Baby Megan is here!

Megan Elizabeth Burgess
Born 12/8/2009 @ 7:06pm
5 lbs 15 oz
18 inches
...and happy as can be!

This is Kathryn's mission address:

Sister Kathryn Duque
California Anaheim Mission
2500 N Bristol St.
Santa Ana, CA 92706

Her e-mail address is:

kathryneduque@myldsmail.net

missionary letter

Kathryn Duque

show details 12:29 PM (21 hours ago)

Hello Everyone,
We're going to try to send out Christmas cards, so could you email me some addresses? If you email them this week, I'll get the email next Monday, and then I can send the cards out next Monday. Here's the people whose addresses I need:
PapaKen, Lola, Julie Calderon (is she still planning on serving a mission?), and all Mom's and Pop's brothers and sisters, if you have their addresses.
There was a picture in the Church News this last week of the youth from our ward (Anaheim 2nd). It's in an article called Sacred Sacrifices, and the picture is at the Newport Beach Temple. We were just around the corner! We were there for an outside temple tour with the mission president, and we watched them getting their picture taken.
I've been having a hard time feeling excited about teaching inactive people, and we do a lot of that because one of the apostles said that a happy missionary teaches 20 lessons a week, and we can't get that many with investigators. Also, Sister Cooprider doesn't think knocking works. She says it works in Spanish-speaking areas, but not English, and it is true that we haven't gotten inside any door we've knocked while tracting since I got here. Of course, that doesn't mean so much since we hardly ever knock. But! We had a really amazing lesson with an inactive woman this week, and we're really excited for her. A while ago, someone from church asked her to feed the missionaries, so she's been doing that once a month. The last time Sister Cooprider was over there, she read Ether 12:27 to her, about weakness being made strong. Then, this last week, the ward council prayed about her and decided to invite her to take the missionary lessons, which is what the ward council does; they call it the 15 name program. They pick people to invite to take the missionary lessons. So the woman, Patty Spathes, accepted the invitation, and we taught her for the first time last week. At the very beginning, she told us that the only reason she agreed to take the lessons was because Sister Cooprider read Ether 12:27, and that scripture really made an impression on her. Afterwards, Sister Cooprider told me that the only reason she read that scripture was because the DVD she had meant to show wouldn't work! Patty told us that this is it: after these lessons, it's going to be all or nothing with her. She says she knows the devil is freaking out right now, and her life has suddenly gotten a lot harder since she agreed to take the lessons. She hasn't been to church in ages. She's probably in her fifties now. She had lots of "plan" questions, so we taught her the plan of salvation, which is lesson 2, instead of the restoration, lesson 1, like we had planned. She knows the Bible, but she apparently has no knowledge of the Book of Mormon. She had so many good questions, and she took notes in the Book of Mormon that we gave her while we talked. She was just amazing! When I asked her to read 2 Nephi 2:22-25, about the fall, she read the first couple words (it was "now behold," or something else meaningless), and then she couldn't finish because she started crying! So we read the rest of the scriptures for her that lesson. It's amazing how scriptures that don't seem that touching to me can have such an effect on her. That scripture is good, but I think of it as being more informational. But it's scripture from God, so the spirit could witness to Patty that it's true.
We were teaching another inactive named Bev. It's amazing how little most inactive people know about the gospel! I assumed if they were once a member, they must still know at least the basics, but so many of them don't! They don't know anything!
Anyway, we were at Bev's house, and her neighbour Avery dropped by. Avery is seven, and a non-member, and she is so receptive! She just wants to know everything, and she's so interested in religion! And she asked for a Book of Mormon! Afterwards, Sister Cooprider said we probably shouldn't have taught her or given her a Book of Mormon since we didn't have her parents permission. They've tried to talk to her mom, but now she's avoiding us. Avery has a rather morbid obsession with crucifixion, probably from her Catholic upbringing, and she has the attention span of a squirrel, but she's so open and receptive, and so interested in everything! We gave her a Book of Mormon and she immediately opened it up to a random page and started reading out loud. Then she looked at the pictures and wanted to know who everyone was. Why can't everyone be like Avery? :)
Love,
Sister Duque

More Thanksgiving pictures

Here are all of the Adams grandkids that went over the Sacramento River and through the Yolo bypass to Grandma and Grandpa's (Lito and Lita's) house for Thanksgiving. From left to right and top to bottom, they are: Daniel, Victoria, Elijah, Tytus Andrew, Isaac (who turned 1 year old the following day), Belén, Danny, and Tomás (Tomy).

