Monday, September 30, 2013

I AM SO EXCITED TO BE HEADING TO BRAZIL!!!

AHHHH! This is going to be so awesome! I am so jittery right now! I do believe that it's what my companion calls being transfer trunky. Haha I am so stoked to be down in Brazil tomorrow! (It will take a full 24 hours of travel to get to my mission.) I got my visa last week and they're already shipping me out! (They must not like me very much here....) Nah, it's been absolutely great here in Kansas. I've really enjoyed working with people and helping out in whatever way I can. I would say that I have had a lot of success here in the Chapel Hill Ward.... If we were playing golf! I'm just (partially) kidding! We haven't had very high numbers, a lot of baptisms, or even taught that many lessons. However, I'm not measuring my success based on numbers. (BUT if it were a competition... we'd be losing!) The work as a missionary is all about helping other people strengthen their testimony in Jesus Christ, and if I go home without a single baptism, but I have helped strengthen everyone around me, than I have succeeded as a missionary. I have loved working here. All of the people I've met, the experience I've gained, the help I have been able to be to people... I just love all of it! I have worked with some pretty dang awesome missionaries here (it's the best zone I've ever been in!), and as much as I have grown here, I am excited to leave for Brazil! My Portuguese is definitely more than just a little bit rusty, but I'm sure that I'll get by just fine. I've heard that a lot of my MTC district have gotten their visas and are leaving today too! I am so excited to see them again and catch up! Also, I MIGHT SEE MY SISTER AT THE AIRPORT!!! (NOPE, unfortunately not.  Taylor is traveling at the same time but will be flying out of Atlanta and Garrison is leaving out of Detroit.)  She got her visa and is leaving on the same day as me, so it would be really cool to catch up with her. I don't have a lot more time before I have to LEAVE (so excited!!!), so here's the highlight of my week:

Okay, so one of the members of the ward referred us to one of his clients with whom he had been discussing religion (very casually). Now the member DIDN'T tell us that this guy was an Elder in the Lutheran church, so when we got there we struck up a friendly conversation with him. It was very nice, but once we started talking about religion, all he wanted to do was Bible bash and try and prove us wrong. Now, I'm not going to lie, at first, I started 'discussing' with him... Okay, it was more like arguing, my bad! However, as we were talking, I felt the impression to just stop arguing and the moment I did my companion, Elder D, brought it back to what we are supposed to do as missionaries. He just bore his testimony as a representative of Jesus Christ. He bore the solemn witness of the truth of what we were saying and how he knew that it was true. Instead of arguing or trying to butt heads, he shared what he knew to be sacred and true. This taught me the biggest lesson of this week: It is SO easy to just fall back onto bashing other people's religion, but we aren't helping build other people's faith by putting them down. The hardest thing is to bite your tongue and just testify of what you know, and what you believe. Because no one, NO ONE, can ever tell you what you believe. That is for you to decide.

Anyways, I'm getting ready to head out! I am so stinking excited right now! (in case none of you could tell) This has been an extremely great learning experience for me.... and now I get to do it all over again in Portuguese! Como diversao! I wish all of you the best of luck in all that you do!

Elder Colvin

Monday, September 23, 2013

Sometimes you just gotta smile!

Today has been crazy1!!!! I have almost NO time to email, but here's a low down:

The work has been picking up a lot. We're getting a lot of referrals (so working with members is definitely paying off) and we have found a couple of new families to teach! It's been pretty awesome.

Highlights of the week: SUNDAY!!!!!

Oh. My. Gosh. I don't think that I have EVER had such a weird church experience IN MY LIFE! Haha, so one of the speakers gets up in church, and he basically breaks every rule in the book when it comes to giving talks in sacrament meeting. He gets up and throughout the entire talk he is having the audience do a bunch of interactive stuff (which is a definite no-no) like raise their hand, wiggle them, etc. Anyways,  once he has done what most people would think that he could do, is he plays a recording of an article in the Ensign over the pulpit. He just put his iPad up to the microphone and let it play! He kept trying to get people to laugh, but most people were mortified. My companion and I could barely keep it together. I was definitely smiling throughout the entire thing, but it was definitely pretty weird. HOWEVER, it doesn't end there! In our gospel essentials class, we had the law of chastity. Unfortunately, our teacher asked if anyone had any questions.... Let's just say that I'm probably not allowed to repeat the very specific, explicit questions/scenarios that this one lady presented. In class. Again, I could barely keep it together! If any of you really know me, you know that I just laugh whenever there's an awkward situation, and I was cracking up almost all the way through church! However, we did have a very insightful 3rd hour class and I really learned a lot from it. Well, I learned a lot from the other class too.... Just not really applicable things to missionary work! Haha I love going to church because I always get something out of it and it's different every week.

