Florida mission. Using our heads, we stopped in Scottsbluff to do some grocery shopping before driving the final two hours to our new assignment. Yup, it's a two hour drive to do any significant shopping...much less to find a variety of places to stop and eat. So much for a date night to.....anywhere!
This is the road to the Ranch office and to our new home.
We are living in half of the basement of the Ranch Controller's house. They won't be moving in for two weeks, so we are doing some badly needed repairs before they come....like replacing a moldy windowsill, putting vinyl plank flooring in the kitchen/laundry room, repainting two existing decks, and building a third deck off the laundry room. (Not to mention repainting entry doors and door frames.)
This is our front door. Come inside and we'll show you around! The window to the right is in our kitchen, but the windows to the left of the door belong to the upstairs tenants.
We had no place to use as an office/computer station, so Bruce built this desk out of dismantled desk parts we found in the Ranch Office garage. He's pretty handy to have around! He's wearing his winter coat because the past two days have been pretty cold and incredibly windy.
This is our dining area. It also serves as our study area, our lounging area, our guest reception area, and my computer area. Notice the picture of the Savior on the wall. Our first priority was to hang this picture in a prominent place where we could focus on why we are here and who our life should always be centered around.
Room #2 . The bathroom is small but works! It's almost big enough for two people to occupy at the same time....but not really. Bruce is going to build a little stand-up shelf between the toilet and sink to add a little storage space....again, out of scraps from the original desk.
Room #3 . The bedroom is a good size, and the bed is high enough off the ground that extra storage is available for boxes stashed underneath.
The bedroom also serves as our laundry room. How convenient to be able to take clothes out of the dryer and hang them right up. I can also roll up Bruce's socks and chuck them right into his drawer!
The ranch provides a truck for us to drive, as well as an equipment trailer that we can tow with us and there is another shop for us to use, over an hour away. Our truck is a 2007 Chevy Silverado.
The first order of every day is to walk through our house and pick up any dead, and not-so-dead bugs that are on the floors, blinds or walls. You might say our house is "bugged".
Our nearest neighbors live right outside our door.
Speaking of cows. The other day when the cows were in our yard I was directing Bruce while he was pulling the truck full of lumber and flooring boxes into the garage and I stepped into an enormous cow pie that the trespassers had left behind.....both feet were affected. Bruce thought he was doing me a favor and covered the cow pie with sand. Well the next day, I was hopping into the truck to run a mercy errand when I stepped into the same cow pie...with different shoes on....but only one foot was affected.
Obviously the county does not collect garbage out here, so we burn the burnables and haul the non-burnables into a nearby town (15 minutes away), to a dumpster. Even though we had only been here four and a half days, we had enough burnable garbage to fill the burn cage, due to the 20 boxes that the vinyl planking came in, and the moldy windowsill that we removed. With the persistent wind blowing to fan the fire, it took no time at all to burn everything down to ashes. Yes, I had a hose nearby just in case of an emergency. Note the flames blowing outside the cage! We hadn't thought of buying marshmallows while shopping!
We went to church on Sunday at our small branch building (45 minutes away), and met a lot of wonderful people. There were about 32 in attendance, but six of the people were other missionaries that will be living on the other end of the ranch and attending a bigger branch over there. We get the feeling that we might have the opportunity to give a few Sunday talks while here. The chapel is inside the first door on the left and is about the size of a standard Relief Society room. The restrooms are both 1-seaters. It's quaint and small, but the Spirit there was powerful!
That's it for now. We are happy to be here and have met some very friendly people. We spent one afternoon driving through the small towns and visited with clerks in two of the Farm Supply Stores. They recognized by our badges who we were and what we were about, so their reception was great. We are grateful that all the missionaries who have been out here have been warm and friendly.
We miss our friends and family (and convenient shopping), but are glad to be here helping others. So long until next time.
