OUR TIME TO SERVE: It's Colton's Birthday!!

Dear Colton,

Happy 4^th Birthday!!

Your birthday party looked like a super great time!!! Greyson and Ellie were so happy to be there to help celebrate your birthday, and they really liked your party. We loved the look on your face as you sat in front of your cake of the subway trains of NYC. Your face shows that you know you are loved; and that you love and care for others!! It was very nice of your family to have your cousins visit while your Aunt Angie and Uncle Darin and Gavin came to see us. Thanks so much to Sadie and you and your Dad AND A BIG SHOUT OUT to your Mom for all her hard work with having 5 children to love and care for...

We saw that you were in NYC a few weeks ago. Did you see any tugboats in NYC?

23rd Annual Great North River Tugboat Race & Competition

6 Sep 2015 on Pier 84

We know you go to the beach in California, but do you ever make it to the Pier?

The Delta Deanna Tugboat works in the San Francisco Bay area. She is a hard worker.

So Colton, guess what? Saturday morning we woke up and saw a big cruise ship in our port. It is the first one this season. We watched a tugboat help bring it in though the ship had side-thrusters so it could move sideways.

Those tugboats are small, but they are very powerful – kind of like train engines.

Do you remember in our city of Valparaíso that we have hills like those in San Francisco?

Valparaíso Cerros (hills)

San Francisco Hills

Our longtime friends, the Reynolds, were on that cruise ship from San Diego to here for 18 days.

They have served 4 missions: two in China, one in Texas and one in Samoa. Brother Reynolds also sang in the Tabernacle Choir and he was able to sing with the choir in Israel. They brought us some presents from the United States.

We got to show them some cool things here, and we also showed them where we work (in the big cemetery). Jim and Marianne went to church with us

Marianne, Jim and Bro. Munoz

and then we put them on a bus to Santiago so they can fly home to the USA. One thing they said in an email to us was: “Dearest Faithful Missionaries for the Lord,

‘Elder & Sister’ is such a special greeting....our Samoa Mission President told us to honor that name...as there is only one time you use that title of ‘Elder’, on your Mission as a young man/woman or on your Mission as a Senior Missionary or as a General Authority. So with just a short time more for your mission in Chile....we shall greet you this way.”

Hey, Colton, do you know how we know YOU are already being a missionary?

We know because your Mom said, “A little shout out to my Colty – he is the best errand buddy around. He never complains about being dragged anywhere and just rolls with the punches…. Today we walked into the lab [blood test for Hunter] and he sat right down, pulled the New Yorker off the table and started ‘reading’ it out loud until it was time to go. Then when we headed out of the elevator in the parking garage he turned back to the elevator and said, ‘Bye ewevatow! Have a nice day! Hope youw doows cwose!’….” Your Mom said that you are “a best brother” and have love and concern for others –

We know you are already being a missionary:

Because you can ride a bike –

Because you help others –

Because you work hard –

Do you know this song?

I want to be a missionary now.

I don't want to wait until I'm grown.

I want to share the gospel while I'm young,

For I have a testimony of my own.

I want to tell my friends about our church

And the happiness it brings to me.

I'll tell them how the gospel was restored,

Tell them how the Book of Mormon came to be.

Then I can be a missionary now.

I don't have to wait until I'm grown.

I'll live each day the best that I know how,

And they'll see I have a testimony of my own,

A testimony of my very own.

On Saturday, we and the Reynolds went to the church for a surprise “Welcome Home Party” that the ward threw for an Elder recently returned from the Argentina Córdova Mission. They served ‘Completos’.