Birthday and Caving

Well, I finally turned the big 27 on the 14th. I have a feeling this will be a good year. Delinda was in Africa doing research and so I hung out with my friends after our ward's Institute class. We went to the Wave (a small little Hawaiian Diner) and just hung out and ate and talked and laughed. It was fun and good to have people around. Over all the day was really good. I woke up with an attitude of being happy, mostly because it was our Month End at work and those can usually be stressful days. But it turned out to be a very good day and I got to talk to most of my family!

Last weekend for our Ward Activity we went to North Georgia to go caving at Sitton's Cave. Our Bishop is way into doing hard hikes and other outdoor adventures and so he led us through this cave. It was SO much fun. I haven't been caving since I was in probably High School or something in Flagstaff. There were 28 of us and we all expected it to be muddy, but little did we know we'd have to walk through (in my case) waist high water! And it wasn't warm water either. We didn't have to walk through it the whole time, but a lot of the time we did. This was the first time though that I've seen Stalactites and Stalagmites. And of course the resident bats where sometimes hard not to touch! There were pretty much every where, but were sleeping most of the time. Our Bishop led us to a small cavern room where we all sat and turned our lights off and showed us the light that old time cavers used. It was interesting and everytime he lit it, it would make a very LOUD popping noise that startled me! Well me and pretty much everyone else in there! Then on the way back we all stopped somewhere and turned our lights off again and then Sis. Dean (the Bishop's wife) passed out Wintergreen Lifesavers which when you bite into, sparks. I personally didn't see any, but people claimed they did. (I've heard Certs with Retsin work too!) We headed back and then about 7 or so of us went the wrong way to get out- which looking back now makes me cringe a little because it was a VERY VERY tight space we had to crawl through for a good 5 minutes which seems like an eternity! We came out wet and muddy, but I personally feel it was TOTALLY worth it. It was a lot of fun and this earth is full of beautiful things to see.

On the way home we stopped at a Memorial for one of the first Mormon missionaries here in the South that was killed at a well. His name was Joseph Standing from SLC, UT while serving his mission was killed by a mob. The members in the Chattanooga Stake maintain the grounds.

That's it for now!Delinda in Johannesburg with our cousins.Delinda in Angola