Weeks 68 - 75

October 16 - December 17, 2023

This video (CLICK ON THIS SENTENCE TO VIEW) was presented to us at our Institute Closing Social. Our dear institute director, Spencer Knowles, worked on this for hours. The tears started flowing as soon as we read the first line, which refers to when we received our mission call.  It took several weeks for us to get our call and we began to resign ourselves to a stateside mission instead of the European missions we preferred. The night before we received our call, Elder Perona said, "I don't know, we'll probably go to some place like Columbus Ohio". The next day we received our call ....... to Columbus Ohio!

Our mission has come to an end! We will be starting our journey home on December 18th. We are going to miss looking up at this "sea of beautiful faces". 

We will miss the ancestors I "discovered" from Ohio and Pennsylvania that I had never thought about before. We will miss serving in the same state as my first cousin, John Sowards and his wife Cindy.

I will miss the family graveyards and homesteads we visited, and all the people in central Ohio that are probably my relatives. 

We will miss visiting, what we call, Book of Mormon sites, (Native American burial mounds). Many scholars believe Ohio is the land of some Lamanite and Nephite geography. We have enjoyed being closer to the roots of the Book of Mormon.

We will miss this guy hanging from a roof! On our first day in Ohio, as we were driving to our apartment, we saw him dressed in a hat and nice clothes. We kept saying, "We should take a picture of that." Fast forward about 18 months and we finally took that picture. A week later he was no longer there. 

We will miss taking our morning walks by our apartment....

and the strange to us Ohio weather and beautiful cloud formations....

and the beautiful seasons of Ohio. 

We will miss the Christmas lights of the Upper Arlington neighborhood that we drive through every day

We will REALLY miss the price of gas in central Ohio. We aren't looking forward to California prices.

We will miss driving to the institute building everyday.

We will miss preparing meals for the holidays.....

and making special memories as we spent holidays away from family....

with hungry missionaries and those who couldn't go home.

I will even miss making my french bread which became quite a staple at most of our meals...

especially at our BYU Devotional classes on Tuesday afternoons. 

We will also miss teaching our institute class during the week. We just completed The Eternal Family. Such an inspired class curriculum!

We will NOT miss doing the dishes and cleaning up! (Unless there are students helping and then it becomes a wonderful bonding experience.) Do you notice that there is no stovetop in the kitchen? Do you see the big pot on the hot plate to the left? That was our "stove", so we had to get pretty creative in our meal preparation.

We will miss trips to the temple ..........

with YSA's who perform saving ordinances for their ancestors. 

We will miss baptizing our friends!

It looks like we all got the memo this Sunday to wear green dresses and jean jackets! I will miss the delightful women whose husbands served in the Bishoprics of the two YSA wards we attended each week.......

and we will miss Brother Moarefdoust's Persian food!

We will miss our annual Pride and Prejudice "Chick Flick" Day! We enjoyed the five hour movie while Elder Perona made all the delectables seen below. 

But what we are REALLY going to miss are all the beautiful people pictured below! We love them dearly! We could write volumes about each one...their joys, triumphs, trials, strengths, talents, jobs  families, dreams and aspirations, testimonies, etc. We feel like we truly got to know each one individually. We have made life long and eternal friendships with them. 

We will miss YSA's who can take much better 0.5 pictures than we can ......

and diligent, hardworking OSU missionaries we have loved serving with.....

 The stalwart members of the YSA 1st Ward.....

and couples that come by for a visit. (We pat ourselves on the back for being the catalyst that got these two together!)

We will miss all the "Pillars" of the ward"......

and the "shakers and movers" of the ward......

and faithful YSA 2nd ward members....

and these two that brought such joy and laughter to the institute!

We will miss talented, educated women that have a lot to offer this world...

and new students that bring energy to the group every semester.  

We will miss her farm fresh eggs and goat milk soap......

and all the missionaries who return home to Ohio and join us for a bit before heading out to one of the BYU's....

and those making major sacrifices to live the gospel.

We will miss the numerous lunches with dear friends......

and taking YSA's to the Kirtland Church History sites like the John Johnson farm pictured here. 

We will miss mighty men of valor.....

and those from foreign countries who come to America to gain an education with the desire to return to their country to build the kingdom of God in their land.

We will miss the many connections Sister Perona can make to Manassa, CO, the San Francisco Bay Area, and distant relatives in central Ohio.....

and those who looked out for us and made us feel welcome........

singing in the YSA 2nd ward choir....

eating authentic Italian Gelato with friends.....

and did we mention feeding "the five thousand" on many occasions?

We will miss FHE activities and just hanging-out with the gang......

Senior couples and young missionaries returning home with honor.....

hanging out at the "water cooler" with our friends.....

and Sister Perona's homemade hot chocolate - they will no longer settle for Swiss Miss!

We will miss the Marysville gang.....

and what would we have done without these cousins?

and those who are consistently here! 

We will miss our after church conversations...

 our PhD students and weather meteorologists......

and solid YSA who are building the kingdom......

and bonding relationships......

and holidays.....

 

and baptism celebrations for those who gave up their prior lives to follow Christ.

We will miss our after-class gatherings...

and our OSU athletes...

and Family Home Evening Activities...

that help the institute be a wonderful gathering place for like minded members of the church.

We will miss stake and ward leaders who are involved in the lives of the YSA...

and winning at pool...LOL.

We will miss cute freshmen...

and seasoned students.

We will miss being present and available to those we love!

We will miss shared spiritual experiences and temple visits.....

 end of the semester graduation ceremonies...

and feeding, and feeding, and feeding.

We will miss our sacred office space where we listened, loved, lifted, cried, blessed, laughed, learned, healed, and built relationships

We will miss seeing relationships turn into eternal marriage....

for many of our dear friends!

We will miss the ultimate Institute graduation!

What a wonderful way to spend our last P-day, seeing this beautiful couple sealed for eternity in the Columbus, Ohio temple. 

We will miss our mentor, spiritual leader, boss, teacher, and friend, Spencer Knowles...

and our annual "Christmas Reception" with Brother Knowles and institute secretary, Becky Christofferson. (BTW if you have a Torchy's Taco place near you -- GO.)

The Ohio State University believes that they are the undisputed way. But we know from 2 Nephi 32:5 that Jesus Christ is THE "undisputed" way.

What really let us know that we were close to leaving was when the mission office called and asked us for our final testimony for the mission newsletter. It was then that we realized time was running out.

We will miss everyone and everything about our mission here in The Ohio. What we won't miss is that we are all brothers and sisters in the gospel and that we will, eventually, be reunited again for the eternities.