Up before 6:30 AM AGAIN....

I am not a morning person, but due to commitments and travel, we have been getting up early way too many days in a row and unfortunately, not going to bed early to make up for it.

The Wednesday after returning from Amarillo, we were up again to take some sister missionaries to a doctor's appointment in Bentonville and then also to the temple.  Sister Ackerman had missed her quarterly temple trip because of her transfer, so we were able to take them and join another zone for the special Wednesday missionary session.  We had to pick them up at 6:15 am in Ft. Smith so that was a very early morning.

During the time we were in Amarillo, there had been significant and damaging thunderstorms including a number of tornados through the Bentonville, Rogers, and Centerton areas.  This is very unusual weather and trees especially were uprooted throughout the entire area.

While the sisters were at the doctor's, we revisited the Osage Park to see if things were still standing and found one had been flatten by the winds.

Caught a photo of a small plane leaving the air field...

We headed into Bentonville to check out some of the murals to see if they would still be available for our "art tour" in a few days.

The murals below are all within the same area surrounding a parking lot...

On a building connected to the same parking lot...

This was further north in Bentonville on the end of a row of condos.  It was tricky to find since the GPS took you to the entrance of the complex and it takes a bit of walking to actually find this wall.

It was impressive to look at with so many details to enjoy...including the shadows..

Some of the places we wanted to go on our art tour were in parks which were closed because of the tree damage.  All along the streets were piles of limbs and trunks as part of the clean up which is still going on.

We enjoyed our time at the temple.

Sister Ackerman, Jena, and Sister Beagley

Sister Anderson with Jena--she is serving in the Springfield South zone and was at the temple with us.

Sister Beagley had never been to the mission office so we headed over there. A tree had fallen onto two brand new mission cars totaling one and likely the other.

The root ball of the tree----lots and lots of roots but none going deep.  Too much water here so the trees don't have to dig deep for water.

I am pretty sure as a senior missionary, I am suppose to keep the young missionaries safe from doing dangerous things...like climbing on a fallen tree.  But Sister Ackerman wanted a picture!

We had a fun visit with Elder and Sister Stephenson who serve in the office over housing and financial things.  They like visitors and it was fun to hear their stories about the storm.  They were actually in Kansas at a graduation so missed the storm itself--but enjoying the aftermath.

Our mission map....

We went to lunch at Smokin Joes and the sisters loved it.....this picture made us laugh because the straw is not in the best place!!!! 4 types of BBQ sauce on the table.  It is THAT kind of BBQ place...so yummy. We like the Kansas City BBQ sauce.