SANTANA AND FAMILY

Our family is doing great (or doing big, since we have 3 kids!). Sara is 5, Bruno is 4 and Isabela is 6 months. Each one is different from another in their personality, interests, and demands. My wife is doing a great job with them. She is wonderful!

I'm working at a government bank since I returned from my mission, in early 2000. I finished my undergraduate in law and business. I was just admitted to attend graduate at Harvard Kennedy School of Government so we are moving to Boston in August. Hope to see you guys during our 2-year-housing in the US.

Best,

Santana

PRESIDENT AND SISTER LOPES

Maria Luiza (S.Lopes) and I live now in São Paulo, a short distance from the temple where we are officiators on Tuesdays. She is also Ward Relief Society President, and I am the High Priests' Group Leader. I am also assistant to the Area Presidency for Family History.

I am now Area Translation Manager. We are in charge of all translations into Portuguese, including those of Church broadcast. We have a "tieline" installed in São Paulo, a booth where we get the satellite signal with both picture and sound, we interpret the talks here, and relay them to Salt Lake, from where it is broadcast to wherever Portuguese is spoken, such as Boston,California, China, etc. It is a challenging but wonderful opportunity.

S. Lopes is doing what she likes most: handicrafts and taking care of the grandchildren, when the opportunity comes. Kelly, our oldest, has two daughters and lives in Brasilia. Her husband is a stake president, and a federal judge. Marcelo, 33, lives close to us. He has two boys and a girl(6, 3, 6 months), and he is one of the secretaries for the Area Presidency. His wife's name is Juliana. Fernando, 32, married to Fernanda, still lives in Belo Horizonte. He is a personal trainer, and is getting his Master's degree in Movement Physiology (or something like that). He has a boy and a girl. Rachel (27) is a lawyer, studying to become a judge. She is still single, but will probably get married next year. Rebeca (22) is married and also lives in BH. She is graduating in August as a nurse. So, we have seven grandchildren altogether.

We are planning on a mission in five years or so, when I retire. Our ward is quite unusual. Two of the members of the Area Presidency, Elder Didier and Elder Ellis, are members of the Ward (imagine teaching a class in which you have these great men!). There are so many Americans (35% of the members) that we have simultaneous interpreting in Sacrament Meeting. Marcelo is a Young Men's consultant, and teaches bilingual classes to them. Some of the Americans work for the Church, others for the American Consulate, and others in several companies. São Paulo is amazingly international.

Regards,

Edson

(Picture taken in Salt Lake City at the Conference Center last November)

CHRIS AND CORI (PERKINS) MORRIS AND FAMILY

Chris is half way through his 15-month deployment in Iraq. I have spent some time with my parents and in-laws in the States but am now back in Germany. My boys, Cooper (4) and Jasper (1), are delightful, but it's still not always easy being the only parent around. We look forward to having Chris home so we can resume our European traveling adventures. We plan to settle in St. George in the summer of 2009 after we finish our commitment with the Army and look forward to seeing some of you more often.

The WAREhouse

Cynthia and I have two girls, Makelle (4) and Audri (almost 3). We still live in Orem, Ut while I finish my MBA at the University of Utah (don't worry, I still bleed blue, go cougs!). I am really enjoying the program but it is a big sacrifice to be away from the family so much. I am working at Novell full-time as a support engineer but I hope to be able to move more towards the business side of Information Technology (NERD!). Cynthia and I have recently been preparing to perform in the BYU Luau where we are dancing Hawaii, Tonga, Samoa and New Zealand sections. The performance is today and we are really excited; this is our 2nd year of performing. As a promo, Fox 13 (local channel) did a story and I was lucky to be able to perform a couple of small numbers on TV (check out the video clips https://mail.uhhospitals.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.myfoxutah.com/myfox/pages/InsideFox/Detail?contentId=6124395%26version=2%26locale=EN-US%26layoutCode=TSTY%26pageId=5.2.1 - I am in the 2nd and 3rd to the last video clips).

Here are some pics of the girls and Cynthia and me.

Dave Ware

THE NIELSON FAMILY

It has been almost nine years since I finished my missionary service in Brazil. So many things have happened since then, it almost seems like the mission was in another lifetime. Here is a quick recap of all the adventure.

