Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Humbling experience; Incredible Family!

We have been trying to get caught up after our return from Hong Kong. It took us a couple of hours to get to all of the emails as well as the posts the family has recently published on their own blogs (we didn't really have internet access while we were in Hong Kong). What we learned there was a surprise, indeed. We have responded to them on their blogs, but we just had to let everyone else know how wonderful our family is!

Now, we had one of the most wonderful and memorable experiences of our lives (outside of our own family ones, of course - they are always the best) as we helped the Mongolian members receive the blessings of the temple for themselves, their own families and for many of their ancestors. We felt very much that the Lord had certainly blessed us with this memorable opportunity and that it just wouldn't likely get much better than this.

We were wrong. It actually managed to get much better. And it shouldn't be any surprise, we suppose, that this great improvement came because of what our own family managed to add to it from way back in Utah. It seems that they all got together and decided that they wanted to help cover the costs of our temple trip. And once accomplished, they announced on their own blog that they had pooled their resources and collected enough between them to pay for nearly half of our trip expenses -- which even surprised themselves! And it astounded us!

Because of our lack of internet access temporarily, we had no idea what they were doing. Once back in UB and catching up on our blog reading, we both were dumbfounded. What a wonderful surprise.

We've included a couple of the pictures they posted, for you to enjoy with us.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. We love you more than words can express.

Oh, and if there are any couples out there thinking of serving missions, things such as this alone make it all worthwhile.


--From a very grateful (and proud) grandma and grandpa

4 comments:

The Fendleys said...

We love you TONS!!! It meant just as much for us to do this for you as it did for you to receive it. The kids were very selfless in their giving, and I am incredibly proud of them all!! They have more love for you both than you will ever know, and they miss you LOTS! I think doing this kind of helped them to feel connected to you way over there in Mongolia. Love you!!

Ryan Cowley said...

We're very proud of you too!!

Anonymous said...

Man, your family is awesome. I don't even know them, and I'm inspired.

And not only that, they are very handsome people. I bet even (maybe especially) the ones that didn't get into the pictures are a sight to behold!

Bressler Bunch said...

By the way, 61 degrees!?!?! At 11:30 in the morning?!!? I bet that feels good. You are probably going to beat our high of 65 today. We just can't get out of this cold and rain junk. We gave up on Capital Reel because it is supposed to be 40 and snowing down there all spring break. Oh well. On the bright side, our water situation has gotten much better.