Sunday may 11th

Dear Family,

It's been a long time so here is the update. After Mexico, Kay and I took a plane to Omaha and Janell flew in the following day for her spring break. We played with the grand kids and saw Kay in action at his apartments. Janell stayed with Rachael and I stayed with Kay.

In Janell's English class they are reading the book "Black Like Me" where a white guy makes his skin black and lives in the black world. For a project the class had to explore living in a different world and write a paper about it. One of the suggestions was to attend a religion different than your own. In Omaha we attended Salem Baptist Church right down the street from Kay's low income apartments. This was a mega church with between 5-6 hundred people attending the 8:30 service. We were not the only white people, we counted about 15 others. It was Jeans and Jersey Sunday so most everyone there wore a sport's team jersey and their jeans including the pastors. The kids were the choir and had cheer-leading pom poms. The leader had them chanting and yelling over and over and over. "go Jesus, go Jesus" and "Jesus, Jesus he's our man, if he can't do it nobody can"

The paper was about differences and we came up with .... Loud, yelling, cheering, singing the same line of a song over and over again with the words on a big screen. prayer cards you can fill out so the pastor can pray for whomever, donation envelopes you take up to the front at a place in the program, friend-shipping time when we shook hands with all our neighbors. Standing to pray, standing and holding hands to pray. A public laying on of hands ceremony.

We had a cultural experience. We decided we liked the quiet reverent meetings we are used to.

Caleb goes into the Mission Training Center (MTC) July 30. He will go to Pusan Korea and has been studying Korean on his own. A Korean woman we know has had us over twice for yummy Korean food and Korean lessons. There are lots of sounds. Lots. I am proud of Caleb for his studying. His mission President will be new in July, Kenneth Jennings Jr, father of the Jeopardy Ken Jennings. He was a missionary in Korea, raised his family in Korea and is now going back to serve as Mission President. Caleb is in Omaha working with Kay. I fly in this week to go through the temple with him.

Janell is going to Brazil BY HERSELF for 9 days in June to visit a friend she met on a cruise.

Happy Mothers Day to all the Mothers and the Mothers to be. Rachael doesn't know what she is having, her due date is the end of September. Frances, is due somewhere between Mid September and the end of October. Her actual due date is November 4Th. with her twin girls, she goes into the Dr. every other week.

Love, Janae