Well, this posting pictures from one blog to another is not as easy as I thought it would be. I managed to get a few on to my last blog, and now I'll try for some more. The one on top of the previous blog was Michael building towers out of Jenga blocks. He built several neat towers, then we had fun watching him collapse them like dominos.

Here is Karen holding Amy's baby,

Danny

Here is Tytus and Sharon:



Here is Alisha helping Daniel and Belén make placemats

Here is pensative Nathan,

and there is cute Amy in front of our house.

Amy and Kenneth took some more nice pictures, but this is all I can manage to put on this blog right now. (I gotta get to school!) Hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving, like we did. Maybe some of the rest of you can post your pictures here.

Love you all.

Mama Jayne

Fun Thanksgiving Pictures

All of the Adams kids and grandkids (8 + one on the way) were able to come here for Thanksgiving, and we had a very nice weekend together. Amy posted some pictures of it on her blog, and since pictures say a thousand words, I am going to try posting some of them here. (I hope I can figure the technology to do it!) Okay, I got some pictures on, now how do I label them? There's me in the kitchen on the left and Pa A relaxing on the right.

letter from Kathryn

Querida Familia, First of all, could you send me my address in Anaheim? I, um, didn't bring it with me. And a couple of friends have asked me for it. So, Sister Hardy and Sister Thomas and I moved to the advanced class last week, so we're in a new district. We love the class, and the teachers are great (a lot better than our last ones). But we miss our elders. There's eleven people in our new district now. Six sisters and five elders! More sisters than elders! There was a trio in the advanced class, so now each of the sisters has a new companion. It's good for our Spanish since we each have a native speaker companion. All the people in our class are native speakers except for us and one other elder who's sort of from Brazil. My new companion is Hermana Castillo, from Guatemala, but she's lived in Orem since she was ten. Her first name is Dameter, but at home she goes by Afro. Her middle name is Afrodita. Elder Shumway (Adam?) is in my zone, I think. I see him around a lot. My favourite thing to do at the MTC is the Referral Center. We can make phone calls to make sure people got things they ordered off of passalong cards, or we can answer phones from passalong card calls, or we can answer chats from the ask your question place on mormon.org. We've only been twice but both times it's been a kind of overwhelming experience, because I care so much about each of the people we talk to (only one each time), and I want so much to be able to help them. The first time I went, I was trying to make phone calls, and no one was answering. I accidentally clicked the button on my computer that said I was open for calls, and someone called me. I was so confused and pretty much panicked. I read from the screen on my computer, in Spanish, asking to talk to the man I had been about to call. A very confused woman answered me in English. A very confused missionary (me) repeated herself in Spanish. The woman said something else, and finally my brain began to work, and I asked her, in English, if she had just called me. A long conversation ensued in which we both tried to figure out who the other person was. Eventually I figured out that she wanted a BoM and she figured out that I was American, and not foreign, even though I started out trying to speak to her in a different language. She said her dad was a preacher, so she had grown up with his religion (some sort of Protestantism), but now she and her sister were exploring in religion, and she felt she had a hole in her life that she needed to fill. At the beginning she said she didn't want anyone to bring her a Book of Mormon, she wanted to get it in the mail, but by the end, she had talked to me for so long that she agreed, and happily, I think, to let the missionaries bring her a Book of Mormon and answer her questions. Well, I'm really happy about that, but those missionaries have their work cut out for them. Tina, the lady I talked to, is from Tennessee and she has such a strong southern accent I couldn't understand her when she said her name, and I had to get her to spell it out for me so I could put it into the computer. She said she had some friends who were Mormons, and I was really happy about that, but then she started going on about how my religion wasn't legal in most states besides Utah, and what a shame that was. I was really confused, but she wanted to know more about my religion, so I gave her a brief overview of authority of God, apostasy, and then I started to tell her about Joseph Smith, but she already knew all about Joseph Smith, and could give me numbers and dates. She talked about how it would be impossible to be openly Mormon in states other than Utah. I was so confused, and tried to tell her otherwise. Suddenly it all came out. Her friends are polygamists. So then we had a long conversation about how my church doesn't do that anymore, and why not. She loves her friends and thinks people should be allowed to do what they want to do. Never in my life have I thought that I might have to explain to someone why we shouldn't have polygamy now! In the end, I just told her that I didn't have all the answers, but I bore my testimony of continuing revelation and prophets, and she agreed to read the Book of Mormon and talk to missionaries. I'm leaving the MTC next Tuesday! I got my flight plans this week, and I'm leaving early Tuesday morning. I usually get DearElder letters the day after you send them, I think. So start writing to me in Anaheim at least after this Sunday! Tell Linda and Brittney thanks for their letters, and thanks for all of your letters! My companions (I think of all five of them as my companions) thank you for the chocolate chip bread! Guess what? Sister Hardy loves Mendocino too! And she goes there every year! Love, Hermana Duque

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Sharon and Jennifer on Table Rock

We took this 14-mile hike on Labor Day Weekend. You can see the Grand Teton right behind us to the left. Did you notice the snow right next to me? It was cold up there!

