May 14, 1984 Billings, Montana

Dearest Roy; Bob, Claire, Michael & Laura; Rick, Ricky, Barbara Jean & Mary Ann and Ron, Ann, Susanna, Jessie, Russell & LeeAnna,

I am writing my letter on Monday again - we didn't get home from Stevensville until about nine last night and there just wasn't time to do it last night.

Thank you all so much for making my Mother's Day such a Happy one - I really appreciate hearing for each one of you and it just makes all of this so worthwhile when we know we have a loving family that supports us. I hope it was a wonderful day for Grandmother Forrest and for Ann, Jean and Claire too - I have always said it seems so strange to be honored for doing and being the thing you would choose to do above everything else (dumb sentence!)!!! I really love being your Mother and I'm so proud of everything you stand for. We had planned to go out to dinner with Johnny last night and be together as a family but they had called a special missionary meeting after the conference in Stevensville so we didn't leave there until 2 0'clock and it is a six and a half hour drive back to Billings - we called John and told him to go eat without us! Right after we got back the house Elders brought a cake up to the apartment - they had made a decorated a cake for Mother's Day so we had cake and ice cream. It was so funny, they couldn't find a cake decorator (we don't have one) so they emptied the honey out of the squeeze honey jar and put their frosting in that to decorate with. Many of the Elders out in the field and also quite a few who have gone home sent cards and some even called to wish me a Happy Mother's Day - they are really thoughtful young men (some of them!)

Elder Kichuchi (from Japan) was the visiting authority in Stevensville and he is very possessive of his time - at one of the conferences we were, where he presided, he called on Daddy to talk and then stood right by him so he wouldn't take too much time. Well, yesterday at 11 o'clock the Stake President announced that Elder Kichuchi would be the concluding speaker. He went to the microphone and said, "Since, it is Mother's Day". I just about died!!! I am always prepared with a little talk on missionary work and my first thought was "What can I say fast"! I really bombed - if he would have just have given me a few minutes to get my thoughts collected. Their new Stake Center was completely filled and it is huge! That is gorgeous country - reminds us a lot of Arkansas except that the climate is better.

Claire - we loved your wonderful letter. I can't believe that you are the Stake Homemaking Counselor with your little family but you will be fabulous and I agree that it would be fun to work with an "organized" President like you say yours is. My visiting teachers just came to visit and they brought me the cutest Mother's Day gift - it is a coupon holder and it is fabric covered cardboard with envelopes inside - it looks very complicated to make but they said it was really easy. It is similar to a large one Sharon Dunn gave to all the Mission President's wives at one of our seminars. Anyway, if you would like the pattern let me know and I'll try to get it for you. Sometimes those ideas aren't new by the time I see them so you may have already made them. You are serving double duty to have this calling in your Ward too. I think it is just great for you to be involved in Relief Society like that because they have such good nurseries now and your children are well cared for and have a fun experience. We hope you have fun when you go to Little Rock - who will you stay with? I think Skylar is gone now, isn't she? We surely hope you get your car soon - it's hard to put up with salesmen who promise things they can't live up to.

It was fun talking to you last night Roy and you really sound happy and that makes us so happy! Now that Johnny is getting ready to go to college my thoughts go back to the times when each one of you have left home. I felt so comfortable about Bob, Ann & Jean going because they were really going to where Daddy and I have always called home and they would be around family BUT, with Roy it was entirely different - a completely new environment and among strangers. He talked to me about that last night and said if he had it to do over again he would do it the same way even though it was really hard - that made me feel good! I KNOW Johnny could not go that far away right now - in fact, he may have hard time just going to Utah. It will be a real adjustment for him to have roommate - he has had his own room and bathroom for a long time all to himself. Roy also said that he and Bob have been on the bottom of the ladder this year in their internship and next year will be an easier step - I know they have to do a lot of menial work in the hospitals and get called at all hours of the day and night - WE'RE SURELY PROUD OF YOU BOTH!!!

