Email Feb. 15, 2010

Dear family and friends, Today is Monday Feb 15, 2010. We have our preparation day on Mondays like the young missionaries and any other day we need it. Today we washed the rugs and mopped the floor. People here do a lot of burning and we have screens on our open windows but the soot filters in anyway. We usually mop the floor twice a week. We have a new appreciation of taking off our shoes at the front door when we get home. I was thinking that my mother in law would have love it over here because people burn little piles of whatever all the time. Belva liked to have a fire out in the pasture and play in it with a stick. That is what the people do over here especially the older people. They use clay pots with charcoal to cook with. We have seen people cook inside their houses and outside with these pots. The propane is quite expensive and the charcoal is cheap. Some people have a propane stove in their kitchen but don’t use it. A lot of people have what they call dirty kitchens. These are areas outside that they cook their food with the clay pots, so it keeps their kitchens clean and cool! It is similar to doing dutch oven cooking with briquets. They have these big fans that they use to heat up the coals if the fire is starting to die down. They are made out of some kind of fiber weaved together. They will hold them in their hand , fan the fire and then fan themself! They have small clay pots and I ask what they do with them to a person selling them at the market. They are play “dishes/pots for the children to play with. I bought a set to bring home. Last week we seen signs of a mouse in the house. The sister missionaries had a mouse in their house two weeks ago so we had bought some mouse bait. We plugged the holes and told them to put the bait out. I went and got the mouse bait from them so we could put some out .Prior to that we had a reinactment of the movie “Mouse Trap”or “Mouse Hunt” in our house. My grandchildren will know what we mean especially Marty. I think he really likes that movie. I was cooking some banana bread in the oven when a mouse came out from behind the oven and went behind the fridge. Elder Adams decided to see if he could see it so he pulled out the tray that catches the water as the fridge defrosts. There is the mouse and a small lizard. We put up blockades so it would only run one way as he poked with the fly swatter under the fridge, but to our surprise it was able to break through and ran over to the couch . We tipped the couch over and tried to see where it went. We had no luck. Elder told me to go get the mop so when it ran out I could get it by now the frontroom was all moved around so we could get the mouse easily. I’m standing to the side of the couch with the mop in the air ready and Elder Adams is poking in the couch trying to get it to run out. We had no luck. The only success we had was messing up the house. We got the mouse trap that the other senior couple left and put some bait on the hook that sets off the trap door. We were ready to catch it. We went to the store and when we got back we checked the trap and the bait was gone but the door was still open .We reset the trap by barely putting peanut butter on the hook with a Qtip and put out the mouse bait behind the couch. The next morning the peanut butter was licked off the hook and the door was still open, but the mouse bait had been eaten. We rest the trap with peanut butter in a cloth sack hanging from the hook and was told that you have to put it in a corner and cover it so it doesn’t look like a trap. Raymundo and Jerlo helped us fix it right, to this day it is still set and the bait hanging. Yesterday when we came home from church we spied a dead mouse under the sofa table! Success ,but have seen more droppings so will put out more mouse bait and leave the trap set. It was a lot funnier in person than me trying to tell it.heeheehee Jerlo and Raymundo are the two young men that are working for us to earn money to put in their mission calls. Jerlo has put in his papers and his call has arrived at the mission office. Pres Tobias has mailed it to Pres. Villariao our district president. We are just waiting to find out where he will go. We started to teach them the temple prep classes last week. Raymundo is still working on getting some commitments for the monthly payment. His parents aren’t members and they are quite poor. He is suppose to meet with the branch president this week and see if they can get things worked out. Life has been good. Our son Les has just been asked to be the second counsellor in His home ward in Greeley, Colorado. He was elder’s quorum president and said this new calling uses less of his time than as elder’s quorum. Les and Elise had their third child in June Luke Wendall.They now have three children. Darin and his family have moved to Wellington, Colorado ,which is about 30 minutes from Les and Elise and the same distance from his job .He is a foreman for a construction job in Cheyene, Wyoming .Karilynn has lost over 70 lbs(?) since Jan 2009. She is a petite size 3 pants. Marks’s family are all busy as ever. They bought the house they have been renting from Dianne’s parents since they moved back to Utah. Dianne’s parents have decided to stay in Arizona and not move up to Utah. Ken and Jeannette are still doing foster care and trying to get their deck finished they started one and half years ago. Nathan is on a leave of absence from work at RC Willey because of back problems. He and Anna and Sarah are living in our house and it is a good thing since they have less money coming in right now. Rob and Tara just blessed their baby Logan Carter on Feb 7(Belva’s birthday).They now have 4 children.This makes us the proud grandparents of 18 apo(grandchildren). Nick and Alisha are still living with her mother in Provo. Nick is still playing soccer and getting injuried and going to school and working! Alisha is still teaching school to 180 Jr High students. That just about sizes it up as to how our family is doing while we are away. Please feel free to write to us and let us know about your families. We haven’t heard from some of you since we left almost a year ago. Love Elder and Sister Adams