We stayed in South Bend, IN after leaving Tearsa’s and got to drive around Notre Dame campus. Seeing different sport stadiums is always high on Rod’s list and this was no exception. It is a beautiful campus, rich in history and tradition.
We drove all the way to Buffalo, NY the next day and crossed the border at Peace Bridge. It took us a couple of hours to get across and get our Visa’s. Everyone’s experience of getting Visas is a little bit different. Our border person could not understand how we could be ministers without getting paid and without going to school to become one. We finally told him we each attended four year of seminary and that seemed to appease him.
We stayed the night in Brampton in a Holiday Inn arranged by the mission office. Since we had no phones we could use, we just drove to the mission office the next day and met the crew there.
The out-going couples are the Caldwell’s from Lehi area and the Rees’s from Wayne County area. Sister Caldwell was the mission secretary so she had three days to train me on that. Elder and Sister Rees stayed for another week. He was the fleet coordinator and she was the mission nurse. They had about 10 days to teach us all they knew. They are all wonderful people and we grew to love them in the short time we had to get to know them. We wish we could have served with them longer.
We got here following a 3 day ice storm. Every tree, limb and bush were covered in a thick layer of crystal ice. The poor trees couldn’t take the weight and thousands of trees had branches that were broken off onto the ground. We were able to stay the next night in our apartment at 6 Silver Maple Court, but we had to go to Wal Mart on Christmas Eve and buy bedding, dishes, pots, pans, etc. etc. Then a main water pipe broke and we were without water for the next 4 days. We ended up staying one night back at the motel so we could shower and wash our hair. We were grateful we had electricity and were warm because thousands of people were without electricity for several days. We live on the 10th floor and can look out our window and see the spire of the temple in the distance. .
