Friends

Friends are the best!!!!! I've had so many good visits with friends in the past couple of weeks that have included bike rides and a hike too.  There's nothing like a visit with a friend that fills you up and keeps you going.  I got a sweet note from a friend yesterday that brought me to tears and had me thanking my Heavenly Father for such a wonderful friend.
 I don't have pictures of all my visits of course, but I have a few.

Here's a picture of Jenny and I hiking behind my house. There was this blazing red tree all by itself and it looked gorgeous against the yellow grass. I wanted to get a picture of it all by itself, but my battery died after this picture.  I keep staring at it everyday from my house hoping it is still full of leaves and that I can get back up there to snap a photo, but I haven't had time.

Jenny is such a dear friend of mine. Notice in the picture that she is carrying Brooke.  Even with  Brooke on her back she is faster than me.  We've gone on many hikes together and had many good talks together. Love her.

This next picture is of a woman from the other side of the world in New Zealand named Rangi Parker shown here with her husband Vic.  She came to pay me a visit while here for General Conference last week.  It was such a sweet visit.  She and I had a miraculous meeting a few years ago when I was searching for answers about my great-grandfather's mission scrapbook. After doing some research online I found out she was basically the expert on the Church's history in New Zealand, where he served his mission almost 100 years ago.  I tried contacting her by email and miraculously right at this time she just happened to be in Utah.  The morning of the day she was supposed to leave to go back to New Zealand she found my email (it had been two weeks since I had written)  and wrote back telling me she was in Utah and leaving to go home that afternoon, but would love to speak to me.  I drove down to see her which was 45 minutes away and got my answers and met a new friend. We were both so excited about the pictures and journals.  She knew the people in the pictures which was so cool.  The meeting then was so amazing that I can't express in words really how it was.  It ranks up there with the neatest best things that have ever happened to me.  There's so much more to the story, but that will do for now.  Seeing her again brought back those good feelings and made me feel closer to my great-grandfather again.

Friends are the best!!!