Category: January

More Pictures from Escada

Matthew is on his second transfer in Escada. It was a big change from Salgueiro and it took him and his new companion a minute to get their stride going but they seem to be doing good and getting some good things accomplished. I am proud of how hard he works and how he is dedicating himself to doing his best. You can see in the pictures they are keeping busy and doing a lot of good. This week on February 11 Matthew had his 6 month mark. He is a quarter of the way done with his mission. He is getting pretty close to fluent. He says he can speak and understand pretty much everything, he needs to keep adding to his vocabulary and work on his accent now. That alone is a pretty big accomplishment in six months. Plus all the other things he has learned about the gospel, living with others, working, being mostly on your own, traveling across continents, self motivating, accountability. He is elbow deep in life lessons and learning. We are proud of him. And I miss him like crazy.

They were able to find a sister who hasn’t been to church for a long time and in the past she wouldn’t let anyone come and see her or visit. I believe her name is Jessica but I might be remembering wrong. She is in her 40’s now but she served a mission when she was younger and people said she was really great and loved the gospel. She has depression now and had been having a hard time getting out of her depression. They found another sister who knew Jessica and was a friend a long time ago and they had her help them find Jessica and convince her to let them help her out. They spent a few days cleaning her house and yard up, and her friend got her some medicine and helped her get cleaned up herself. She has even come to church a few times since then.

All the yard and weeds you see were cut down and removed with the machete and hoe. Good old fashioned manual labor.

Here are more pictures of the city.

Some of those stairs the city is named for.
When Matthew is talking to me and walking around his phone is pointing at the sky and every now and then you see massive amounts of wires above his head. He sent a picture of how many are on one pole.

Sometimes on p-day they travel to Recife to the mission presidents neighborhood and get together with other missionaries to play soccer on the beach. It sounds like a pretty fun day. Last time Matthew said he was on a little bit in awe when he stopped to think his 19 year old self was playing soccer on a beach in Brazil with dozens of people from around the world. His team alone had an Argentinian, an American, a professional soccer player from Paraguay, a Bolivian, and one of the riches men in Brazil. Quite a group the church brought together.

Heading back to Escada after a day in Recife.

These are pictures of Matthew and his current companion Elder Toledo working in Escada. One of Matthew’s favorite parts of his day is eating food so he also likes to send us pictures of the food he enjoys eating.

These boys offered to run any errands for them if they needed anything.
I am glad there are members that feed them in this area so they get at least one balanced meal a day.
District meeting.

Zone Conference with member of the seventy
I liked this picture because I can see his confidence and peace and happiness in his eyes and face.

This area has a lot of members but not very many of them come to church. Matthew and Elder Toledo have been working on reactivating and encouraging members to come. They had a pretty successful activity a few weeks ago. They have also found a new sister that was baptized this week.

Did splits with Elder Aranjo (spelled wrong I am sure)

I love how she says ‘pingy pong’. 🙂 in the first video and how Elder Toledo says ‘wow’ in the rain video.

Wild Life

One of the fun things about our new house is its location is out far enough away from the city that we see lots of wild life. We see lots of animals in the flesh around our house. We also see evidence of them, or hear them, or smell them. Some of the most common ones are deer, coyotes, racoons, opossums, snakes, mice, horses, cows, donkeys, chickens, skunks, and all kinds of birds. I think we have even had a bear wander through our front yard as it was passing through but I am shunned when I say that by certain family members.

I believe one of our regular animals we see has already made an appearance in Terry Family Shenanigans. Thomas the hawk. He likes to perch on the peak of our roof over the back deck and then dive off and catch food when small animals come out of the tall grass into our short grass. The past few weeks he has been around a lot and we have seen him in action. He is beautiful and big. It is hard to say but I bet his wing span in between 3-4 feet. We think he might be a Thomalina instead of a Thomas. There is a very young hawk that has started hanging around too. He looks like a minature version of Thomas and usually perches on the rim of our trampoline net or the rail of our deck. We haven’t gotten any pictures of the new friend yet but we have a few of Thomas. Someday I’ll get out my real camera and stalk him a bit to get some good pictures but we took these really quick when we saw him hunting.

