Pioneer Day

Allen and I went to the Pioneer Parade on Friday morning. We left home around 6:15 a.m. or so. We went to our regular place at 330 South 200 East, where there is an old apartment building with trees in front. There is shade for the entire parade, and plus there was a nice breeze blowing. The parade was excellent, of course. 148 entries, the most popular of which were the military entries. I heard nothing but cheers and applause, and everyone was standing up to show their approval. I found it inspiring and have to admit, got a little teary. Yay for the pioneers! Thanks to them for the beautiful city we live in, and the dedication and courage they showed in coming here to live in freedom.

Doin' the happy dance!

Today I saw Dr. Litton at the Cancer Center. He said the chest x-ray from Monday shows IMPROVEMENT. The little feather-looking things at the bottom of the scan from May 26 have shrunk, there is no fluid, no growth near the lymph nodes, no new nodules. So we are full speed ahead, continue on Tarceva, it is doing its job to improve and maintain. I'll have another chest x-ray next month, and we will plan on a PET scan in 6 months. I thanked him and gave him a hug! He said I just picked the medication, somebody else did all the rest. Someday I'm going to tell him about President Callister's blessing and how we know he was guided to pick the right chemo cocktail for me.

Luke 1:37 For with God nothing shall be impossible.

Liebe Schwester

The other day I came across a very old wedding invitation as I was sorting out some files. It was from one of the sisters from the mission days, her name was Sister Brown. We had been in the LTM together for part of our stays there, she was about a month ahead of me. Then during the mission, we were never companions but we had companions we shared. Plus since there were so few of us sisters, we became really close and had very wonderful relationships. So I decided to look her up on Facebook now that I had her married name again. Anyway, it was really slick, she came right up, with a picture, and I knew I had the right person. So I emailed her, and we have been messaging back and forth. The thing I remember most about her is her beautiful singing voice. She used to sing all the time for firesides and sacrament meetings, and it was truly a spiritual feast to hear her. So for some reason I had a long lost memory return to me about her that I had to share with her. About 3 months before she went home, she and I swapped cities. She came to Moenchengladbach and I went to Duesseldorf. There was a newly baptized sister in Moenchengladbach that I was corresponding with from Dudo (I have it on good authority that the cool people now call Duesseldorf "Dudo"), and she wrote me a letter after a sacrament meeting performance by Sister Brown. She wrote among other things, "Sie singt wie ein Engel, und dass ist wahr." I hope it made Sister Brown happy, I think that it did. Oh how precious those memories are to me of the hardest yet happy days in the mission in Germany. Meine Schwester, ich liebe dich.