Senior NINJA WARRIORS!!!

American Ninja Warrior features hundreds of competitors attempting to complete series of obstacle courses of increasing difficulty in various cities across the United States, in hopes of advancing to the national finals on the Las Vegas Strip and becoming the season's "American Ninja Warrior.

The Senior Ninja Warriors feature thousands of senior missionaries attempting to complete a series of tasks of increasing difficulty in various missions across the church, in hopes of advancing and blessing the lives of others and becoming the best Senior Ninja missionary possible! 

We had a lot to do this week.  The sister's started painting succor rod fences on Monday morning.  We did this by dipping our mitts into paint and then coating the fence surface grey.  Part of the project required us to wade through deep grass, as we worked to cover every part of the fence (post, conjunction, rods).  There was a lot of fence and each time we were blessed with a breeze, we lifted our heads and thanked the Lord.  We began around 6:30a.m. and finished up around 10:00am.  Hot and sweaty, I wiped the paint from my arms and could hear my mother saying,  "Many hands make light work".

The elders have just about finished up the barn, sealed all the holes in the roof and built another huge door and put it on rollers.  The inside has been transformed, they put angle iron around each pillar and cemented around where the pillars had rotted out.  You can see where they replaced rotted wood by the lighter color in the rafters.  Then they used a tractor to grade the floor.  

Our next task (for the sisters) was to clean the Hunter's Lodge and fix it up a bit.  Sounds simple enough, right?  Not so!  The lodge had three bathrooms and I was charged with cleaning the worst one.  The rusty ring around the back of this toilet shows the color of the tub and toilet bowl.  Hard water stained and rusty, required me to use feet (shoes) in the tub and used my larger muscle group to scrub (and scrub and scrub). A pumice stone in the toilet bowl worked wonders (don't worry, I was wearing gloves).  In the end I was victorious over the rust! (A true Warrior, showing courage in the face of thick, stubborn rust deposits that have probably been there for decades!)

Only a small amount of rust remains on the wall and around the drain (my legs didn't reach that high). We hung curtains, scrubbed out the kitchen vacuumed and decorated (and the elders helped us on the hard stuff)

One of the biggest challenges this week for Elder Himle was removing the bark from the pillars on this porch (the insects were burrowing into it).  Getting the bark off was no easy task.  He came home with sawdust crusted arms (sweat + dust = near cement).  I suggested that he go outside and brush off and he informed me that it wasn't coming off... so off to the shower!

Varnishing is all that is left to complete.

We served at Christ's cupboard (distributing food to the needy) two mornings this week. One of the sisters gave swimming lessons to the McClain girls (who up to now were terrified of water).  The girls are no longer afraid.  So service looks different from one person to another.

A pastor invited us to sing at his church with his congregation last night and enjoy pot luck afterwards).   None of us-- and I mean none of us are stellar singers, but the significance of being invited was humbling and we are looking forward to getting to know a few in the community.  I took this small video (after noticing others in their congregation doing the same).

In two weeks, one of the couples return home to Pocatello Idaho.  We will miss them.  Another couple is coming in a few days.  So on Monday we sisters will clean the hunters lodge (where the new couple will stay) until their new place is vacated.

Signs

I've talked about signs before, and here are a few more that I took from my car.

Coming Up

In September, Dave Anderson is coming up and will sing and entertain on three separate nights for the Cedar Vale Kansas community (night one), the cowboys and friends in the community on the other nights.  We are excited and looking forward to giving back through this friend of one of the missionary couples.  So many different ways to serve!

God comforts and blesses me daily through the creation.  I love him and I know he is aware of me!