2009 Special Olympics

February 2009 brought an opportunity for Matthew to work with a group of men from Honduras that were here to compete in the Special Olympics up in Boise, Idaho. Our Stake President, President Hansen, had asked for volunteers to help pick up the men from the airport and spend a couple of days showing them around Utah before they boarded a bus taking them up to Idaho. Matthew jumped at the chance. He always gets stars in his eyes whenever he gets an opportunity to work with those from South America. He has missed being able to use his Spanish as much now that he's working for CRC on the FrontRunner project.



This man, Giarmo (sp?) was one of my favorite out the group. He was always upbeat and he seemed to really look up to Matt (no pun intended ;-)) They were so fun to be around and even though I don't speak Spanish we were still able to communicate a little here and there and Matthew would translate a lot for me. Matthew rented a van to help shuttle them around and I got to spend time with them at dinner time for two nights. We then went up for their last game up in Boise, Idaho over the Valentine weekend.

Here's the only other picture of me pregnant. The guys would rub their bellies and joke around asking who would be first to have the baby, Matthew or me. I think they also asked Matthew where his other wives were. I made sure he cleared that one up right quick! Lol :-)

They played a team from Iran (I think) and it was obvious that they Iranians had quite a bit more funding for their team. They had all sorts of padding and equipment that the Hondurans didn't have. That didn't seem to stop the Iranians from slamming into the tiny Hondurans though and I was afraid some serious damage was going to occur but our little guys hung in their and fought back pretty hard.

Here is one of the coaches, on the left, and one of the team members on the right. They didn't win their game. They were playing for the bronze but had won the gold at the last olympics. It seemed that they kind of lost their fire to win once they knew the gold was out of their reach. A team from Africa who really knew how to "Whooop" it up won the gold.

Here's President Hansen. He has a development project he really wants Matthew to be involved in down in Paraguay and the stars come back into his eyes whenever he talks about it. Matthew has always felt very strongly that he has a work to do with the Latin people and is looking for opportunities to become involved with them. I told him that as long as it feels right then I'm on board as well, even if that means moving to Paraguay (his old mission stomping grounds) or somewhere else.....and as long as Jenny and Jeff and their family agree to come too! Lol (I'm kind of, and kind of not, kidding on that last part)

Really though, if we're meant to serve in the South then that is where we will go but no solid plans as of yet.

As for our trip to Boise, it was enjoyable, though I don't think we'll ever move to Boise. We did stop in at Rupert so I could show Matthew where I grew up. He was thoroughly impressed with our "historic" town square and our two functioning stop lights! Lol. We visited my brother's grave, stopped by our house, grabbed lunch from the "brand new" and excited Subway and headed back to Utah.