Kathryn's first e-mail

Hola Familia!
I don't have much time on email, only thirty minutes, and then the computer logs me out. I wrote a letter in the mail to you last week, I think I sent it on Friday. Hope you got it. If you didn't, I love my district, and I love my companions. My companions are Sister Hardy and Sister Thomas. They're the best! I love them so much.
Sister Hardy and I are so excited today because we finally got permission to move to the advanced Spanish class! We're in the intermediate class right now, and we love our district (which is the same thing as our class), and our elders are the best, and we will miss them so much, but the Spanish class is so boring! We're going out of our minds with boredom. They said Sister Thomas can go to the advanced class too if she wants, but she's not sure she wants to. We will miss her if she doesn't. She would have to be a solo sister, which is a sister assigned to two elders in her district, and she has to go everywhere with them when she's outside her dorm building. Or she can go on splits with any sisters. I'm guessing they only do this at the MTC.
Anyway, for the intermediate class we would have had to stay here for nine weeks, which is the same as the beginning class, which makes no sense. And I would not have been able to call home for Christmas, because I still would have been at the MTC. I knew you would be so disappointed about that, so we've been trying hard to change that pretty much ever since we got here. But now we're only going to be at the MTC for three weeks! So only two more to go! I've never written an email so fast, so I hope everything is coherent.
We went to the Provo Temple today. It was great. Sunday was wonderful, just because it was different. On all days besides Sunday and P day we just go to class and eat. All day. If it weren't for gym we'd probably go crazy. Yesterday my companions and I played frisbee outside. It was so much fun! It's been so beautiful outside!
I got your package today, but I haven't opened it yet. There's no time for anything extra around here, it's hard to even find time to read letters! But send them anyway! :)
Halloween was pretty uneventful. But then that night, as we were walking up to our room, there was all this pink liquid trailed up the stairs. There were also bags marked, "Danger! Infectious waste!" on the floor landings. Then, on the third floor, all the quarantine elders jumped out at us and scared us and took pictures. They thought it was hilarious. They must really be bored, poor things. The floor below us is the quarantine floor. One side is normal flu and the other side is swine flu. Elder Swine Flu, our zone leader, has recovered, so we met him this week. We're in the quarantine building because the MTC is over-capacity right now. The Brazil MTC is only taking half as many missionaries as they used to, for some reason.
Whew! It's exhausting writing this fast! The Lord has blessed me so far. I've woken up on my own every morning before my alarm clock goes off. And I haven't gotten tired until after returning to our room each day. It's been great! I love it here, and I can't wait to get out and start working in California!
Be nice to the cats for me! Love you all!
Con amor,
Hermana Duque

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM...

FELIZ CMPLEANOS! i know its past midnight so technically its passed your b-day... but just wanted 2 say happy bday anyways.... woohoo!

Kathryn is giving her missionary talk on October 25. Come on over if you can!

Sharon

As you can see the internet provides countless hours of entertainment

Please enjoy the following Woodward Family Yearbook pics:

1976 Chess Club: Marcus, Tony, Linda, Joseph

Charlie & Shari circa 1982

Cheer: Mike & Jen circa 1956

1954 Band: Kathryn, Marcus, Jayne, Annie, Julie

Kathryn got her mission call!

I got my mission call yesterday, and I'm going to DISNEYLAND!!!
I've been called to the California Anaheim mission, Spanish-speaking! Of course I'm surprised, but I'm happy to be going back to California. I'll be entering the MTC October 28.
Love you all!

Hello Everyone!

I'm posting to tell everybody that we have a Burgess Bunch blog that we'll be updating. Come check it out. We're excited to see everyone at the reunion!

www.burgessbunchadventures.blogspot.com

BethB

For those who haven't heard, I've decided to serve a mission! My papers are going in today. I'll tell you when I get my call!

2009 Grad!

Thought I'd experiment with this whole blogging concept by posting a pic from Charlie's graduation last month.  It was great seeing Papa Ken, he's quite the road warrior!!! 

