Curt herniated some disks on January 2, 2010. We don’t know how it happened. I was teasing Curt that it was caused by our trip to the waterfall at Canela where we had to hike down and then back up 767 steel stairs. But it was probably something more like all of the flips that he used to do on skis combined with his age.

He had a lot of pain on the week of January 4th so he cancelled the Zone Conferences for that week. All of the missionaries started praying for him, and that really did the trick. He didn’t have any more pain after that. An MRI showed a badly herniated disk and after we talked things over with the doctors we decided that we needed to go back to Utah for surgery.

We had our Transfer week of February 15th. We welcomed 17 new missionaries into our mission. We said welcome, we’re sorry but we have to leave for a while. It was probably a very strange thing for those brand new missionaries. Curt and Danielle and I flew to Utah on February 17th-18th. It was wonderful to see our parents and brothers and sisters.

The surgery was on February 23rd. Everything went great, and we only stayed one night in the hospital. Then we stayed at Curt’s sister Janet’s home to recuperate.

After the first week Justin and Angela, Tanner and Lily, drove up from San Diego to see us. It was wonderful to have them there. Angela prayed for snow, and we got about 8-10 inches of wonderful snow. Tanner and Lily loved it!








Here is a morning shot of Danielle with her fabulous foxy new hairstyle. You can imagine how glamorous she is after she is actually awake.

Justin and Angela were expecting their third baby in April, and Claire was born on April 9th

Our next visit was a fast and furious week-end with Josh and Meagan. Danielle and I even got to enjoy a baby shower for Meagan while we were there. We are all anxiously anticipating the arrival of Bennett around May 18th. Sorry Josh and Meagan, we didn't take any photos while we were together. We were having too much fun playing games.

We got to meet our newest grandson, Parker, Nick and Tricia’s son. He sure is a cutie he has a very happy temperament and great big dimples when he smiles.

March 22, 2010, Curt's surgeon gave him the green light and we headed back to our mission in Brazil. We were anxious to get back to work with our missionaries and be busy again.

The best thing about being in Utah was spending time with our children, grandchildren, my Mother, Curt's Dad, our brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, friends and neighbors. The worst thing about being here was missing our missionaries. We are anxious to go back and see how they are doing.

It was wonderful to stay at Janet's beautiful home. She was so good to us. It was fun to eat some of the foods that we missed: Fritos, Dairy Queen Blizzards, black olives, hot cocoa, happy cake, good seafood from Red Lobster, Chinese food from the Asian Star, and good movie popcorn.

We loved seeing the beautiful mountains of Utah with snow on the peaks and the blue sky above. We loved seeing all of the Temples: Provo, Timpanogos, Draper, Oquirr Mountain, Jordan River, Salt Lake, Bountiful.

We enjoyed watching the Olympics, and some of the BYU basketball games. We had fun eating girl scout cookies from Janelle and Angela.

We loved attending our home ward, and seeing all of our wonderful friends and neighbors that we love so much.

We loved meeting with Curt's former Mission President, Lynn A. Sorensen, and giving a mission report. We had fun talking to former missionary companions of Curt about the mission and inviting them to come serve.

We enjoyed playing in the snow with Tanner and Lily, Justin and Angela, We enjoyed going to Meagan's baby shower, and helping Josh and Meagan ship their baby things to Santa Clara. We loved meeting Parker, and playing games with Nick and Tricia. It was so good to spend some more time with Danielle and help her to get things settled for going back to BYUI.

We had a lot of mixed feelings the next couple of days. We were very thrilled to be able to go back to Brazil to finish our mission. But it was extremely hard to say goodbye a second time to our children, parents and brothers and sisters. As we spend time away from home, the things of home become so much more precious to us. We are not sure why we had to interrupt our mission to go home in this way, but having to say goodbye a second time was very difficult. We just keep thinking that the sooner we leave, the sooner we will be back home with family again.

Now that we are back in Brazil, the whole Utah visit seems like a dream. We are happy to be here serving the Lord, and watching over His missionaries.