ANYWAYS, I don't have time left on the computer to share a spiritual thought, but the reason why I am so late today is because we visited some historical church sites all day today. We visited the temple site in Far West and Adam Ondi Ahman. It was absolutely incredible to be in those sacred places. It was really powerful because I could almost feel the history that had taken place there. If any of you aren't familiar with those sites, I would advise researching them. 


I have to go! Tchau!!!
Elder Colvin

P.S. I GOT MY VISA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My next email could be coming from BRAZIL!!!

Monday, September 16, 2013

It's an uphill climb

Eu estou cansado...


This week has been extremely busy and it doesn't seem like we have made a lot of progress.  Also, I'm sorry, but there are no new pictures this week! I haven't been thinking too much about it. I will try to do better next week. I know that we have had some success, because we have been working very closely with the members and have been building a lot stronger relationship with them, but not much has
come of it yet. I am soooo tired lately because we have been biking like crazy! Almost everyone who we go to visit is at least like 5 miles away, AND (for all of you who have never been to KCK) there are hills EVERYWHERE! This was extremely difficult as we were trying to meet all of the members in a 5 mile radius of where we are currently staying. The chapel hill ward is so big though, we haven't even been able to even visit some areas because we don't have enough miles on the car. I am definitely loving the members here, it's just really hard to even talk to some people here because KCK is definitely in the Bible belt! Seriously, about 30% of the people we talk to have actually gone to a Bible College and would love nothing more than to just Bible bash. It's really difficult because all we are trying to do as missionaries is help people! It's kind of funny because every time we are done talking with people, we ask them, ' well, is there anything we can do to help out?' People can be so rude... Then we get those gems! Even if they don't want to listen to our message, they are very polite and kind to us. We have some people who will commend us for what we're doing and say that they have a lot of respect for us.. Buuuuut they still won't listen to our message! It gets frustrating sometimes.

We lost a lot of our investigators lately; one of them got evicted and left our area, we haven't been able to contact the one who is going to jail soon (neither has his sister... kinda sketchy), and I already told about the other one who dropped us. We do have someone we are teaching now, A., who is from Mexico and seems to really enjoy learning more about the church! The first 2 visits were just with him and they went really well. He doesn't know a whole lot of English, so sometimes it's a little difficult to get our message across, but this last time we taught him and his daughter (I think that she's like 14?) and we had Bro. M come with us (he served his mission in Spain). Anyways, he said that they were reading a page a day of the Book of Mormon with each other, which is AWESOME! Haha as you can tell, we don't get a lot of people who will even try reading the Book of Mormon, so I was pretty excited. Oh, and we gave him a Spanish copy of the Book of Mormon (El Libro de Mormon) and he seemed a lot more interested in reading it now that he could understand it better. My Spanish branch experience has proven to be the best training for this Missouri Independence Mission...who could have guessed? We will see how our next teaching appointment with him goes, but he said that he might be coming to church this coming week, so that would be really cool!

Our only other investigators are two little boys in a part-member family. They are 10 and 9 (well, almost 9, in about a week) and their Mom has just been coming back to Church after a couple of years. It's really interesting, but I really enjoy working with their family. If anyone has advice on how to teach kids that age, it would be much appreciated!!!

Oh, I almost forgot, but we also working with another less-active, part-member family, and the Dad is the only member. He works a lot (and on Sundays). He and his wife have twin 8-year-old daughters. We're going to try really really hard in the next week to get them to come to church, and they LOVE the missionaries! Funny story about that actually, but on Saturday, we had a very very long day of biking, and Elder D's allergies were kicking in and he could barely even breathe. Anyways, we were right by their house, and we got the impression that we should ask S. (the dad) for a ride home. It was about 5 miles home, but it was dark out, and again, Elder D. could barely breathe! He was very willing to take us and we had a great talk with him. He said, 'I might be able to come to church tomorrow, but my work calls me at 7 and lets me know if i have work or not, so we'll see'. So we got home, and were able to meet with him for a little bit. I'm planning on making brownies or something for them as thanks for taking us home (I know, I sound like a girl), but I definitely feel like we should express how grateful we are to them.