3 New People Joined our Family in the Past 9 Days!

¡¡¡Wow!!! What an eventful past couple of weeks this has been!

As most of you have probably heard by now, Tyler Kendell Woodward was born to Mike and Jennifer on June 26 (Kathryn's birthday). He weighed 8 pounds, 4 ounces, and in spite of an arduous labor, he and Jennifer are doing just fine. I saw him for the first time on July 3, and he is definitely a cute little bugger. Congratulations, Mike and Jennifer!!!

Eleven days ago we got a call from Alisha (Adams) telling us that she would be getting married the following Monday (June 29), so two days later we packed up and drove to Utah so we could be there for her wedding. She had a beautiful garden wedding in her uncle's back yard, where she married a tall, handsome young man from Fiji, whose name, if I can remember all of it, is Saimone Talevinikuleka. He goes by Sai (pronounced like "sigh"). Lots of pictures were taken, so hopefully we can post a couple of them on the blog within the next few days. Congratulations, Alisha and Sai!!!

And if that's not enough, Amy (Adams Noyce) called yesterday to say that her water broke and the doctors were keeping her under observation, and a few hours later, we get a call to tell us that her baby was born! He came five weeks early, so he is quite small (4 pounds, 12 ounces) and will have to stay in the NICU for a few days or weeks (depending on his progress), but so far he seems to be quite healthy. His name is Daniel Scott Noyce and is known so far as baby Danny. Here is the first picture I have seen of him:

Congratulations, Amy and Kenny!!! Best of luck for a quick recovery and we hope Danny can come home from the hospital soon!

Also, I hear that we are to expect another wedding and another baby before the end of the year because Sarah Burgess is engaged to be married in December and Beth Burgess is expecting her second baby on New Year's Eve! Congratulations Sarah and Josh and Beth!!!

In addition, I understand that Rod Woodward has accepted a well-paying engineering job where he will be stationed in Bahrain, so he has already moved there, and Angels and Marc are going to join him there while Christina and Michelle hold down the fort back in Spain while they are going to college. Congratulations, Rod!!!

Wow! That's almost too much exciting news for one short period! But there's still more! Our Ken and Marva family reunion will start just 3 weeks from today! I know it doesn't seem very well organized yet, but that's because I was asked to organize it. Hopefully, we can pull everything together in the next 3 weeks. I think we can do it (Shari and some other people have given me some good ideas), and it should be lots of fun! Watch this blog over the next few days to see how you can help! Can't wait to see you all!

Mama Jayne

He got it!

Well, Tony finally got his call and let us know where he'll be going! (We've been anxiously waiting all day.) Shari wins the prize for the best prediction. He's going to the Resistencia, Argentina mission. He enters September 2. Hooray! Congratulations, Tony!!!

Mama Jayne and Pa A

TONY'S MISSION CALL CAME!!!

An official looking envelope from the Office of the First Presidency of the Church addressed to Elder Anthony Ramón Calderón appeared in our mailbox yesterday (obviously, a letter extending him his mission call). Hooray!!! Where is he going, and when? We don't know yet. Tony is in Provo and will be flying today to Atlanta, Georgia, where he will be spending the summer selling home security systems to earn some money for his mission. (He hopes to leave sometime in August, but we'll see what the call says.) Tony gave us strict instructions not to open the envelope and to forward it on to him in Georgia, so we put it in the mail yesterday, and he will be receiving it probably on Monday. Then we'll finally find out where he is going and when.

So that gives everyone about two days to make an entry to this blog and predict where Tony will be going before he opens his mission call envelope. As you can see from comments to his previous post, Julie predicts Chile, her friend Sarah Hudson predicts Spain, and Shari predicts Argentina. I predict Michoacán, México. Send in your predictions, and let's revive this Woodward Family Blog! This will be a suspenseful couple of days for us.

Congratulations, Tony!! You may not be excited about this, but I sure am!

Mom

New York

In April I took a trip to New York City with 3 other women and had a fabulous time! The highlights for me were the art museums (The Met, Frick, Whitney, Guggenheim, and MoMA--so much great art and so many pivotal pieces in art history), Central Park, going to the Manhattan Temple (right across the street from the Metropolitan Opera/Juilliard music school complex), and winning a ticket lottery for front row seats to see the musical WICKED! Also, I got to stay in a friend of a friend's nineteenth-century brownstone apartment right in Manhattan, which was a cultural experience in itself. It was my first trip there and I can't wait to go back. Anyone want to come with me?

love, Sharon

p.s. Linda has expressed an interest in going backpacking in the Tetons with me during the first week of August. Anyone else want to come?

