Family of Missionaries

On Thursday, Andrew's cousin Michelle (Miller) returned home from her mission in London. She served in the same mission as Sami, Layla's brother. Everyone serving with them joked about the two of them being related even though they're about as unrelated as it gets. Michelle really is Andrew's cousin, but Sami is Andrew's step-cousin's wife's brother. No relation at all to Michelle. We like them both the same, though.


We went out to dinner with all of Andrew's aunts and all of Aunt Dorothy's children on Thursday before everyone (except us) went to the airport to welcome Michelle home.

Sunday, though, was the big get together. It was our last chance to see all of the Anderson cousins before leaving for Egypt, and unfortunately, we visited instead of taking pictures of Rachel playing with her little cousins. It was so nice of Rachel's aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents to help keep track of her! We get so tired chasing her around all the time!

She just had a great time chasing all the older kids around. I don't know what it is about this girl, but she always wants to be older than she is. She idolized Leah, John's current youngest child, who is about 6 months older than Rachel. Leah kept running away from Rachel, but Rachel was persistent. She just really wanted to play with her...until Leah closed a door on Rachel's little finger. Then Rachel didn't want to play with anyone. Luckily that happened when we were getting ready to go, so it was kind of convenient that she didn't want to play anymore.

There are just so many fun things to do at Aunt Dorothy's house that I wasn't sure Rachel would ever want to leave. There were animals all over the place. She paid some nice visits to some kitties, puppies, and a horse. The horse and the puppies were a little scary for her.


She got to jump on the trampoline and play with lots of little cousins. I was excited to meet a lot of cousins that I'd never met before--especially two of Richard's siblings, Michelle and Michael. Andrew's mom's side of the family is fairly large. It's so hard to keep track of everyone; I think I've met most of them now!


Michelle was gracious enough to share her limelight with a few other people.

In the morning, right before church, Dorothy and Raymond (Michelle's parents) opened up their mission call. Raymond wanted to go somewhere foreign. Dorothy was okay with going foreign as long as it wasn't too foreign. And she didn't want to proselyte. She's been so nervous. Their call came on Thursday but they waited until Sunday to open it so that everyone could be there.

They were called to the Capetown, South Africa mission as CES missionaries. So, foreign, but not too foreign. And they probably won't have to do much proselyting.


And Grandma made a cake especially for Rachel since it's her birthday!