So speaking of biking and the effects that it has on us, I AM SO TIRED! Haha I actually just found out yesterday that my companion has taken the phone and taken pictures of me whenever I fall asleep in some weird place. It's all been in the extra time that we have during lunch.... or on our couch... our in the other missionaries' recliner... or in a member's house... or in that same member's car... twice... I feel so bad! Haha I never fall asleep on the weeks that we have a car, it's just that biking is sooooo tiring when you're carrying this much stuff and going up and down hills for miles a day... It's still embarrassing, but some of those pictures are really funny! I wish I could send them, but they're on the phone and I don't think that we can. 

 
Anyways, I am up to 193 lbs!!!! I don't know where all of this weight is going!!!! I look at myself in the mirror and my belly has definitely gotten smaller. It's probably all going to my thighs because of all this biking..... Yeah, I think that I'm just bulking up more, because we do weight training a 1/2 hour each day. Not to mention all of that biking! Biking itself is plenty easy, it's just biking up all these hills!!! You have no idea! Imagine two Midway hills on either side of where we are staying and that's what it's like. Oh, and guess whats after those hills? More hills! T.T Yesterday we had team-ups with Bro. W and we could barely get out of the car. Oh! We also get to play 2 hand touch football (it's considered noncontact) on saturday mornings with the Elder's quorum and their friends/other less active members. Now I'm about to go and play about 3 or 4 hours of basketball at the stake center, so I just don't imagine how I'd be getting any fatter!

Anyways, one of the things that Elder D has had me doing has been having me share my 'favorite scripture' for all of the dinners that we have with members and share a spiritual thought alongside it. So I think that a lot of people who read the scriptures can relate, but I don't have a favorite scripture! So I end up just sharing something that I learn in my scripture studies that morning. Anyways, I would just like to share a scripture before I end this email. Today, it is a short passage in the Book of Mormon that asks a rhetorical question, It is Alma talking to one of his sons. (For those of you who don't know, Alma was an ancient prophet in the Americas who preached the gospel of Jesus Christ and foretold of his coming)
 

Alma 39:17, 19 : '17 ... is not a soul at this time as precious unto God as a soul will be at the time of his coming? 19. Is it not as easy at this time for the Lord to send his angel to declare these glad tidings unto us as unto our children, or as after the time of his coming?'
 

I know that God loves all of His children. No exceptions. That is why He has restored the gospel in these latter days by the prophet Joseph Smith, so that all of His children, through the great Plan of Salvation, will be able to know of His true gospel for time and all eternity. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, contains the fulness of the gospel that Christ Himself taught when he was on the Earth. It has been restored because God loves us. Yesterday, today, and forever.

I hope that all of you in the outside world are doing well, I don't get to hear much about what's going on! I love hearing from you, and any advice, questions, and really just about anything is greatly appreciated! Tchau tchau!

Elder Colvin

Monday, September 9, 2013

ALL the chocolate that I could never eat!

Hello everybody!

Well, this past week has been GREAT and we were super productive (no baptisms, but we're working with the ward to strengthen the ward) because we had a CAR! It was so easy to make it to appointment, visit people who lived a long distance away, and AC. Oh the AC! You've got to love it especially when it's so hot out. UNfortunately, we have bikes this week.... Also, we live a long ways from anywhere (on a bike) and in a well-to-do neighborhood. We haven't had any luck tracting or street contacting, except for when this guy brought a pistol to the door, we were pretty lucky that we didn't get shot... Nah, he was pretty nice, it was just a little late (like 8:10) to be knocking on people's doors, but we talked with him a while and it turns out that his brother is a bishop over in SLC and his sister is a member in this area! That was pretty cool, but we haven't gotten the chance to talk with him again. We'll probably stop by sometime this week.

