Surgery and Syrup...

First of all... a little update on the MOLE story... Trent had a surgery on one of the BAD moles on Friday... This one went better than the first one I think. He definitely didn't have as much pain and the scar will be smaller. So YAY for that! Thanks to everyone's thoughts and prayers!

WARNING!!! Graphic picture of scar and bandage and Trent's back!

You can see the BIG scar on his shoulder from the first surgery, a litle scar,  and the bandage from yesterday. Mike and I watched the procedure while the surgeon told us stories about Dante, purgatory and the hot fiery place (but he used the real word) and about how we should NOT visit Naples Italy! Very interesting... we just smiled and nodded and then just busted out laughing when we got in the car! Very nice surgeon... crazy conversation!

NEXT... here is my new breakfast discovery!... It pays to watch the food channel sometimes. We watched Throw Down with Bobby Flay and he was at a restaurant that made blueberry pancakes and MAPLE BUTTER SYRUP!!!! That syrup looked SOOOOOOOO good ... even better than the pancakes... that I had to look it up on the internet. It's SOOOO easy and SOOOOOOO yummy! WANT the recipe?!?!?! Do ya?!?!? Here it is:

1 cup maple syrup (I just used what I had on hand, not any fancy kind, just Aunt Jemimah)
4 Tablespoons REAL butter ... it has to be REAL butter!

Heat together in a pan and stir or whisk til it's thick and gooey. That's it... very easy...Pour on your pancakes while it's warm! I tell ya it's SO good I could drink it!

Busy in Brazil...

Here is the latest from Brazil. Sounds like Brandon is keeping busy! He is a man of few words but we can feel his excitement in his email!

Oi Família,There´s big news this week. President Tobias was here with his family to pay us a visit this week. It was cool, we ate dinner with them friday night and we also ate lunch with them on saturday at a fancy resturante. He came by to do some re-organizing in the branch. He didn´t move much around. He and sister gave a training sat. night to give the branch excitment. We didn´t get to listen because we had to watch over the kids. Afterward we all ate pizza and we didn´t get home until 10:40 at night. I felt like mom because i was soo tired at 11 at night. Then he did a baptism interview for us at 7 in the morning on sunday and we´ll be baptizing Wanderson on the 20th!!! He´s been an investigator for 4 years!! And when president drove us home sunday morning he told us that i will be the new 2nd counslor and elder wride the young mens president. Since then we have been WAY busy. Carnival is this week and we have just about nothing planned for an activity. Carnival is like Mari Gras, and this city is a huge tourist city because of the river and the waterfalls so there will be parties non-stop from this friday night till tuesday. And there is no valentine´s day for anyone that doesn´t know. That´s about it. It was also really wierd to see president and sister tobias in normal clothes. I almost forgot, Today we founf out who will be our new mission pesident at the end of june. His name is Ramon Cesar Catherini Prieto and his wife´s Elza Mari Gurres Prieto. We´re assuming they´re brazilians but their names are a bit strange. That´s it see you all later.


here´s some pics of some huge hills, i don´t know if it shows in the pics but we had to climb some major hills this week. A pic of part of the city, you have to zoom in to see the bridges and we live right next to the one on the left. The left side of the river is Goiás and the right side is mato grosso, two different states, our area consist of 3 cities and 2 states. And the other pic is some parrots eating, there´s a bunch of these things that fly around here.

4 more...

Poor Trent... he had 4 more moles cut out today. We're gearing up for the surgery on Friday. Another big cut like the first one. YUK... I hope everyone has gotten their moles checked!

Superbowl!

Today was our annual Superbowl party hosted by Erin! We had LOTS of food and fun. I wasn't too impressed by the commercials and The Who looked REALLY old and I didn't watch too much of the game but I know the Saints won... but I had a LOT of fun playing with the kids eating YUM food and just being with the fam. Dustin even called before the game to remind me he was here last year! Here are some highlights:                                                                

Always fun times when we get together. I hope everyone had a great Superbowl day!

the last game...

Well... tonight was the last game of young men's basketball for our family... we'll have to wait a few more years for the second generation basketball players. BUT... tonight was the CHAMPIONSHIP game and we WON second place... OK OK... that's just a nice way to say we lost, but our team did awesome so I still say we won second place! Here are a few Trent highlights:

Some of the fam

Ty with a WAY sweaty Trent

I was a little nervous (OK a LOT nervous) during the game... but Trent played great and didn't get injured too badly (remember all the cuts and surgery and stitches? I'm sure the doctors would not have approved) and I only panicked a couple times.

Great game Monterey Ward! 

Pics and the latest from Brazil

Hey whats up?I tried to send videos of the capoeira but it didn´t work. We had a baptism this week and it was great. His name is felipe and he´s 11. His sisters are already members and now we are working with the rest of the family. President tobias is coming here this week too. But this week it rained alot and also it was super hot yesterday. The news i got from you guys this week was almost all bad news, holy crap. I hope everything gets better. Is dustin going back to afganistan or to iraq this time? But this week was a good week for me, i´m still healthy and 100%. But a wierd thing happened to my comp´s eye this week, he thinks its from the hot sun but his eye turned all red and swollen and hurting. That´s about it, baptism, hot, and hopefully we´ll have another baptism this next week too. See you later.

here are some pics of capoeira( a form of fighting but it´s more like a dance because there is no contact) our baptism Felipe, the other pic has his sisters and the branch president´s wife.

Here´s a tucan too but he turned his head when i took the pic.

Bad bad moles...

Ugh...NOT the news I wanted to hear today... Trent got three more mole biopsies back and they were all bad. He has to go to a specialist now and have more surgery. Hopefully we can get this cleared up soon. In the meantime... please go get your moles checked!