Diving to catch food in the grass
Flying back up to his perch on the roof.

I went to the chiropractor and when I got out of the car I was greeted by these two ducks that were hanging out on the sidewalk. I had never seen them before but I am guessing they are local residents because they had a food and water bowl our for them.

But, the big surprise of a new animal we saw the other day was on our way to Emilee’s softball practice. We were passing a field with a bunch of donkeys in it and Emilee noticed one of the donkeys looked a little different. We don’t know how this guy made it to Olathe Kansas but we hope he is enjoying life with his donkey friends.

Forest Springs Frosty Formal

Emilee had her first school dance. Her middle school has a dance for the 7th and 8th graders in the winter each year. She looked beautiful and is growing up way to fast. She picked out her dress, she wanted it to be purple and she decided how she wanted her hair to be done. She originally thought a bun but changed her mind and went with curls, half up, half down. She went with a group of her girl friends. A few of them came over to our house to take pictures before and then arrive together at the dance. Emilee said she wanted to go in her dads car so she could arrive at the dance and have ‘drip’. I am not sure I said that correctly. But we took her and her friends to the dance and we had the song “Shut Up and Dance” blaring on the speakers when we arrived and they made their grand entrance. They had to run because there was a blizzard happening and it was a freezing 15 degrees at the time but it was still a grand entrance. It was pretty stinking cute. They all had a fun time. Emilee said they danced a lot and they had good snacks to eat.

Left to right- Lyla, Camille, Eden, Keely, Emma, Olivia, Harriet, Morgan, Emilee, Rachel, Ava, Avery
Emilee, Morgan and Rachel

2026

Here we go! A new year of experiences, growing, changing, learning, and memories to add to our lives.

Emilee went to Arkansas for the last part of 2025 and spent a few days with her cousin Lizzy. They had a great time and loved getting to be together. She was with them for New Year Eve and we picked her up New Year Day. We hadn’t opened presents yet so when she got home we opened some with her. Our family pajama pants this year were Dr. Pepper pants. Some of us are very big fans of Dr. Pepper. And speaking of things that people are big fans of, Emilee is also a big fan of Bluey…the cartoon for preschool kids…but there is apparently a big following of middle school kids that love it too. She got a pair of Bluey pajama pants for Christmas and she got her dad a pair for Christmas so we had to get that on camera.

A few days after the New Year it was warm enough to practice shooting her bow so we went outside and used the new target she got for Christmas.

Matthew is now in his Black Out Year. It is a term missionaries use for the year of their mission that they are gone from home for the whole 365 days of the year. The crappy part of that is the definition I just gave you. The silver lining is when it is done it will be just a few more months until he comes home. He is doing really well. His Portuguese gets better everyday and he is learning and growing a lot. We are proud of him and excited for the opportunities he is having. He is missed a lot. We went to dinner the other night at Costa Vida where he used to work. He called us while we were there and talked to some of the people he used to work with which he thought was awesome. On the way there we made this video for him so he could hear one of his favorite songs and see some of the Kansas sunset. Allison was in the car with us but didn’t want to be in the video.

Allison is working hard at wrestling. She is doing early morning practices and spends most of her weekends at meets. The most recent meet at Blue Valley North West she took 3rd place. Here is a video of her at a match in Topeka.

Screenshot
Screenshot
Screenshot

Emilee is still doing her weekly riding lesson. She moved to a new barn this year. She is getting pretty good and comfortable on a horse. It is fun to watch her.

Paperwork…and a Call

Matthew decided that he is going to go on a mission as soon as he graduates from high school. He started filling out the paperwork for it and submitted it this week. He has an interview next week and then within a week or two after that he should find out where he is going! We did a couple practice photos to submit with his paperwork. A lot of his friends have gotten there calls or have already left. They are going to Brazil, Sweden, Singapore, Philippines, Panama, Utah and Italy. He is really hoping to get somewhere out of the United States. He is worried that having asthma will make it so they want him to stay in the US. I think he could easily go to Europe or Australia. We shall see!