So one of the families that we're teaching right now just found the church again after moving to KCK from Colorado. The mom is from Liberia, and is a single mother with 5 children. I have major respect for her keeping her family so close together under such hard circumstances... I think that they have been not active in the church for a very long time though because it didn't seem like they remembered a whole lot, but the mom and her only (and oldest daughter who's turning 18 in a couple months) are extremely hard workers and both had great faith. She and her two oldest children have been baptized, but she has a 10-yr-old and an 9-yr-old son who we're teaching to prepare them to be baptized. I had no idea how hard it was to teach children! I have a ton of respect for teachers! I never could've guessed how hard it is to get them to focus one any one thing in particular! Still, we have had a couple of really great lessons with her and her daughter joined us this last time and it was really a great discussion and I feel like we helped them and I'm looking forward to meeting up with them again.


Oh, and at the end of the lesson, we left them with a big bag of candy (so that might have made them want us to come back! Haha hopefully not just for more candy though...). We actually didn't buy it, we had just come back from our dinner appointment... and let's just say that we might be getting really fat over the next couple weeks... We have about 10lbs of chocolate AT LEAST at our house right now! Last night we had a dinner appointment with the C's (a family in the ward) and she's a MARS distributor. So of course she had to send us home with some candy. No, not just some, but about enough to give us DIABETES. It's ridiculous. I'll include a picture of JUST the candy that I got. My companion got just as much! It's nuts! (We actually have peanut M&M's, peanut butter snickers, snickers, and almond M&M's now, so that's all kinds of nuts too! Sorry, bad pun...) Luckily we have bikes this week, so I'm hoping that I won't gain too much weight. We typically bike around 10 miles a day (with all of our gear), so we will see. I'm really really glad that I have a 3-liter camel pack because I would be DYING without it! I might get heat stroke like Elder D! (see previous emails) 

 So one day my companion was just feeling TERRIBLE and he ended up sleeping through all of our study time (I encouraged him to do it because he was throwing up and had a headache... not good news). Anyways, this is him after he woke up. Doesn't he look happy? I actually got around 2 1/2 hours of scripture study in. CRAZY RIGHT????? I had no idea that I could even focus on one thing for that long! Haha anyways the second picture a little longer of a story. So one night my companion was trying to make spaghetti, but we didn't have any pots or pans. So he uses the slow cooker! These noodles were HUGE! They soaked up so much water, and he was about to through them away, and I had a thought,'hey, those look like chicken noodle soup noodles'. Soooooo I ended up making chicken noodle soup! I put it all together and it actually doesn't taste that bad!

One last thing. I don't know if it is more frustrating to have people refuse to come to church, or to have them say that they will, and then not come. ESPECIALLY when you arrange for a ride to pick them up.. We had 9 less-active members and like 5 investigators who were GOING to come, but didn't end up there... Talk about frustrating. One of our investigators (who just dropped us) was super awesome to teach, but he didn't really want to meet with us anymore. We told him that he should at least attend church at least 1 time before he made that decision, but I guess that he just really did not want to come. We're going to keep checking up on him and seeing how he's doing and stuff, but I guess only time will tell. We can't force anyone to do anything.

Ok, last LAST thing. So after visiting one of the less-active families in the ward (one of those who said that they would be there... grrr...) Told us that we should just stop by her grandma's house to see how she's doing. Now her grandma is super active in the church and is actually a ward missionary! But we went and visited her anyways. Now before we go any further, her grandma is a ward missionary for the Kaw River ward. The reason why she's going to the Kaw River ward is because she only speaks SPANISH. SO that was a very interesting visit, but I am going to say that it was one of the most fun visits that we've made in the past week because it reminded me of home! (A little shout out to the Spanish Branch in Spokane!) She was this super tiny Latino lady and it reminded me so much of my abuelitas at home. We were able to communicate really well though (since Portuguese is so close to Spanish) and I ended up sharing my testimony, and she shared hers as well! (My companion was COMPLETELY lost since he didn't speak either language) I actually understood everything that she said, and I certainly hope that she understood what I was saying! I'm really looking forward to Brazil, but I'm having so many great experiences here!

Anyways, I love hearing from everyone throughout the week especially now that both of my addresses are out there! Hopefully I'll here from y'all soon! Tchau tchau!

Elder Colvin

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Cleaning Up....Moving Up


Elders D and Colvin in the new apt.
Oi from Kansas City!

