Track and Travel - April 2022

This month started off with Suse having a meet at her old school, Parkview back in Lilburn. It was good to see old teammates and coaches. She and her 4x100 relay team have been doing so great - they've broken the school record multiple times and have had the fastest time in the state early on. Two of the girls are adorable twins - Salima and Amina, and Sade is another awesome athlete who tumbles and cheers, too, so she can do it all. These 4 girls are so fast and so fun together. I love them and what they've accomplished! Suse has PR'd multiple times in the 100, 200, and long jump; and her 4x400 relay team always does well, too. It's been an amazing season. Goose is also continuing to improve and learn more about track - she's been fun to watch. She improves every time in the hurdles, and has learned a lot in the high jump and even tried the long jump once and did great. Then we had general conference. I always look forward to the peace, hope and direction I feel from conference. We were pretty quiet on Saturday, and on Sunday we got to have the Christensens join us - they in town for spring break! and then a district of missionaries, so that was fun. We all ate dinner together afterwards. I'm always struck by President Nelson's messages. They speak to my heart and are powerful. I loved his talk on spiritual momentum. 

The following morning, I loaded up the girls and we headed with the Christensens to Rosemary Beach, Florida. This area of Florida on the panhandle is near Destin and off a road called 30A, and it's pretty great. The sand is powdery white, and the actual little town is charming! It is also extremely crowded during Spring Break - no surprise there, but what did surprise us is how they limit each individual neighborhood or development to a very specific section of beach and do not let you go past it. Our beach is insanely crowded, so we would drive to a public beach (there aren't too many), which was better and way less crowded. It ended up being surprisingly cool, though, so we didn't actually go to the beach that much. We rented bikes for the week and ended up exploring the beautiful neighborhoods in the area, and we even took an 8 mile bike ride to see the house in the movie "The Truman Show." I thought it was fun, Suse and some others were not fans of this ride. We played soccer golf, which is so fun. It's just like it sounds - instead of golf clubs and balls, you're kicking soccer balls and keeping track of how many kicks in takes you to get the soccer ball in the oversized hole. Mostly, it was just great to be with each other and share time whatever we were doing. 

When we got back home, it was temple time for the mission. Every other transfer, we reserve temple times for the missionaries by zone. One of the senior couples attends each time with them, so we got to attend one session. It's always a treat to go with missionaries. 

We also got a fun visit from Zelle! Sadly, Adam couldn't squeeze it in, but it was a treat to have Zelle. We celebrated Easter with her, she joined us at track meets, walks, and was just a great friend to have around. We miss her, and are so glad for the time we got with her! It's hard to believe she and Adam have been married for a year now. That flew by!

Mark and I also attended our semi annual mission leadership seminar in Orlando. This was the first time Mark had been on a plane since we've been here. We met the nicest airline people and even shared a pass along card and video with one who had recently lost his mother. I really hoped to connect with him afterwards, but he didn't respond. Sharing the gospel is truly so joyful. The hardest part is how rarely people accept this great gift and the peace, hope, and strength it can provide. Anyway, it was so good to be with all the mission leaders again. They have all become great friends of ours and we look forward to time with them. I love learning from our area presidency because they're such great teachers. They're talented and they also teach by the Spirit. We even got to have Elder and Sister Renlund come to the last day and a half of our meetings and go to the temple with us. He's a great storyteller - he told a story of loki and thor from Norse mythology and how Thor made the gods tremble when he drank the seven seas (but to him it only looked like what he drank went down a couple of inches), when he wrestled death (he thought it was an old hag) and when he did something else...I can't remember now, but he compared this to our missionaries and us in our work and how we don't realize all the good that is done. It makes the adversary tremble even though we don't always see the results in an accurate way. We always leave those meetings feeling uplifted, strengthened, spiritually fed, and also that we have a lot more and a lot better we could be doing! That's a good thing. There's always room for growth. 

The end of the month was extra exciting, too. We kicked the last week off with transfers, then had Suse's regional championship meet where the Lambert girls won the region in a battle that came down to the last event, the 4x400 that Suse was anchoring - no pressure! Lydia and Abs arrived that night after finishing their semester/year of classes at BYU, and then we celebrated Mark's birthday. The missionaries painted a painting of the whole mission from a mission gathering. They signed the back, and Sister Bailey got a cake and a pot of yellow flowers for his love of scattering sunshine. It was a really sweet birthday. We ended the week with MLC, speaking in Saturday night session of Stake Conference while Lu and Abs helped Suse get ready for prom. She looked beautiful, thanks to her sisters' hair and makeup jobs, and had a great time with her date, Cooper Hansen. Another great month! I look back on these months and all the activity and energy, of which I only mention a fraction - and I know God strengthens, supports, guides and cares for us. We absolutely could not do this otherwise. We have also remarked multiple times on how healthy we've been. We have gone hard and long days, week after week, month after month, and have been so healthy. God is good, and he takes care of us so we can do His work. I'm really grateful for this. I feel his enabling power daily.