Dave and Mary Black

Hello Family and Friends from Dave and Mary Black at the Washington DC North Mission. Greetings from the nation's capitol in this post holiday season. We hope these words and pictures catch you up a bit on what is going on with us.

Our Christmas tree was a little smaller than usual, but it brought the Christmas spirit just the same.

The Washington Temple and Visitors Center are beautiful at Christmastime. They have a major concert there every night during December at the 500 seat auditorium. The crowds are enormous.

Here Mary is having a good time with some of the missionaries acting as ushers in the parking lot

Brent (Mary's brother) and Diane Wood went with us to the Visitor's Center after Christmas

I deal with a lot of missionary auto accidents so lots of the pictures on my phone are of automobile damage. Here are a few.

Ben treated me to a Washington Wizards basketball game in downtown DC for my birthday. I found this couple with their wedding party and photographer celebrating at the top of the subway station outside the Verizon Center Arena. It was cold out there. Strange but fun.

We visited the White House during December through a friend who is a telephone operator there.

It was decorated beautifully

Here are some portraits in the White House that you may recognize.

They were building reviewing stands in front of the White House getting ready for the inaguration. Since Romney lost, I guess we won't be invited. Darn!

This is looking out the White House window at the Washington Monument and the South Lawn where the president's helicopter lands.

On Christmas Eve we went to the national zoo with Ben, Sarah, Amelia, Elsa, and Oliver.

Saw some neat animals.

And Great People

Ben, Sarah, Elsa, Oliver, and Amelia Black at the Zoo

Elsa and Amelia on Christmas Eve in new pajamas at their home in Alexandria, Virginia.

On New Year's day we went with Ben and Sarah to a neat park in Germantown, then back to the apartment for treats and games. Kids did not want to leave.

Amelia

Ben and Sarah

Elsa

Oliver

We are now over half way through with our mission. It has been a great experience thus far. In the last 2 months, our mission has had two visits from general authorities, one from apostle Cook who dedicated the new chapel in downtown Washington DC, and Elder Allen Packer of the First Quorum of Seventy. Both had extensive meetings with the all the missionaries in the mission of which we were a part.

As most of you know, we work in the mission office along with the mission secretary, mission finance officer, and assistants to the mission president. The mission president and his wife (the Matsumori's from Murray, Utah) have an office there and are there frequently, but mostly work out of the mission home, which is a few miles away.

Mary continues to handle all the referrals for the mission and all the mission mail. She also assists the mission president's wife with medical issues for all the missionaries, and coordinating all the social activities for the senior missionaries. She does a great job and has brought her considerable organizational skills to the job.

I work with mission vehicles, which consists of a 53 vehicle fleet. I make all the vehicle assignments to missionaries, make sure oil changes occur on time, keep drivers licenses current, sell vehicles, receive and commission new vehicles, manage vehicle repairs, process accidents, manage vehicle reports, registrations, inspections, and in general keep the fleet in operation. It is a time consuming job which keeps me me pretty busy.

We have enjoyed our time here and are happy with the opportunities to serve and associate with great people. There have been a few challenges, such as Mary's gall bladder surgery. But we seem to weather the challenges well and feel greatly blessed with what is going on, and the experiences we have had. One of the best things is associating with all the missionaries. They are wonderful people and do a great work. We know most all of the missionaries in the mission, having contact with them on a daily basis. We also have contact with some of the new converts and it is wonderful to see the positive influence the gospel is in their lives.

We believe with all our hearts in the truthfulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ and are thrilled to be in his service as full-time missionaries.

We wish the best to all of you. May the Lord bless you in all your righteous desires, efforts, and activities.

Love,

Dave and Mary

Dave's Blog

Mission Update 11-24-12

Hello from Rockville, Maryland where Mary and I are serving in the Washington DC North Mission. I have collected a few pictures that I thought might be interesting to some of you. They start with the most recent and go in reverse sequence.

Thanksgiving at Ben and Sarah's.

We celebrated Oliver's birthday on Thanksgiving Day.

Of course he loved his present from Grandma and Grandpa

Earlier in the week we help host a dinner and training for newly arriving missionaries.

Mary helping the President's wife, sister Matsumori, to prepare the dinner.

Last weekend Mary hosted an activity for senior missionary couples at Mount Vernon, Virginia, home of George Washington. What a beautiful spot overlooking the Potomac River.

Rachel visited us before that. Her trip was a birthday present from Jeff(without the kids). Here she is in Clyde's Tower Oak Lodge Restaurant, a pretty unique place.

With some neat props

Each booth in the restaurant has a separate outdoor theme. This one was fishing. We took this shot just to make Jeff jealous back home with the kids.

Rachel, Ben, Elsa, Amelia, Sarah, Oliver, Mary, and I spent a day at the Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania. What a gorgeous place with acres of gardens, flowers, fountains, and other features.

It was the Chrysanthemum festival at the gardens. These are all mums growing from a single stem and trained to this pattern.

Some of the flowers were exotic and gorgeous

Even the leaves were beautiful.

They had acres of gardens indoors. It was all funded many years ago by the DuPont family.

Dan and Michelle visited us at Halloween time. Here they are at the Cabin John Regional Park in Potomac, Maryland, which is fairly close to the mission office where we serve.

Sarah met us at the park. It was a little nippy, but we had a good time.

Especially Jacob

And Elsa and Jonah

Halloween night was fun. Grandpa's costume was ready to go, but alas the wig belonged to Elsa, and she did not see the humor in it.

Fall is a fun time to go hiking.

The colors are gorgeous around here in the fall.

This is a shot from the temple grounds.

Here is a shot from the other direction. I think the Washington DC is one of the most beautiful temples in the world.

We took in the last game of the regular season for the Washington Nationals in the cheap seats. They lost but nobody cared because some other team lost and they made it into the playoffs anyway.

Besides, the hotdogs and snacks are what you go for anyway.

Our October Senior Missionary Activity was a BBQ at the mission home. This is our Mission President, Pres. Matsumori cooking the chicken. I finally learned how to BBQ chicken (boil it first).

We have the missionaries over for dinner frequently. This is Sister Black with Sister Brown and Sister Bleasard.

I deal with all the cars in the mission. This is a picture of one I was getting ready to sell (it sold).

Here is our niece Jenny and her husband Mike Morris with daughter Jane. We visited them at their home in Arlington, VA, just West of DC.

Aunt Diane Wood was there visiting from Arizona. Brent did not come.

Margie (Mike and Jenny's daughter), Amelia, and Elsa had a great time dressing up.

Here we are. We are having a great time on our mission. It is filled with a lot of work. But as you can see from the above, we have a lot of fun. We love the missionaries and the opportunity to help them and work with them. We hope all is well with each of you. We pray for you often. Our mission is about half way through so we will see you all soon.

All our love,

Elder and Sister Black

(Mom and Dad)

(Dave and Mary)

P.S. I close with some recent candid shots of some of our precious grandchildren

Jacob Jonah Lili

Amelia Elsa

Anna and Isaac