Well, week 2 here has flown by! Unfortunately, the elders before me used up all the miles on the car that we shared, so we were biking for 2 weeks. Also, apparently it was the hottest 2 weeks that Kansas City has had ALL year! So I've just come to accept the fact that I'm going to sweat, so I might as well be happy as I do it. I am so grateful that my parents got me a 3 liter camel pack! I'm not going to lie (especially since I'm a missionary now) it is at least 25 lbs every morning, but I drink at least that much water every day, so I am really glad that I have it! My companion actually almost had a heat stroke and passed out one day! No joke! He was about ready to kick it when we made it to a member's house for dinner. (Sidenote: The members here are amazing! They find some way to feed 2 sets of elders in one ward every single night! It definitely makes shopping a lot easier!) Anyways, we pumped some more fluids into him and he got better after a while. After that, we actually went to the O's house (the little girl who was just baptized) and they gave us banana bread with vanilla ice cream. It was SO GOOD!!!! That's something that I'll definitely have to do more often. 


Elder M and district leader, Elder B
We have done a ton of finding, we lost a couple investigators, and we gained some. I guess that that's part of the work. We're working really hard and a lot of the people that we're teaching right now are going through some really tough times. P is getting evicted and we have no idea where she's going, and A (our new investigator who I'll write more about in a bit) is going to leave for prison in the next couple weeks for 5-7 months. We're constantly finding new people (who aren't necessarily interested, but don't tell us straight up), but there are these few people who we find who are so prepared to receive our message, it's uncanny. A is definitely one of those people.

A: Oh my gosh. So we received a referral from the H's (an excellent family in the ward who's constantly giving us people who MIGHT be interested), and he is the brother of a sister in the ward who just became reactivated recently, and she is... Interesting. All we knew going into this appointment with him was that he was her brother and that he was going to prison. Sooooo we were a little nervous. It turns out that he has always had kind of a troubled past, and that he was in a divorce a couple months ago that really put his head in a bad place. Anyways, during the past couple months he's been trying to get his head screwed on straight, making better choices, etc. So as we were meeting with him (we had a member present) We were just discussing church things with an emphasis on how we focus on becoming the best that you can be, and how we are here to help people. He said that one of the reasons that drew him into talking with us was because he knew that the Mormons (now he refers to us as Latter-day saints too.. Score!) were very open and receptive to all people. Anyways, he had lots of questions and we had lots of answers for him! As we were teaching he really seemed to understand the things that we were talking about, or if he didn't understand, he would ask questions. He is probably the most perfect example of someone who was lost and is now trying to find the way in life. Hopefully we can help him to find the way to happiness. He is very dedicated to learning more and more. He came to church on Sunday, we have already visited him twice in the past 5 days and are going over there again tonight. I can definitely already see a change in him and I can't really describe how I fell about all of this.. It's something that I could never have imagined without actually coming on a mission and experiencing it for myself.

That has to be my all-time favorite thing so far as being a missionary; seeing the change that comes about in someones life as they strive to become better. We've met people who don't want to necessarily join the church and be baptized, but that isn't our main focus as missionaries. I have discovered that our goal is to 'help others to come unto Christ'. I've learned that sometimes being baptized isn't something that some people need right away. Sometimes it's all we can do to try and help them to improve their overall quality of life. However, I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that the way to be the best that we can be, and emulate our Savior Jesus Christ is by being baptized and following His gospel. It isn't easy, but I have seen lasting peace, joy, and happiness come into people's lives as they embark on that journey. It may not be right away, but all journeys in life begin with a single step. We are here to help people to make those steps along the way. I sincerely hope that that is one lesson that will stick with me for the rest of my life, not just on my mission. 


