Thursday, May 15, 2014

Happy 19th Birthday!

Happy 19th Birthday Elder Varvel! His birthday happened to fall on Mother's Day this year, so we got to Skype with him! So fun! 

We sent him a 'Just add ice cream' package for his birthday!
We also sent him a new camera! 
Happy birthday from Oreo and Reeses!
Best Mother's Day present EVER! We got to Skype for an hour! He looks great and seems happy! I felt like I was going to have a panic attack when our time was almost up. I knew I wasn't going to be able to talk to him again until Christmas! That's 7 months away! I just need to count it down in baby steps! The next milestone is his year mark which is only 1 month away! I can do this!
Selfies with her favorite missionary!
Savannah came over for the last 15 minutes to chat with Elder Varvel!
 HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELDER VARVEL! LOVE YA!

Van Horn, Texas

Sawyer got transferred to Van Horn, Texas. It's just east of El Paso, close to the Mexican border. He was in Muleshoe before, and was getting anxious to get out of such a small town. I was a little worried when I found out he was going to Van Horn. It's so small! It's less than 3 square miles, with a population less than 2500 people, and is literally in the middle of nowhere! He lives in a travel trailer in an RV park with no hot water. I was surprised to hear that he LOVES it! His companion is Elder Palmer and they get along great. The people are really nice, and he even loves their cozy little camp trailer. There is only one member family in the area, and no church building. They meet for church at a member's house. He's kind of a city boy, so it's funny that he keeps ending up in these little ranching towns. Good luck in Van Horn Elder Varvel!

Lost Pictures :(

I haven't updated Elder Varvel's blog in quite awhile. He got transferred out of Muleshoe after being there for a long time. He sent me his SD card with all the pictures and videos from his last few months there. Our computer couldn't read the card. Mark took it to work and none of the computers there could read it either. We sent it to a local shop that has special equipment for this kind of problem. No luck there either. I was devastated! The card had 50 pictures and videos on it! We tried one last thing. We sent the card to Florida, to a place where they actually open it up, and take out the small hard drive and hook it up to different equipment to retrieve the pictures. We just got word back from them that they can't recover the pictures either. We don't know what could have happened to it. It isn't physically damaged in any way. It had pictures from his last 3 districts (including when he was a district leader), him with his last two companions (Elder Walker and Elder Velasco), him saying goodbye to all the people he loved in Muleshoe, and tons of other stuff. I'm not gonna lie, I cried several times about it.  He was really disappointed when I told him.  I guess there is nothing left to do but stop worrying about it, and move on. Muleshoe was a great place. He loved the people there. Someday maybe we can go there and meet them all in person. That would be better than pictures anyways.