Elder Joseph Johnson

 Hola!  Well we planned on going on another hike today, but an illness swept through our house and Elder Johnson spent part of his day recovering.  So while he was in bed, I took the opportunity to plant my garden.  After that was all finished, Elder Johnson was awake and he was kind enough to feed Lucy's gerbil, Burrow.  Aww, he's such a cute little guy!  Then, we went on a bike ride on the green way and on our not so secret secret path.  Elder Johnson likes to talk to me while I'm happily huffing and puffing to keep up with him.  We rode behind south high school just in time to run into a fight going on in the courtyard between a few guys.  I got off my bike and yelled, "Let him go or I'll call the school."  The two guys that were attacking the other kid let go and said, "It's none of your business."  So, I pulled out my phone and pretended to call the school (it's my not so secret secret weapon) and they took off.    Bu...

I saw a baby bunny out on my compost pile and immediately Lucy and Joseph were out trying to catch him.  Elder Johnson raked back some of my old tomato plants and found an entire nest of baby bunnies underneath.  Elder Johnson managed to catch this little guy and Lucy was delighted.  Last year we had some tragic accidents happen, when a few baby bunnies fell in our window well and died.  This year, we fixed the window wells and hopefully the little bunnies will stay out of them.  Elder Johnson loves creatures and values each one as unique and special. I remember when he was little, he would carry bugs with him all day.  One day he caught this enormous grub and he put it in a cup and carried it around while we ran errands together.  I still remember what he named it, Sherman.  No other grub in the history of the world has ever been loved more than Sherman.  Over the years, Elder Johnson has caught so many creatures, bugs, birds, bunnies, snake...

Ya'll, this was the most amazing day we have ever seen in Vedauwoo and except for two other people, we had the entire place to ourselves!  The day didn't seem all that promising when we arrived when we found snow on the ground, but as we hiked for a while, the clouds dispersed, the sun came out and the snow began to melt and oh my was it absolutely stunning!  And to make it even better, I got to take senior pictures of this handsome missionary!  I am not a photographer, I actually pretty much despise posed pictures, HOWEVER, I just let Elder Johnson do whatever he wanted and I just snapped away.  He walked through streams, climbed rocks and the picture of him taking in the view on top, well it was magic!  I don't know how the pictures turned out, but those mental photographs stored away are pretty spectacular, because we all know a camera doesn't do justice (especially mine:) .  We had a lot of great laughs, like when I slipped and fell on a wet boulder and...

Elder Johnson loves the outdoors and so we decided that every preparation day, we would go up to vedauwoo and go on an adventure.  Last p-day we hiked in vedauwoo (pictures to come) and it was probably the most beautiful day we have ever seen up there.  It had just snowed the night before, but as the morning progressed the snow began to melt and there were waterfalls coming off of the rocks everywhere.  The sky was crystal clear, the air was still, clean and fresh.  The sound of water falling off the rocks, the gurgling, bubbling and splashing made for a magnificent experience with Elder Johnson.   This p-day, we decided to bring our bikes to vedauwoo and because it had snowed again, we enjoyed riding through the snow covered path.  We found some hidden gems a long the way (I'd like to imagine that no one has ever been where we went) like the little stream that we found at the end of our trail.  Elder Johnson and I are a lot alike, we both enjoy a...