Hellooooo,
I'm so sorry that I haven't written in a while. I don't know why it is so hard for me to write but perhaps we get so crazy busy that by the time I'm ready to write I just crash instead.
We are very safe and it truly is business as usual. Even making a few trips to Abu Dhabi and Dubai hasn't raised any red flags (more about the trips to follow in other emails).
Today (4/9/26) Billy took Kennedy (from Nigeria) to Dubai to work on some Visa items. I should have gone with him but he let me stay home which was extremely wonderful of him! My back has flared up again and I'm afraid riding in the car, especially on long trips, may have contributed to it 😥.
For the last couple months we've been in the process of visiting everyone in our darling little Branch ~ which is proving a bit difficult as they live all over the city. Al Ain's municipality is closer in size to the State of Connecticut if you consider the region's total land area, but where everyone lives in the city area it’s more comparable to Seattle, WA. But if you look at different census' it could be more like San Jose, CA; which can make it very time consuming to reach out to everyone! But this is what we are here for and we are excited to serve .
On Friday (and Saturday in February) we traveled to Abu Dhabi for Billy to be set apart and then Saturday to bring Carla (1st counselor in RS), Cheza, (Relief Society Teacher) and Cheza's son, Prince (12 ~ Deacon Pres) to the Stake Temple and Family Search Training. It was a fantastic day and especially fun getting to know these sweet members. Cheza has an adorable story about her name: her name is Cheza Pril, her sister is Chez May. Her father loved chess so he named his daughter's Chez for his love of Chess and the month they were born in as their middle names. So they call her Cheza with an A[pril] and her sister Chezmay ~ 😂😂😂 how cute is that!).
Since we had an hour & a half each way with Cheza, Prince and Carla driving to Abu Dhabi we wanted to know all about them! They are from the Philippines and talked about growing up with typhoons, hurricanes, etc and when catastrophes happened the whole city, town or village would work together and everyone would have their roofs put back on by nightfall. The LDS Church in the Philippines is growing by leaps and bounds. I think they serve each other so much and are so strong and charitable that they are taught the love of Christ from birth and they are very receptive when they hear the Gospel truths.
Wow! What an amazing training session. Those involved with the planning and execution of this phenomenal event were Rod and Jan Degillios (over the whole program), Janet Larsen Roberts (fun teacher), Dorie Tarrobago, Lori, Carey and Karla Sharp (Karla was in the hospital because of her asthma 😢 so she had to miss the activity even though she had planned so much); so many helping hands that made this training so great. We left with a huge beautiful gift basket ~ incredible and the best fruit ever. I wish I could have written down their last names but I don't know many of them. They truly motivated us to go home to our members and get them excited to get a name ready for the Temple and to work on Family History. All the way home our sisters and Prince told us about the genealogy games the Filipino Ward had been in charge of and how these would be fun activities for us to bring home to our Branch. I was able to visit and get to know Lori (Carey) Holgate and Lori Wallentine, both from Dubai, who are a delight! Others in attendance: Baher Marcous, Sergei Antamanov, Pinky Vicente, Sally Ustare, Mark Kenneth Yaqui Ustare, Stephen Oghide, Goodluck Akanama, Kate T. and Mahasin Saleh.
The above picture is of our Stake President, Pres. Kofoed who resides in Doha, Qatar (he must have had a heyday during Covid 😉)! He is adorable and he looks like he is about 32yrs old but I think he is really 55 😜; a spiritual giant if there ever was one. We picked him up at the airport in Abu Dhabi and then he set Billy apart as the Branch President at the Patriarchs home.
Above is Sister and Patriarch Woodhouse’s apartment where we joined them for this ordination. Such a beautiful view looking out on Al Maryah Island. I cannot believe I didn't get a picture of them 😔.
Above is a quick look at a few of the architecture buildings leaving Abu Dhabi and below are some of Dubai (more to follow, I'm sure!).
Ok, I've got to get busy on these emails because I have taken so many pictures and I should be writing every single night because it seems like a week is crammed into each day; it’s as if we have already been here a full year whereas it's only been a couple months 😆!
And for those that are thinking of visiting, December through April will definitely be the best months here; the weather is absolutely perfect, Utah summer-like!
And a quick heads-up for future travelers coming through Chicago O'Hare International Airport (friendly reminder: it was 9°F in January 🥶). Once we got off our plane we hustled to the shuttle bus meeting place to take us to the international terminal (which was definitely in a weird location and only left twice each day); this was most interesting and the longer we sat in the 'shuttle' section the weirder I felt. The workers were very, very rude and they shouted at anyone who got in line too early and then yelled at the people when it was time for us to finally get in the line. We were commanded to stay to the left and to stand in a straight line. I was seriously worried that she might have a ruler hidden behind her back and would smack us if we weren’t obedient.
After checking our ticket we were sent down the deep, dark stairs and a second woman loudly reminded us (multiple times) to refrain from going outside and to definitely not block the door. I must say that we were all looking at each other like, "Are we really going on that shuttle because perhaps it is taking us to a concentration camp?". Fortunately, and to the relief of us all, we ended up being taken to the other terminal where we actually boarded the plane for the 13 hour flight to Abu Dhabi. Just FYI ~ it was slightly terrifying 😳.
Malachi 4:6
“He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers…”
I love this verse because it is especially meaningful for genealogy and family history because it speaks directly about reconnecting generations and restoring family bonds.