MISSION!!

To All Who Have Been So Concerned:

Hey everyone, this is Tony, and I've got some pretty exciting news, that most of you should have already heard. But if you haven't, here it is: My mission papers are in!! Soon enough, I'll be serving in God knows where (no, seriously, only He knows..), preaching the Word of God. Pretty cool, huh? I've been telling people my call should come within 2-3 weeks, but I'm guessing it might come a bit sooner, maybe even this wednesday.

So, a lot of people tell me how much they are excited for me. But when they ask if I'm excited myself, I can't really say that I am. Even though it's certainly a once-in-a-lifetime experience that will undoubtedly be one of the biggest influential impacts on my life, I'm just not excited to go. I'm just ready. It's a job really. One of the most important jobs I will ever be responsible for, but a job nonetheless. And so, no, I am not excited for this job, but I am certainly ready for it. But in the meantime, I'll just have to make sure I do what I can to prepare for it.

So, I've told you what you need to know, now it's your turn. Sarah and Julie have already given me the pleasure of guessing where I will get sent. Now for the rest of you, start commenting on the blog your predictions for where I will get sent. And make sure you do it quick, before my call comes in the mail!

Tony

http://www.pagat.com/aceten/solo.html

Hey look at this! Lots of versions of SOLO! I found this one that closely resembles the game you Woodwards love to play!

Lary

Nights and Lights

PaA beat MaA in Boggle: 75 to 53.
MaA beat PaA in Speed Scrabble: 6to 5.

We heard on the news that people used to sleep 9 hours at night at the turn of the century and now they only sleep on average 7.5 hours. Thinking it over, we decided that they must have worked really hard, had no TV to watch, and no electric lights. After turning off the lights for a few minutes, we decided we just wouldn't want to live without electric lights. You need light to play these fun word games. Maybe next week when daylight savings time returns. In the meantime, maybe I can still get 9 hours of sleep by sleeping in tomorrow, (only I can't remember the last time I was able to sleep in).

Happy BD Annie

Edward McGregor Patterson in Church History Museum

I forgot to mention that when we went to the Church History Museum, I found something that belonged to our ancestor, Edward McGregor Patterson. He is the grandfather of Irene Patterson Painter, my grandmother. It is a tall desk made and donated by Edward to the United Order of Paris, Idaho. The information plaque showed a picture of Edward and said that the united order in Paris lasted quite a bit longer than in other places. Remember when we went and looked at the Paris tabernacle during our family reunion? This same Edward helped work on that tabernacle. I wish I had thought to take a picture of the desk. I'll have to go back sometime.

love, Sharon

the real dinosaurs

snow fruit and museum

Congratulations to Mike and Jennifer! We just had a fun weekend with Dad and played some serious solo. He is doing a great job of taking care of himself, the house, etc. We also spent a day in SLC with Kathryn going to the church history and art museum and the natural history museum to see the dinosaur bones on the campus of U of U. Happy to report that Kathryn received a full scholarship to BYU law school. She's been accepted to the first 7 she applied to--Duke, Penn, William and Mary, Washington and Lee, BYU, and I forgot where else-- but is still waiting to hear from 8 more.

love to all, Sharon

¡Feliz Día de Amor y Amistad!

¡FeLiZ DíA de AmOr Y AmIsTaD!
(In other words, Happy Valentine's Day!)

Thanks to those few of you who have recently contributed to the blog. I'm going to try and think of some incentive so that more of us will contribute more frequently.

Meanwhile, I hope that you are all feeling loved by those of your families who are nearby and that you know that those of us who are far away love you lots, too! = )

Jayne

Oh, that's from Mike & Jen.

IT'S A BOY!

solo and snowflakes

Julie's January design describes Rexburg well. Frozen and beautiful. For those of you who have been to Harriman State Park in the summer, well, it is breathtaking in winter. I just went cross-country skiing today with some friends and saw about a hundred trumpeter swans. We would love to take any of you out there.

I also wanted to warn all of you solo players that Lary and I have finally been educated by Papa Ken on the joys of solo . . . so watch out at the reunion.

We had a great time with Papa Ken/Dad when he brought Sarah back to BYU-I, even though it was short.

Happy New Year, everybody! And welcome home Brittany!

love, Sharon

Experimenting with bloging

Linda's finally in...

We loved having Papa Ken, Josh, Beth, and Jackson home for Christmas. We are excited Brittany is home from her mission! Does anybody blog anymore? Thank you Julie for setting this up. Love, Linda