Our Mission is Winding Down Now

Here it is the end of October 2013 and our mission is winding down. We have done everything and more than we were sent here to do. The blessings have been unbelievable, and our cup runneth o'er! It will be strange not to have the blessings of being full-time missionaries any longer. I hope our health and stamina will continue so we will be able to enjoy our time at home with family and friends. We hope to be able to attend more social functions that we had to miss while we were gone. Re-connecting with our children and grandchildren will be delightful. And we will be traveling quite a bit as well. We have several places we need to visit such as Utah and Arizona, middle California and some other exotic places, such as Oklahoma! Ha!

We have made our plans for traveling in Israel and England and just about have everything set for that. Of course visiting Michelle in Leeds England is a priority, and we may visit a couple of other places as well, we do not know just yet.

In June after Ewa-Solange graduates from high school we will be taking her on a long church history tour as her graduation present. Our present will be to have her all to ourselves to spoil and fawn over. We will never have the chance to have her alone with us for a period of time again, so we really can't wait for this to happen. She may not appreciate it as much now as she will when we have passed on, but we know she will like being with us at least.

I began this draft around the end of October, since then there have been some major changes in our life. We received an urgent text from Greg one evening (early morning for him) in which he told us Miguel had been admitted to the hospital for chest pains and wasn't doing very well. We waited several hours to hear back from him because it took his doctors quite awhile to complete the necessary tests and to admit him to CCU. It was still several days before we actually knew what happened, and even now, four weeks later he finally has enough information to understand what occurred.

We know now he actually did have a heart attack, but a major contributing factor to his chest pains was a genetic syndrome called, "Myocardial Bridging". He was put on several major heart medications and after nearly a week was sent home to begin recuperation and to wait for therapy to help overcome the damage to his heart. Now, four weeks later he has obtained a new heart specialist who says he was on all the wrong medications and is not being treated correctly. He has told Miguel he will have now live the rest of his life on a Vegan diet and change his sedentary lifestyle. He has already begun walking the dog (Gus) again. He has returned to work, but his employer is making certain he doesn't have any work overload because of the stress involved.

We are so sorry to see such a mega change in Miguel's life, I mean, whoever dreamed our son would have a heart attack at age 42! And we are so glad his new doctor feels he can help him completely recover and just learn to deal with the "Bridging".

We are also sorry because Miguel and Greg cannot come to Cyprus to join us on our trek homeward. We had such plans to share this Island with them. But Miguel cannot fly just yet because of the stress that it would cause his heart, so he has asked us to go on without them and enjoy our trip to the max and share it with them via pictures and descriptions. So we are going on to Israel.

We will be in Israel for eleven days and then we will travel to England to meet with Michelle (Sister Wu)and visit London for a few days. Then we will go on home to the USA to meet our family and friends once again - which will make us so happy!

We will also be able to spend some time with Miguel and to give him lots of hugs and kisses!!

We leave for Israel on 28 December, 2013 and expect to arrive back in Los Angeles around 9 January, 2014. Viva Israel!