Questions that we (the Family) have for you and Sister Colvin: His answers are in Green
1. How are you surviving the HEAT WAVE? The news says it is pretty bad!  We had the heat wave during our bike week. Shoot me. We were biking at least 10 miles a day in 85+ degree weather (in full missionary garb) soooo it was miserable. 2. Taylor, are you walking, biking, or driving? 3. Taylor, have you contracted fleas or rabies in your teaching appointments? 4. Garrison, did you get your bike seat? Does it help?  Do you have someone’s old bike, or how does that work?  I got my bike seat on the day that we switched over to a car, so I haven't gotten a chance to use it yet, but I'm sure that it'll be a lifesaver. Right now I am just using an old bike that works pretty well that some of the members donated to the missionaries.       5. Levi wants to let Garrison know that he is down to 175 lbs cause his muscles are wasting away laying in bed.  How is your weight challenge going?  Ugh. That kind of makes me depressed... Haha I hope that I am just getting stronger (and I actually think that I am now) but I am pretty consistently at 188ish lbs. Not too bad, but not too great. I look at myself, and I don't think that I'm that much fatter than I was, but I'm getting better. 6. Taylor, have you had problems keeping weight off? 7. HOW’S the toe? And the feet? 8. I am curious as to whether or not the packing list and method actually worked for you? 9. Do you get to listen to music?  The packing list has saved my life. I have only forgotten 2 things in all of my moves so far, and one of them wasn't on the list (it was the MTC water filtration system that they gave us... I left it there!) I also left the MP3 charger there too! I was kind of mad about that one, but my companion has a cord that charges it so it's all good for now. I would like that iHome speaker thing though, because these speakers are really weak for some reason...   Speaking of music... DAD WHY DID YOU PUT NOT APPROVED MUSIC ON MY MP3 PLAYER???? Haha I got to the end, and there was some rock-like (definitely not church) music... Our mission president allows any EFY music, classical music over 100 years old, hymns (not super jazzed up), Motab, and I think that's about it. So you should send me more sheet music!!! I would love to have some more fun songs to play. I'm starting to work on How Great Thou Art (and All Creatures of Our God and King is in the bag!). 10. Do you get to read church magazines?  Do you want me to sent you some?  Church magazines would be awesome!     11. Is there anything that you forgot that you wished that you had? 12. How do you send emails when the library is closed on federal holidays?  That's the reason why I'm emailing today!!  13. Are Sundays extra tiring on your mission? (Levi’s question)  So far, no, but fast sunday was HARD! We do a full 24 hour fast, but we do a lot of work on sundays! We have to get to the church by 7:30 for ward council meeting, and then we proselyte/visit people after church. I like it a lot though. We have 2 sets of elders in our ward, so we have plenty of missionaries. 14. How are you getting along with your companions?  So far my companion is great, he's really smart (34 on the ACT and going on a full tuition scholarship to BYU) and he knows the area really well. Which is a HUGE blessing because I would get lost SO fast here! There are literally NO landmarks. We get along pretty well. 15. How did the move for Garrison go, or did it go?  The move went great, but it took up 2 days (so we didn't get a lot of mission-related goals done, but we cleaned up the apartment after 6 years of elders (not pretty). 16. How does the whole meal thing go for you, do you fix breakfast for yourselves/companions? How many nights a week do you get meals from members?  We now get to feed the missionaries every night in the Spokane mission!  We make breakfast and lunch for ourselves, but so far we have been fed by members EVERY night. 2 sets of missionaries in the ward, and the members feed both sets, EVERY night, I love it. 17. What has been the most surprisingly easy thing for you to adjust to on your mission? Really, I've been surprised at how easy the whole transition has gone. I haven't really had any difficulty making the change except for # 18. 18. What has been the most surprisingly hard thing for you to adjust to? Not playing ANY games except on P-day, and planning out every day. 19. What are some of your unique mission rules? (another Levi question) Unique mission rules... I guess one thing (not really a rule) is that when missionaries leave, the mission president has a meeting with all of the leaving missionaries AT ADAM-ONDI-AHMAN! I think that's awesome, and I hope that he'll do that for me too.... But we'll see. 20. Do you get to read any blogs online on your pday? Have you seen your own blogs? Nope, no blogs for us! Kind of sad, but we really don't have that much time.
Anyways, back to Kansas City, it's been great fun, I've met great people, and I'm having fun. (Who said that work couldn't be fun?) It's definitely an experience that I will never forget, and already (in just the 8 weeks that I've been gone) I have learned so much and felt things that I know that I could never feel if I was back home. It is a really amazing experience and I am truly blessed.

Elder Colvin

Apartment pictures:
My second week in the field, we spent 2 days cleaning my old apartment that had housed elders for the past 6 years (unspeakable filth), and moving into a member's "basement" apartment/missionary mansion. 

Old Kitchen
Refer filth - inside was worse!
Interesting wall paper
Let's just say that it was a vertical move: My mother has already told me that this is wayyyy too nice of a place for elders to live in, and I agree.  I am doing all that I can short of being the nanny to keep this place clean.
Entertainment center with temple TV
The Big Comfy Couch
Weight training
P-Day paradise

Sun room orange tree
Too nice for Elders

Kitchen
Big Bathroom!
Can't seem to get the comp to make his bed.