Sister Howard's Last Companion in Ukraine

I'm having a hard time sleeping tonight (it's 2 AM). I think it's because I'm so excited that our Sarah is coming home in a week! Hope to see many of you at her homecoming on August 9th. Be safe if you are travelling far. Love, Jeri

TAYLORSVILLE TALES IN JULY

There's a lot of work to be done at our house. Thanks to Jared and Lee we learned how to lay down laminate flooring.

This is what the kitchen floor looked like before Lee tore it out. Candace is working in the background. We appreciated the help!!!

Before Lee, Karyn, Zachary and Emily arrived to Utah, Whitney and her cousin, Jade, flew in to attend EFY at Utah State in Logan. They came to the Choir broadcast on Sunday before it started.

Here they are ready for their week at the dorms.

While Whitney and Jade were having their fun, the rest of us had some fun at Bear Lake. We had famous raspberry shakes with our lunch and did some water jet skiing. Grandma (me) was happy just to enjoy the sunshine and watch.

We walked the 800 or so steps inside Minnetonka Cave which is a cool 40 degrees. We enjoyed having this part of our family together for a week. Thanks for coming!

CHOIR TOUR

I got back over a week ago from the Central States Choir Tour. It was mostly bus riding from one town to the next. We sang 7 concerts in 13 days. This is Karen Barker and I in a city bus in St. Louis seeing some sights.

There was some pretty amazing scenery. This was taken from my bus seat, who knows where, at sunset.

I got to sing with a group of about 20 at a care center and two other groups sang in two other locations for older folks. It was very special. Our new associate director, Ryan Murphy, is on the far right in this picture.
We stopped at historical sites in Winter Quarters, Nauvoo, Kanesville, and Independence. I thought about our Bingham and Mortensen ancestors who crossed the plains and went through so much for us.

My roomate, Sylvia, and I had a lot of fun together.

The Choir had a photo shoot in St. Louis with their famous arch in the background. We had to stand in the same spot on a grassy hill for about an hour and a half singing the same 2 songs over and over again while the camera crew took pictures and videos. Then from above, a helicopter flew around and took more pictures. We had another photo shoot by the Missouri River.

In fact, camera crews were everywhere we went. They are putting together a 5-part series of a documentary about the tour.

In one of our dressing areas Beth Elmer and I found a couple of massage tables and made good use of them before a concert. It paid off.

In Kanesville I found plaques naming the Mormon Batallion companies and guess who was in Company B? Erastus and his first son, Thomas Bingham.

I visited the Murrah Federal Building site in Oklahoma City that got bombed in 1995. This is the tree of hope that survived in the middle of the memorial.

There is a field of chair-type markers for each of the 168 lost persons. The children lost had smaller chairs.

My favorite concert location was the Red Rocks amphitheatre outside Denver, CO. The scenery was breathtaking.

These seats were filled plus others totalling over 15,000 in the surrounding hills. President Monson made a surprise visit and came to the concert.

We gave each other back rubs on the bus as the end drew near. It was an enjoyable trip but we were glad to be back in Salt Lake City again. For more pictures and news about our tour, go to http://www.mormontabernaclechoir.org/.

UPDATE

Hello. We have moved to Taylorsville now and it takes tons of time to get situated. So we don't have the camera port set up yet and I will send pictures later. I thought I needed to let you all know right away that Sarah's return date is moved up two weeks to August 4th. Hopefully, that won't be a problem for those of you planning to travel here (Mom and Dad). The bishop hasn't given us a date yet for her talk in sacrament meeting. We just went to our ward yesterday for the first time. There are a couple of other missionaries coming home Aug. 4 and she had the choice to go early so she could get registered for classes at the "U". Less than a month away!

Lee's family arrived here yesterday. We will be taking Whitney and her cousin, Jade Silvan, to EFY at Utah State today and then doing some things at Bear Lake area.

The Choir Tour was very fun and tiring. Seven concerts in 13 days from Cincinnati to Denver. The audiences were packed and very responsive. We visited some Church history sites in Winter Quarters, Kanesville, and Independence on our way. We drove for fourteen hours by bus on our longest day. I will post pictures in a few day or so. Love to you all! Jeri