Sister Ballantyne in Singapore: April 21, 2013

From Mom: Happy Beginning of your week! I'm in Utah with Dad for a few days. It's wonderful to be able to be with him again! We went to Scheel's for the first time. It's a sporting goods store but it has a bunch of other things, too, like a ferris wheel people can ride for $1. There's a picture included below. It also has a mountain with stuffed animals on it like Cabela's back home and here in Salt Lake. There's probably more clothes in this store than anything else. We were wondering why there were so many cars going into the parking lot when there are so many other things to see in this area. We even have a Boondocks just about 2 miles from the apt. Then we saw the ferris wheel and figured it out. This place is so close to many things it's so convenient. It's also kinda wierd to hop on the freeway to get to most of them, though, like church. The chapel is only about 5 miles away but it's fastest to get there via the freeway than go on the city streets. We will be in the River View 5th Ward when we officially move. In the mean time we visit that ward when we come down. Bishop Welling is in charge. He's a nice guy! The other ward, 4th ward, was friendlier when we visited it but I feel like I might be used in callings more in this one. We'll see when we go this afternoon. They start at 1pm, like last year in Marsing.

This week, at home, is Stake Conference for the whole valley with everyone having their own Saturday night session and a broadcast from Salt Lake for their Sunday session. A new drop down screen was installed in Marsing so our ward and 1st ward get to go to conference in our own building. Our ward is even holding choir practice afterward! I'm hoping Michael has an interview with the bishop to decide if he's ready to send off his mission papers. That would be a nice homecoming (mine after this vacation w/ Dad) present. To prepare for Stake Conference we had ward fill-the-temple day on Thursday, the day I left to come here. First I went through 2 sessions with our ward. The bishop was my partner in the prayer circle in the first session (It's been my tradition to be in every prayer circle I can and have only missed only 2 or 3 since I've been endowed.) and Bro DeWitt in the second session. I helped celebrate Resa's birthday early after that, then went home and packed up the car. I left a little space so that I could drop Karlene off at the Flying J on my way out of town so she could catch her ride to Ontario for choir practice.

If you need anything from Herbalife, Melaleuca or want to try some oils from doTERRA let me know at least 3 wks in advance so I can get them to you.

I finished my work with Intuit and have a check for $1525 coming for training and $2290 for the amount of calls I took. Very profitable couple of weeks! I only have one more return to complete for the tax season and that's for Gem County Sr Ctr.

I know you'll be seeing most of General Conference today. I really enjoyed it! I took notes so that I can remember the talks better. I especially like Pres Uchtdorf's message during the Genereal YW Conference held a week or so before. I tried to show Dad that one but the video wasn't working very well.

From Dad: I'm here in Utah for a long weekend, I get to spend it with your mom. The day before yesterday was a long day! I started driving in Cheyenne, WY. Apparently, the freeway was shut down the night before for weather. When I started driving they had just opened up the freeway heading west so all the trucks that had to stop the night before were just getting started. This was on the I-80. Because all the trucks were starting at the same time, heading west, it seemed as though it was nose-to-tail trucks, in both lanes heading west, the entire length of Wyoming. Although the interstate was open heading west the weather was still bad: 50 mph winds and drifting snow. We were stopped a couple of times for about an hour because of accidents and most of the rest of the time we could only drive 40 mph. It made for a really long day! The interstate heading east was still shut down so all the travel plazas and eastbound rest areas were packed with trucks. The cops were busy as well as the tow trucks. There weren't very many cars on the road just lots of trucks. I-80 is the main trucking corridor going east and west. It runs from Sacramento, CA to New York City, NY. It's funny because there are some pretty hefty tolls from time to time going across the I-80 and that's where the freeway surface is the roughest. We got to our destination okay. I was a little tired. It was funny because a team of drivers who were in the restaurant with us when we ate breakfast in Cheyenne were dropping off product at the same place we did in Logan. We had dairy products in our trailer.

Last Sunday, we picked up a trailer full of chocolate in Sacramento. Nobody was there but the trailer was already loaded and waiting for us. There were these little fire hydrants in the parking lot of the chocolate factory that were painted white and, from a distance, they looked like little Oompa Loompas. When there are two of us in the truck, the truck is just about able to run 24 hrs a day. One sleeps while the other drives, every now and then stopping for fuel and, on occasion we'll have a hot shower and a meal or a hot meal and a shower. I was a little disappointed because I was thinking Spring had arrived just before we got all these snow storms. Although, snowing and blowing in Wyoming, the East and West was downpouring and in several spots in Illinois and neighboring states the flooding was so bad that the water came up to within 2 feet of flooding the freeway, in places. This too will pass. We'll get on the road and it will be nice.

It was kind of interesting, I was listening to one of the guys cleaning the bathrooms at one of the travel plazas in Wyoming and he was saying to one of the other truck drivers that he had moved to Wyoming about 3 yrs ago, and he was saying that in Wyoming they have 2 seasons: winter and winter light. But I've never been through Wyoming when the wind wasn't blowing. Most of the towns are in holes or basins where there is less wind.

Well, have fun! Work hard.

Sorry, I don't have time to stop and take pictures of bad roads, long lines and bad weather but here are a few your mom took.