Family

As many of you know, Sese Melinda Free has just returned from Lithuania. We hope you enjoyed the live broadcasting video from our Dad...it is so cool to be able to watch it live! We figured that another video wouldn't hurt. I am pretty sure that my Dad will post Sese's talk as well.

It has been such a joy to be with Melinda! Hope you feel that joy from this video!

-Mike Free

P.S. This film was shot on my mom's camera by Adam and Mom. I just post the videos.

Here is a video of our family on iChat. We were choosing names for Christmas, but had to spice it up a bit. Enjoy!

Elizabeth and I decided to try some recipe that we saw a while ago. I got the recipe from Sis. Foster...the amazing women my companion and I stayed with in my last area. She sent me two cook books that she had made for our wedding. So, Doodle Wopps was a fun name and it looked good. So, with some of our left over ham we tried it out! It was really good and was very easy clean up. You can see pictures by clicking here.

I have yet some more pictures from Saturday's activities. They are on my Picasa site.

Enjoy.

Free Family pre-Thanksgiving dinner and Testimony

We had a lot of fun with everyone! There was a lot of great food, love, laughs, and smiles all around. Savannah came out of her shell and entertained us all with dancing and singing. You would never believe she is a shy person. Avery was full of cute giggles which made us all smile. Chiaki was the fashion diva as always! Chad is an amazing dancer. We had a blast with the Silva kids before, during, and after the reunion. Mandy, Brandon, and Lauren were reunited with their cousins who missed them. The girls and boys sang cool primary songs. Marilee reminded us how to do the pioneer line dance, which hopefully helped us speed up the digestion process of yummy food. Grandpa played games with the teens and kids! It was cool to see people quilting blankets. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for planning this gathering and sharing your beautiful testimonies! I am sure the southern side of the family will have a wonderful time too!

click to see slideshow->

"Count" Jordan had a Halloween Band Concert this evening and it was really good (of course). All the trophies from his marching band (Orem High Marching Band with half Mountain View students) were displayed in the lobby. They did very well this year and racked up 23 trophies in six competitions earning first place in their division in each. Just in case the slideshow does not display or you want to see larger pictures, you can see them here

As I was going though the day at work, thinking about all the little loose ends that we are tying up as we work with not so dilligent partners in business. I felt that I should share what my Mentor Roger Williams, has shared with me over the past three years that I have had the chance and privledge to work with him. Roger is publishing books on really finding about ones self, Open your destiny......so enough said on my part, here is the pdf for it, it is not a edited version. But talking with Roger had helped me alot in figuring out things that keep fuddling me up.

click to see slideshow->

I opened my mission call tonight amid many friends and family members. I have been called to serve as a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I have been assigned to labor in the Baltic Mission. I will prepare to preach the gospel in the Lithuanian language, and I report to the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah on June 4, 2008! I am so excited, and I love you all!!!!

Love,
Melinda

P.S. The Baltic mission includes Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. So...Holly wins the guess on where, because she guessed I was going to Latvia! Yeah, Holly!!!

click to see slideshow->

At the beginning of this week my Bishop let me know that the status of my call was "Ready for Assignment." That means that they might have made the assignment yesterday (Thursday)! Sometime soon my call will be mailed! I can hardly wait!

That also means that it is time to get the guesses going. I think it is fair to have one state-side and one foreign guess. Feel free to post your guesses as to where I will go and when the call will arrive!

I Love you all!!!

I have had a wonderful first half of November! With the help of the Hord family, I was able to fly down to AZ and surprise my family on the 1st. On Friday, I went on the Father/Daughter campout with my Dad and sister (you can see a picture of them with some of the YUMMY teryaki sauce we picked up on the way). It was fun to spend time with my family and visit my home ward (and mission prep class...it is the BEST). Joseph and Elizabeth Hord were also down there that weekend (trying out for the Easter Pageant). The three of us flew back to Salt Lake on the same flight and got lunch together (Wendy's) after arriving back in Provo.

This past weekend, Becca and Reid were able to fly out for a visit. Some family friends hosted a baby shower for Becca, and it was a lot of fun. Reid's mom did the food, so of course it was amazing, and they have a lot of great people there. They also had a really fun and creative activity at the shower. There were several plain white onesies and special fabric markers for people to use in decorating them! It was great! I took a couple pictures of Lauren's masterpiece. Ü

Today, I got to go with Becca to the BYU Museum of Art (one of our favorite places to be...lots of good memories Ü). You can see a picture of us in front of the building that a nice girl (enjoying her lunch on a bench nearby) was nice enough to take for us. We looked at almost everything in the building, and we also got to visit briefly with two of her (well, our) former art history professors. We then headed across the street to meet up with Reid for lunch and ice cream (delicious, of course!) at the BYU Creamery. Happy day! ...And a beautiful one. I am also including a couple shots of the fall leaves and blue sky taken today in the courtyard of my building.

I hope you are all having a fun fall!

click to see slideshow->

My friend and roommate Jennifer and I dressed up for Halloween and then had fun taking several pictures. We hope you enjoy them too. Ü

click to see slideshow->

I was able to get a week off of work and visit home! The best part about it was I surprised everyone! When I walked inside mom was in the kitchen. I snuck up on her, put my arms around her, and said "hi". She was totally surprised, and her reaction was definitely worth coming here for. Part of the time I spent at home, we decided to go camping in Canyon Creek. You can check out the pictures by clicking here.

Well, I got my missionary picture taken today, so I thought I would just share the proof with you! I even did some "photoshop magic" on it to make myself look good Ü. Hope you enjoy it!
-Mike

This has been one of the greatest months in my book. So many fun activities: Elder Free's return, family visits, mountain man rendezvous, Mexico vacation and Dad's (Uncle Joe's) birthday. I've uploaded all of the pictures of those events, so I hope you enjoy them!
Just click on this link to get there.
Please note that these pictures are coming from both my camera and my mom's. Her camera's date was set a day earlier, so there may be several spots in the sequence of photos that may be out-of-sync. I have changed hers to match mine, so from now on, the photos should be in order.
Love ya'll!
-Mike