Merle Ellen Hamp Smith, June 12, 1946 - July 24, 2012

Merle, my sister in law, left too soon.  She was a wonderful sister in law, awesome aunt, and really the glue that kept the family connected.  She was unofficially the family historian; everyone went to her for information and she kind of kept everyone informed of everyone else.  We were not ready for her to leave us. 

Sweet Merle 

Program (front and back) 

So talented...here are some of her beautiful handiwork...quilting, smocking, needlework.

Program, center

Collage of memories

Siblings: Cindy, Alice, Owen, Jean Ann 

Barrett's email, July 29th

...

So since we last spoke, we had another office day on tuesday. That is the day we spend in the office. Usually we meet with president and talk about all sorts of important things (or at least we think they're important :), we help the visa and travel people sort out and plan how and when everyone will go where ever they need to go whenever they need to go there, we drink lots of water cooler water, and pretty much anything else that needs to get done right away. And we do it all in comfortable swivel chairs. 

Then wednesday was the North Zone Conference. Again most of the details were the same. The Zone leaders spoke about Determination. It was great. 

And after that we went up to Tver with my former companion and his greenie. We stayed in Tver for two days. It's a nice little town. It's one of the two towns with a young missionary serving as Branch President (the other city is Smolensk). They're doing great

So then we came to Zelenograd. We had to get a train from tver to zelenograd. When we bought the ticket, the lady almost didn't sell it to us because the train was going to leave in 2 minutes. We bought them anyway and ran like maniacs to the platform and as we turned the last corner, the train had already started to go. It was right there, we were running so hard to try and catch it. I asked my companion "what are we going to do if we catch it?" he said "I don't know" Okay, so we just ran until we couldn't run anymore. Needless to say, we had to let that one go. We were a little bummed for missing our train, and just by like one minute. So we had to wait a bit for the next one to come. And this is where the miracle comes in. So the train is empty, we're among the first to get on. We sit down on the first bench, and this guy sits down right next to us. Keep in mind there is an entire wagon full of empty seats, and he sits down right next to us. Furthermore he pulls out a book and starts reading. It's the Bible... in English! So my companion and I are all over that. I don't even remember how we started the conversation, I just remember how he reacted. He looked up with the biggest look of surprise, saw our tags, and in perfect english said "you confess Christ, too". And with that one of the most golden conversations I've ever had began. We talked for more than an hour about where we're from, why we're here, about the restoration. And when we had pretty much given him the whole first lesson, there was a pause, and then he says "Can you preach to me out of that book?" So we talked about the atonement and faith and all sorts of stuff. And he's just soaking it up. He would say amen after the things he agreed with and for the things he wasn't sure about he would say it's hard to believe, but it the Holy Spirit testifies to me that it's true... короче this guy was awesome and it was a miracle that we missed that train. It just goes to show that after the trial well-endured, there is always a blessing equal to or greater than the trial. 

Well, gotta go. Love you all. I really do

Love 

Elder Hamp

Barrett's email, July 23rd

District p-day activity with the Voronezh district last week

 My companion served 7 months in Kazakhstan, so he showed me some of his souvenirs. Here I am with a flag and a horse whip made of a goat's hoof

and here's the 2-string lute-type thing  

District contacting activity in Moscow: singing outside a metro stop

Zone Conference in Voronezh with President and Sister Sorenson

a staring contest with Lenin in the basement of the voronezh building

Another exciting week. Last monday and tuesday were spent finishing up splits in Voronezh. I think I mentioned how much I like voronezh. It really is a beautiful place. 

Then on wednesday we had our office day in Moscow. Those are always fun.

Thursday was the South Zone Conference. It was really good. President talked about sacrifice and obedience, Sister Sorenson talked about sharpening our tools and being ready at all times, the Zone Leaders talked about unity and even brought a home made Title of Liberty for everyone to sign, and we (my companion and I) talked about goals and stuff like that. It was a really good conference. And afterwards we went on splits with a couple Elders in Moscow in one of my old areas. We went and visited Sister Elena, the babushka that I love so much from a few transfers back, the gypsy enthusiast who makes really fantastic blini. I love that lady

Friday we went to Podolsk, a little town outside of moscow but still in the moscow region. It's always been a part of our mission, so it's not that exciting. Just kidding. It was awesome. Me and the Elder I was with went on a member quest to find one of the 10 less actives on the ward list (Podolsk easily has the highest activity rate in the mission). The guy lived way out in the countryside. It started raining super hard so we ran to this little bus stop. There was only one guy there and he was a little drunk, but super nice. We asked him for directions and he was way nice about it. It wasn't until we walked in a gigantic circle, found the house, then walked to the end of the block and saw the bus stop that we were at that we realized the guy had totally dooped us and gave us wacky directions. He got us way good. But I'm kinda glad he did. We saw some incredible scenery and we even found this little street that looked almost exactly like Bee Street in Placerville. We stood and admired it for a few seconds.

