Happy Labor Day!

Today marked the finale of our family weekend. It was a great trip, and this labor day was no exception. We spent the morning 'laboring' with the missionaries that are serving up here. Mark stayed busy interviewing all the missionaries so he could know how best to help them. Angie, Jessica and Taylor helped judge a competition between districts as they tried to effectively relate random objects to the restoration of the gospel. The missionaries all did a great job, so it was difficult not to give "Paula" responses to everyone. As I became more 'constructive' with my feedback, the missionaries became more insistent that I try it and show them how it was done. I drew a hanger out the grab bag and had a minute to relate it to the restoration of the gospel and invite them to learn more. I'm happy to report...I got through it. It was a lot of fun, and it included some good practice for the missionaries. They have great zone leaders up there, Elder Stephens and Elder Ashton. That training only lasted 45 minutes, and there were several others to follow. It will be great to spend the next two weeks visiting all the zones and observe their trainings.
To help keep the little boys occupied while Mark did interviews, a local ward member [Dayl Seigfried-that's him in the red shirt] invited them to the Eurofresh greenhouses near the church building. Amanda, Sister Willis and Sister Harris came, too.
They can grow up to 1 million pounds of tomatoes on the vine a week-and average 600,000 lbs. per week each year at this facility shipping all over the US and Canada. They grow the tomatoes hydroponically...w/o soil in little root beds among some coconut husk material. There were acres of greenhouses with row upon row of plants that stretch about the length of a football field. Each plant is tied to a bobbin of string and then to the ceiling. As the plants grow up, they unwind the bobbins a turn or two. The pluck off the leaves around the ripening fruit, so the bottoms are naked vines that begin to layer and stack, then fruit, then the foliage and the blossoms above them. There's a lift system that raises workers up to the ceiling to work on the plants-but the boys didn't ride it-whew!

They also had a complex system of pipes for temperature control, watering, fertilizing & everything else you can imagine, but the boys were most interested in making the 'garage doors' open and shut and playing on the conveyor belts. Jeffrey really liked the sticker machine, especially when Dayl started labeling Jeffrey with brilliant tomato labels. There were a lot of lasers and automated machinery. It was pretty cool.
These are some of the 'seconds', since they are all 'single' tomatoes and they are producing on the vine fruit. These will go...? I don't know, but he gave a couple of flats to kids to take home. Lucky us.

After interviews we started home and stopped by the Tenney's place (one of Mark's counselors). We rolled up our sleeves and helped shuck, de-silk and prep some corn for freezing. It was fun to watch dad shuck corn in his suit! The Tenney's are an incredible family. They were there with just some of their children and grandchildren including their 40th grandbaby that is 3 months old & 3 high school age grandsons just back from football practice ready to help grandma & grandpa. (yes, they were ALL cute! Hubba hubba. I'm sure we won't have trouble convincing Jessica to come up with us again.) Eva, one of the little girls, said she loved working hard for her family so her grandpa & grandma wouldn't have to do all that work by themselves. What an incredible family. President Tenney will only be Mark's counselor for a few more weeks. They will soon begin a new assignment as the Snowflake Temple President. We have loved working with them.

We weren't able to stay as long as we would have liked to since we knew the holiday traffic was going to be miserable, but we left their place with produce packed all around us. Dinner tonight was spectacular: fresh corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, crook neck squash, and string beans w/red bell peppers. The best part, we had enough corn to blanch and freeze several bags to eat up this winter! What great friends. What a great week end.