Friday morning, while Linda was getting ready I drove over and took a few early morning photos of the Raleigh Temple. It had been raining off and on and sky was completely overcast as you can see in this picture, taken of the east side of the Temple, just outside the fence.

Friday, August 21, it was our privilege to be with Sister Rosemary Overstreet as she attended the Temple for the first time, along with some thirteen other Bedford Branch members and friends.

This is a beautiful, small temple located in the historic community of Apex on the west side of the Raleigh metropolitan area in North Carolina.

We drove down on Thursday and took a room at a nearby hotel for the night. Otherwise we would have needed to be up and going at around 5 a.m. in order to be there in plenty of time for the 10:45 a.m. session.

This is a poor quality picture, but you see the young Eastern Whitle-tail doe eating the grapes that have fallen from the grape arbor out in the back yard of our home on Hopes Way, Bedford.

In the evening and often in the early morning they can be seen in the yard, pulling down apples off the apple tree or nibbling at the grapes or eating the acorns that fall from the oak trees.

Yesterday morning there were 6 deer, including a young fawn, feeding near the grape arbor, but they are very wary of anything that appears threatening and bounded off, out-of-sight, into the woods when I stepped through the door with my camera.

These are the missionaries presently assigned to the Vinton District in the Roanoke Virginia Zone. Our District Leader, Elder Shill, second from the right, believes he will be affected by this next Transfer, coming up a week from now. We sure have enjoyed him and each of these fine elders.

This picture was taken following our District Meeting this past Wednesday, August 12. We were all headed in to a restaurant for lunch and I asked them to line up for this picture as Elder Shill may not be with us next time.

The Vinton District leads the Zone in missionary activity. Elder Shill has done such a good job!

Left to right it is Elder Boling (dark glasses) from San Diego; Elder Hart from Payson, Utah; Elder Jeffery from Oklahoma; Elder Hegland from Salt Lake City; Elder Shill from Texas; and of course the whole world knows Elder Wright from Loveland, Colorado.

Elder Boling is companion to Elder Shill; Elder Hart is companion to Elder Wright; Elder Jeffery and his companion Elder Hegland are standing together.

We sure do love these young men. They seem like grandsons to us.

The nice thing about taking pictures here, where we live, is helped by there not being many man-made features to get in the way of the earth, trees and sky.

This is toward evening with the setting sun's rays creating these colors in the clouds to the north and east. Taken from the rear deck of the home on Hopes Way.

A view to the north on one of the many fair days of summer. This is from the bedroom window, looking off toward the Schutte home and the Blue Ridge Mountains in the far distance.

A rapidly developing summer storm. The kind Linda lives for. It came out of the southwest and brought down sheets of rain for a time. While it lasted it sure was fun!