Saturday we were with the South Zone Leaders, also in one of my old areas. It was so cool to see people we had been working with, see how they're progressing, or ask them what's the deal, why aren't they progressing. We even got to go to Family Home Evening at the senior couple's house. Those are always fun. We had taco soup for dinner and I wanted to ask you (mom), Have you given your recipe to a Sister P currently serving in Moscow Russia? because this soup tasted exactly like yours. It was so fantastic.

Sunday was probably one of the craziest days of my mission. We went on splits with the Elders who serve in the International ward. We had church in English!!! It was crazy! I had forgotten that that was possible! How do you do that every week? That's crazy. All the talks, all the prayers, even the songs, everything was in English. I couldn't believe it. And after church we met with a couple of guys from Africa, and after that we went contacting. I found out that contacting for the International Elders usually consists of popping up on any metro stop and looking for people who don't look russian and hopefully speak English. Haha. It was fun. 

It was on Sunday that I received the call from President about Uncle Lloyd. Thank you for having him call. It was good to hear it from him. President of course was very respectful. I thanked him for calling. How grateful I am for the knowledge of the Plan of Salvation. With the understanding that I now have of God's plan for us, it is almost more difficult to feel sad, although I do feel sad for the immediate loss, but the happiness of knowing that he is still smiling and making other people happy far outways the sadness. And what an incredible story, the unshared details of which I look forward to hearing someday. 

So that night we got on the night train to go back down to Voronezh for their Zone Conference. Which brings us to today. We got into voronezh this morning, had enough time to run to one of the apartments, wash my hair in the kitchen sink while my companion washed his in the tub, and run down to the building. It was a great conference. Most of the details are the same as the last conference except for the Zone Leaders' practical training on what to do between getting a contact and getting a meeting. It was good. 

We played a little basketball in the indoor basketball court in the building, which may sound normal to you, but here in Russia, that's something that not many people can say. And now here I am, emailing while we wait for our train in an hour and a half. 

I'm glad to hear that everybody got their letters. Sorry again they're so old, haha. It's great to hear that dad is doing well. I'm sure he's gonna have a ton of stories to tell of his travels, too. Tell everybody Hi and I love them. Have a great week. Oh, and tell Sister R that I got her DearElder. It works, feel free to teach everyone how to use it. 

Ok, gotta go

Love you

Elder Hamp

Uncle Lloyd Kino (Lloyd Hiyoya Kinoshita)

This is my Uncle Lloyd.  He was the best uncle ever!  He passed away Saturday, July 21, 2012 at the age of 93.

Grandfather in Mortal Combat

Wu in Star Trek

The Fourth Stooge 

Andy Griffith Show 

M.A.S.H. 

Here are pictures of him doing what he loved.  I was happy for him and as a girl loved every opportunity to see him in a show...McHale's Navy reruns, Magnum PI, whatever...but what I remember most were those moments that won't be caught on tape.

He was the oldest of five children, all boys except for the baby, my mom, Kay.  My mom told me that he was a great big brother and taught her how to play hopscotch and jacks.

He was a dutiful oldest son who stayed with my grandmother in the internment camp at Heart Mountain, WY, while the rest of the family, when they were able, left camp to work.  He always took care of my grandmother until her death in the early 80's.

He was the best uncle ever!

When I was a little girl he would always entertain with his rendition of Donald Duck.  He always mastered several accents so he would constantly switch characters which always got me giggling.

When I was a young teenager, he took me to Solvang just to spend the day with me at home of my favorite places.  He made a trip to San Diego then spontaneously down to Tijuana with my sister; Dodger games with my cousin Bob.  He was just the best uncle.  He was indulgent with us just as a favorite uncle should be :)  One Christmas he knew we loved the Beatles so he bought us a dozen of their albums.

When I came back from Ricks and was back in town he took me with him to some fun stuff.  Now grown up, when he didn't have a date, I filled in. I went to a party with him at Cindy William's (of Laverne and Shirley fame).  She was very nice, I was way to young and dumb to be there, but I have never forgotten it.  He also took me to the Los Angeles showing of Abel Gance's Napoleon: produced by Francis Ford Coppola and the score was written and conducted by his father, Carmine Coppola.  It was a 1923, three to four hours long, silent film.  There were two showings, one in New York and one in Los Angeles.  It was quite an event...I slept through some of it but the nap gave me the energy for the after party in the lower section of the Shrine Auditorium where I met Francis Ford Coppola, at the time the most popular producer in the industry, and Fred Roos who produced many things with Coppola over the years, who was actually Uncle Lloyd's friend.  That event had quite an impact on me.  I told everyone the story...my friend bought me the show poster and my brother in law framed it for me, years later.

Over the years, he did all kinds of things though an actor by profession for over 50 years... he went with my Uncle Bob to visit our cousins in Sao Paulo, Brazil...my grandfather's sister immigrated there while my grandfather immigrated here.  He sang with the Orientones before my birth.  Played in a ukulele band in camp; loved Hawaii; moved to Oregon and then on to Vegas where he never really retired; he would fly to LA for auditions and did get a part or two in NCIS in Vegas.  He always was improving....took Spanish lessons, acting lessons, etc.  He was a health fanatic and exercised and ate health food my entire life.  I never remember him not eating healthy and I always remember him either not eating with us at a restaurant or bringing his own food.  He was awesome!  Real discipline.

