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| Deer are everywhere - near our mission office. |
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| Crepe Myrtle blooms beautifully for months! |
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| Cicada. Noisy bug! |
We’re used to the gentle hum of crickets in summer, rising to a quicker tone before the first frosts of winter.
Cicadas are something else entirely.
A rhythmic clicking shuffle: lawn sprinklers? No, Cicadas. (It rains plenty out here; they don't need sprinklers.)
A metallic hum, starting and stopping abruptly—UFOs searching for a landing pad? Cicadas. Frantic waves of wild, undulating urgency, like demons battering angrily on the shuttered doors of hell? Cicadas. The one on the brick is dead, and I can't say that I'm sorry.
I am sorry that so many deer out here die! There are many beautiful deer, and we've also seen a fox and coyote--their natural enemies, though cars claim many of them.
Now, on to fauna. Crape Myrtle have bloomed since June! They look so much like lilacs that they comfort my heart, and their colors complement the gorgeous hydrangeas and other flowers that grow here. Queen Ann's lace, purple coneflowers and yellow Black-eyed Susans dot a sidehill on our way to the mission office. We're always zooming too fast for me to get a good picture, but I will always remember it. I've picked a few flowers from the roadside-- a habit I've had since I was a child, and I suppose I'll be arrested if I'm caught.
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| The fuzzy, droopy pink one is a mimosa--so delicate it doesn't last long in the house. |
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| After the storms, there are beautiful dusks and dawns. |
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| It rains in torrents-- those rushes in our pond are usually next to the bank, not surrounded by water. |
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See the tree in the woods by us? It went down in winds that twisted the branches to and fro.
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| We said goodbye to President Reid and Sister Shelly Neilson. |
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| We said good-bye to Sister Alivia Johnson, granddaughter of Debbie's cousin Nelda Furniss Burnside. |
Our missionary life has been beautiful, too. We took three Mandarin-speaking elders to a fireside (evening meeting) to hear messages from President Todd and Sister Heather Clarke, our new mission leaders. The Clarkes also joined several senior missionary couples on a tour of the BYU Barlow Center (the center of the Church's Washington DC offices, and apartments for young BYU interns) in Georgetown on July 30. (Clarkes are the young ones in the middle!) Such a beautiful month--and now we look forward to August, and cooler weather!
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| Holms with Mandarin-speaking Elders Thorpe, Porter and Edlefson. (When they see their friends, it's hard to pull them away--and we thought it was only old people who talked that much!) |
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| Holms, Connells, Clarkes, Lambs, Jorgensons, Elder Cole (Sister Cole taking picture.) |
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