Penn State

Hi Family! It was wonderful to talk to so many of you on Mother’s Day. Thanks for all the cards and gifts. I felt well celebrated from all of you! It was great to talk to Tyler and find that he is happy and excited about Missionary Work – we had lots of common experiences to share which was pretty unique. Mother’s Day reminds me that I am a fortunate lady to have so many people in my life to love.

We have had lots of dreary days lately, so when the sun came out full blast yesterday, Dad and I decided to visit Penn State University which is about a 45 minute drive. The college is on the outskirts of the town. The campus is huge and the student that took us to see the massive football stadium told us that on game days the little town of State College, Pa grows to over 130,000 people, making it the third largest city in the state!! The football program is legendary as you know, but the school has state of the art venues for almost every sport you can think of. Each sport has its own arena – there were individual fields for baseball, field hockey, soccer, that sport that Daniel Dekker plays, an outdoor pool, a diving pool, and indoor pool (did you know that an indoor pool is called a “natatorium” (I’m a 64 year-old well educated woman that loves words and I have never in my life heard that one!), a big arena for basketball which they use for concerts throughout the year, the big football stadium which is only used for the 6 or 7 home games each year, an indoor and outdoor football practice field, and they are building an 80 million dollar ice hockey arena. It was amazing and impressive to stand at the top of the Penn State Football Arena and look out on all these other fields and buildings for every sport you can name. Oh, the school also owns its own golf course!

We walked around campus and found it very pretty, but not nearly as impressive as the athletic venues. Penn State started as an agricultural school, and they still have a renowned program of dairy science – the creamery is a favorite spot and we stopped and shared a big bowl of ice cream made on site. Yummy!! It was a great day and it just felt good to be in the sunshine out of doors.

As you know, we have been excited to teach the Hanna family. Our appointment last week was rescheduled for this Monday so that their friend who introduced them to the church can be there. We were disappointed, but that evening we decided to visit a family we hadn’t met yet, the Shears. Brother Shears is a member, Sister Shears is not. She has severe anxiety trouble, and almost got baptized but freaked out at the font and the whole thing was postponed. They were in the middle of being taught by a new set of elders before Christmas and Brother Shears and one of elders had a major confrontation that ended badly. The Shears have avoided coming to church since then. Brother Shear seemed really happy to meet us and said he would love to come back to the branch, have his children taught the gospel, and maybe get some help for his wife. Now if we had been teaching the Hanna family that night, we would have missed this visit with the Shears. We plan to go back on Saturday and meet the rest of the family and hopefully teach them.

Dad is mowing the lawn of our apartment – it sounds like it should be a small lawn,\ but it is every bit as big as our Yorba Linda yard. Front, back and two sides of grass! I am going to plant my Amish tomato plant in my self-watering bucket that we made in Relief Society last week, then we are heading to a nearby park to help with a cancer relay event. Another beautiful day in PA.

We send our love to each of you, MOM and DAD