It has been a few weeks since I wrote the first part and it is time to find out where he ended up getting called to! Several people told us they usually found out on a Monday between 10-14 days after submitting their paperwork. When we were in that window we were anticipating it coming on a Monday, so I made some snacks and treats, Matthew put his friends and family on alert to come over Monday night when he opened it. Ryan was going out of town on Wednesday of that week so we were hoping it would come before he left too. Monday came and went…Tuesday came and went. The Stake president checked the status and it said it was still waiting for assignment so we figured it would be the next week on Monday. Wednesday came and went. We had the missionaries in our area over for dinner Wednesday night. They told us a way to check and see if the call was on the way. We did it and it still didn’t show us anything. Thursday evening I was sitting in Emilee’s room talking with her and Matthew called me. When I answered the phone he asked where I was because he had just gotten his call. We were all pretty surprised!

Matt decided he wanted to open his call with just his immediate family first and then read it again when he invited the rest of his family and friends over later. He said in case he was going somewhere lame he didn’t want to open it with everyone first. I think that was maybe a small part of it but I think most of it was he was nervous and wanted to be able to process it a little first. Which is just fine. The bummer part was Ryan was out of town, but he left the conference he was at for a while and found a quiet place he could face time with us.

Once we had Ryan on the phone he opened his call and found out he will be going to the Brazil Recife South Mission!! He starts online training in our home on August 11, 2025 and then will go to the Brazil Training Center on August 20th. I thought it was pretty touching that the day he starts happens to he his brother Aaron’s birthday. I like to think that Aaron will help Matt and be a companion for him throughout his mission from heaven.

After he read his call with us, we invited his friends and family over to read it later that night. We did a zoom call for friends and family that were not here in KC. Several of his baseball and school friends that aren’t members of our church came. It was really cool to see them support him and be excited for him. They all wrote their guesses on a white board before he read it. Many of them stayed for a while after he read it to start researching and finding information out about Recife.

It has been pretty exciting learning and starting to plan for his mission. The first thing we had to do was get the process started for getting his Visa. It take 4-6 months so they want you to get started right away. There were a few little hiccups but we got it done pretty quick and got the paperwork sent in. He will be speaking Portuguese while he is there so he got a few apps on his phone to help him start learning. It is 138 days until he goes from when I am writing this. We have discovered lots of people that have been to Brazil on there mission, some even the same one Matthew will be at, or have family or experience with sending a missionary to Brazil. It is comforting to have there advice and insight. I am sure Matthew will have a lot of amazing experiences and grow a lot. It will be challenging for him. It is exciting, and overwhelming and a little surreal all at the same time. There are a lot of things going on at school between now and when he graduates and the Summer is already starting to fill up. Ryan and I are trying to soak it all in and enjoy and appreciate the last few months with him before he leaves, as much as we can.

Wrestling

Winter was filled with Allison’s wrestling matches. This was Allison’s first High School wrestling season. It is from November to February, if they make state it is a few weeks longer. She initially started on varsity because she beat the girl for her weight class. A few weeks later another girl dropped down to Allison’s weight class and took her spot on varsity and she was bumped to JV. Allison decided to drop down another weight class and then wrestled in that weight class the rest of the season sometimes on varsity sometimes on JV depending on another senior girl wrestler.

I think she did pretty awesome! She didn’t seem to think she did overly great but when she wrestled JV she won most of the time. Two of her meets and one dual she took 1st place. When she wrestled varsity her record was pretty close to 50/50 wins vs losses. That’s were she thought she didn’t do good but as a freshman wrestling mostly Junior and Senior girls with a lot more experience I think that is a great first year.