My visiting teachers this morning had the grand daughter of one of them with them and she is 18 months old - she was the busiest little girl and I tried to imagine what it is going to be like to have Ricky, Barji and Mary Ann here with us. We're going to Cody to pick them up on July 2 (Jeannie, after talking to Daddy we decided that would be better than the 3rd). That is our P-Day and it is a little easier for Daddy to leave the office that day and besides we think it would be better to get them settled down a day before our new missionaries come in. We will have four new lady missionaries come in on the 4th along with some Elders - that will work out good because they will be more likely to help than the Elders. Your yard is going to be so pretty with all the new trees - that's a lot of work!

I just about called you this morning Annie after watching the news - they had a lot about the flooding in Provo. I'll bet your friends and former neighbors who bought that terrifically expensive home down in the river bottoms are frightened. Have you watched that Black politician leader who is trying to help Jesse Jackson get elected? He said this morning that the reason for the floods, pestilence, earthquakes, etc. is because the Lord is unhappy with the way the people are treating oppressed - he likened it to Moses and the Pharaoh. I always jump on the "rebound trampoline" and watch the news and that's the only time I am aware of what is going on and that was quite scary today to me because I know how the Blacks in Arkansas react to think like that. Utah and their flooding problems always make the National News.

Last Wednesday we received five new Elders into the Mission Field. We had eighteen for dinner and lunch - fixed potato and fruit salad for lunch and let them fix their own ham sandwiches and I made cookies for dessert - for dinner we had tostados and ice cream and they love that. On Thursday we had three missionaries who had completed their missions come into the home for dinner and to spend the night before leaving the next morning. Daddy made the best beef stroganoff I have ever eaten. I had made a lot of "cookie mix" and I spent all morning making cookies - that is also transfer day and there are a million missionaries coming through the home all day. I'll bet I made five hundred cookies - all different kinds!!! We had a fireside that night and what cookies that were left we used for that.
I have decided to make cookies whenever I have a free minute and freeze them because they take a lot of time and we really need a lot of them ALL the time. We had beef stroganoff over rice, fruit salad, green beans, hot rolls and cake and ice cream for dinner Thursday night. Friday I spent all day cleaning house and doing the laundry from all the beds that wee used. Daddy and I counted the beds the other day and there are twenty-three beds and eight bathrooms in this house!!!!

Saturday we left Billings at 5 o'clock in the morning to got to Missoula for our zone conference there that afternoon. It was so funny - when we got in Missoula, right on the outskirts of town, we saw two Elders who wee having trouble with their car and the car was new. Daddy pulled over to help them and found it was out of gas - he teased them about the new cars really being special BUT they did have to have gas and it made one of the Elders mad. This Elder is twenty-seven years old and is having a hard time taking direction from those who are nineteen and he is kinda' on edge. We got fifteen new cars in last week and the price of them is right close to $9,000 each - the church really has a lot of money in cars and mission homes!!

The Stake President of one of the Billings Stakes has daughter who is going to get married on May 26th. She came over to the Mission Home and asked if she could have the wedding here so Daddy gave her permission to go on with her plans. Last week we received an invitation to it and then she came over to talk to me about some of the arrangements and they have invited 500 people to the reception and 150 to the wedding. They plan to have it in the backyard if the weather is good but if it has to be held in the house it is really going to be a problem. Daddy and I have to got to Kalispell that weekend so we won't be here but I am going to have to make sure everything is in order for it - like bathrooms cleaned plus the kitchen, etc., etc.,! The yard is beautiful but the Elders really have to work at it to keep it that way. They are having the reception all catered so they won't be using the stove or things like that. She is a darling girl and she's so excited - she just bought her dress and it has a long train and he sisters will be her bridesmaids. They will have a string ensemble play the wedding march.

That's all the news! We love each one of you so very much and really do miss you. PLEASE BE CAREFUL IN EVERYTHING YOU DO and let us know how we can help you!!!
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