I married the former Amy Quist less than a year after I returned home on April 22, 2000. I graduated from BYU with a degree in Computer Science the day before. Amy had already graduated in Electrical Engineering and was working for Motorola in Boston. After our marriage, I moved in with her and began work on a Master's degree at Brandeis University.

Shortly after our marriage, however, we decided we wanted children, and that such a desire would conflict with the high cost of living in our current city of residence. Consequently, we moved back to Utah both for the much lower costs and also to be close to my mother who was suffering from Alzheimer's disease. We were blessed with our first amazing child, Seth Alexander (Alex) on Decemeber 17th 2001. My mother passed away three weeks later, but had lived to fulfill the blessing my father had given her that she would live to see my first born child.

In 2002, I decided that my life was not complicated enough, and so I approached Amy about the possibility of pursuing my Master's degree at BYU. After much discussion and prayer, we felt good about our decision and I started the wonderful experience of working and going to school at the same time. I finished my Master's degree in Computer Science in 2004. During those two years, we also welcomed our second amazing child, Drystan Cade, on July 3rd 2003.

Amy and I again had to decide what direction we wanted to take after I finished my Master's degree. After much more discussion and prayer, we decided that it would be a good idea for me to pursue my PhD. I was accepted to the Rice Computer Science doctoral program in Houston,Texas, and have been there since 2004. I hope to be finishing in the next twelve months. It has been a great experience to be here and we have had many adventures. One of the most interesting of these adventures was my summer internship for Google in California in 2005. We drove to California with what would fit in our little Mazda 626 (inflatable beds and couches anyone?).

Our third amazing child, Kael Gryffyn, was born April 10th 2006. While he was born 10 weeks early, he lived up to his name ("Mighty Warrior, Strong in Faith") and was out of the NICU in just five weeks. In the two subsequent years, he has grown and developed phenomenally, demonstrating normal physical and intellectual development.

Amy, for her part, has focused her (considerable) talents into children's education. Specifically, she has focused them on our children's education. In addition to teaching Alex and Drystan reading, writing, mathematics, history, literature, cooking, science, and whatever caught their fancy at the library this week, she also is teaching a "science lab" class for a home-schooling co-op with which we participate. Anyone who remembers me will remember that I like totalk. A lot. Wonderfully, I married a woman with whom I am "equally yoked" and our household is always full of very lively conversation regarding politics, religion, education, relationships, family, books, art, and music. Not unsurprisingly, our children are known in their primary classes for their talking.

Interested persons will find that I reply quickly to email at sethjn@gmail.com and can be found on google's I/M at the same. Please keep in touch!

Seth Nielson
with Amy, Alex, Drystan and Kael

THE WILLIS CLAN

Jess and I have two boys, Sam (4) and Luke (2), who are—how should I say this nicely—a handful. They are also pretty darn fun to be around. We currently reside in greater Maryland Suburbia (more specifically, the urban sprawl of Silver Spring) about 6 miles from Washington, DC and about twice that from anything worth visiting in the city. We’ll have been in the area 4 years in August. I’ve been working as a financial analyst at the Federal Reserve Board for almost 3 years while I pursue (yet another) degree in economics during the evenings. It’s a strange balance. I’m sure we’re all coping to some degree with the challenge of balancing the many other facets of life. We’re happy and very much enjoy the area.

Andrew Willis

THE PALFREYMANS

I frequently find myself wondering what everyone from the mission is up to. I thought this would be a good way to keep in touch. I'll get the ball rolling. . .

Sarah and I moved to Cleveland, on purpose, so I could start and hopefully finish my Internal Medicine training. We wanted to move away from Salt Lake City to try something different and different we got. My only criterion was to move to a city with a professional baseball team and after last year’s onslaught of Wes' Yankees, I have quickly become a fan of the Indians (although still a Giants fan at heart). We have since had our first child, Sage, who is quite a delight. I could go on and on, but before I do, I'll open the posts up to see if anyone responds. If there is a positive response, we'll keep the blog going, if not, we'll shut it down. Please email me your posts and I’ll add them to the blog; eric.palfreyman@uhhospitals.org. Out, Palfreyman.