It is fun to watch her and see her determination and commitment to it. Not just at meets but watching weight and maintaining it where she wants it while conditioning and putting a lot of time into practice between meets. Ryan and I learned a lot more about it too. I am still not an expert but I know how points are scored and more of what the verbiage and things the ref does or says while she is wrestling means. I also figured out how to combine her individual match videos into one so I can have one video instead of a bunch of short ones. Very proud of myself for that.

It was a good season. She loves to be busy so it was good for her to have that. She is contemplating doing track next…

This is a match that was far away so I didn’t make it to watch her but she won 1st place.

Here are a few of her matches. The first one is a dual she won by technical fall which means she won by getting 15 points ahead of her opponent.

This next one is a match that she wrestled seniors every time. She took 7th in her weight class.

The last one is her last JV match of the season and she took 1st place again. She dominated the first match, used her endurance in the second match, and dominated again the third match.

2025 Begins!

January was a typical January this year. There were a lot of social media comments and jokes about how January is a 12 years long, never ends and the most miserable month of the year. I don’t think that. February seems longer to me, ironic since it is the shortest month of the year. I get why people struggle though. It is a long cold and dreary month. I am ready for the calm boringness after several months of go go go with the holidays. We had a few things that spiced the month up though.

RJ and Dani decided we should all go to a show together at the Kaufmann Center downtown. They had never been and it had been a long time for us. We all went to Chicago together. I had seen the movie, never the play. I think the play was a lot better. It was a nice adult date night down town. Allison watched their son and dogs overnight at their house and Matthew and Emilee watched each other so we stayed downtown and used hotel points after the show. It was nice to not have to drive all the way home afterwards.

The following weekend was Ryan’s works holiday party. They rented out a speak easy under the KC Hotel downtown with a roaring twenties theme. It was pretty fun, everyone dressed up and had a good time. We were going to stay in the hotel that night too but mid week Ryan got sick and we didn’t know if we were going to be able to go or not so we canceled it just in case. Luckily he was better and we got to go. It is a pretty fun hotel but I didn’t mind coming home since we had stayed downtown the weekend before. I was talking to the new marketing person Ryan just hired and her spouse. They seemed really familiar and eventually we figured out that they come to my office for dental work, so they reason they looked familiar is because I have cleaned their whole families teeth for the past few years. LOL. Small world. There were some group pictures taken but I didn’t get any copies so I just have the pictures of Ryan and I. I thought we looked pretty good, Emilee thought we looked silly but she clearly doesn’t know how people dressed in the 20’s. Our costumes came with fake cigarettes but we decided to not carry those around all night.

The next weekend we had Grandpa Terry’s 73rd birthday to celebrate! Every year he says he just wants a very simple meal for his birthday dinner with everyone. This year he said he wanted tacos, Ross said that was boring and made chicken fajitas instead. They were very good… I think Roger enjoyed them and ended up being ok with the switch. Rhonda made him a carrot cake-she makes a very good carrot cake-and he blew out all the candles successfully. The Terry family has decided we are going to continue with the decades old tradition of blowing out the candles on a birthday cake despite COVID trying to do away with it. It is kind of gross if you think about it, but we have all survived this long. 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ I do not have a clue why Allison is holding a candle up in an orange for him to blow out too-I would guess either an inside joke or she didn’t want to eat cake for wrestling reasons and was including her orange in the celebration.

And last but not least for January-for part of the kids Christmas present Ryan got tickets to the Chiefs playoff game…if they made it. Of course they made it to the playoffs. We have gone to the super bowl 6 times in the last 7 years and will probably go again this year. He had four tickets. I was fine with not going because if I watch the game I prefer to do it in the warmth of my living room. IT WAS COLD! Allison had some wrestling stuff she didn’t want to miss so she passed her ticket onto Matthew’s friend Carter. So Emilee, Carter, Matthew and Ryan braved the weather and went to the game. We won and it was a fun game. No one lost any toes or fingers to the cold. The Chiefs hold the record for loudest stadium in the NFL and Emilee said she believes it. She had a fun time with her dad and brother. Next we have to try for a three win in a row at the Super Bowl!