He always seemed happy though he does wish some things in life had gone differently, but who doesn't.  I loved that he was always interested in people; always asking people about their lives.  He did this with my boys.  He was interested in what they were doing in school, their favorite subjects, what they did for fun, etc.

He was 93 years old.  Toward the end he didn't really know me but he was always interested in me and my life.  Everyone at the Motion Picture home loved him.  He was always smiling and joking.

I am honored that he trusted me to take care of him over these last five years.  I will miss him.

Barrett's email, July 15th

Lipetsk

A little clearing on the edge of a river

 Baptism in a river

Voronezh

The meeting house in Voronezh. It used to be a movie theatre in the Soviet Union

In world war II, the enemy did not make it beyond this point

Greetings from Voronezh, the prettiest city I've been to yet. What a week it's been. So let's see, since last monday, what has happened. Well the new missionaries arrived. 2 Elders, 2 Senior Couples (ie, 4 people), and 8 Sisters!! Pretty much every sister in the mission is training now. My companion and I went to the airport with President and picked them up. They had a ton of stuff. We had 2 vans their to carry all the stuff and a 14 man mini-bus to carry all the people. It was nuts. 
Then on wednesday, we helped train the newbies. They've changed the system so that now the arriving missionaries come on tuesday, have orientation on wednesday, and then transfers is on thursday. When I came, we came on wednesday, slept through most of the orientation,  and then met our companions the next day. 
Transfers was nuts!! Thursday morning we took the newbies to Red Square. It was half way closed off for some military thing. They were loving it. They are all way strong missionaries. They're awesome. We contacted on the way back to the Central building. You'll never guess who we ran into: A retired operatic singer on vacation who has been Josh Groban's vocal couch since Josh Groban was 17! Way nice guy. He was trying to find St. Basil's and knew that we would speak English. He's LDS and recognized us as missionaries. 
Then we had the actual transfer meeting. It was crazy! So many missionaries, so much luggage, Elder P's family, people running left and right, everybody has a question about how this or that will work, where to go next. All the little minor details that we overlooked were realized. Every companionship in the mission got an iTouch, half the companionships are "shotgunning" (both companions are new to the area). But we made it. As far as I know everyone made it to where they were headed. 
Then that night we got on an overnight train to Lipestk. Lipetsk was great. I actually had a little trouble sleeping in lipetsk because it was so quiet. No cars, no sirens, nothing. It was fantastic. We were there friday, saturday, and sunday morning. On saturday there was a baptism... IN A RIVER!! That's awesome! 
After church on sunday we took a two hour bus ride to voronezh. Oh my goodness, I love Voronezh! It is incredible. Beautiful buildings, super old streets, hillsides covered in little houses and trees. Sometimes it looks more like what I imagine Italy looking like than Russia. And the church building... well, just look at it! It's gigantic! 
Well, just about time to go. Have a great week. Love you. 
Love
Elder Hamp

Barrett's email, July 8th

Train station in Yaroslavl

Catching some winks on a bench

Ryazan

Turns out Pavlov, as in the guy with the drooling dogs, lived in Ryazan. We were going to go to the museum, but it was closed

My companion, me, and the two new missionaries

Just walking around moscow

Holy Cow!!! What a week! What have I done to be so blessed with so many pictures? Everybody looks great. Holy cow!
Happy fourth of july! It sounds like everyone had fun. Mine was spent out at the mission home for the first combined zone leader council with all 8 zone leaders there. Sister S made hamburgers and pasta salad, and jello cake for dessert. Elder T, the west AP who was stuck in Kazakstan made it back the night before so he was able to be at zone leader council. He has some incredible stories about the last two weeks in kazakstan. He was there to help get 50 people to sign as founders of the church in the capitol city of kazakstan. They were down to the wire and they saw some amazing miracles those last few days. And now the church is registered in Astana Kazakstan.
So, since Elder T left his companion in Kazakstan, he and I began serving that day. Elder C, my former companion, made some independence day jokes.
So now, here I am in Ryazan, emailing in an internet cafe. Ryazan is beautiful. The buildings are shorter, the sky is bigger, the streets are lined with trees, and if you're in the right place you can see what looks like the edge of the city. That never happens in Moscow. Just before Ryazan, we were in Yaroslavl for a couple days. Yaroslavl is a bit bigger, so it didn't feel all that much different from Moscow, but Ryazan definitely feels different. If the USB was working on this computer I would send you some pictures: the Ryazan train station, the Yaroslavl train station, me trying to sleep on a bench in the Moscow train station. It's been an adventure. The missionaries out here are so solid. Really hard workers. I've been so impressed. Today is our last day in Ryazan. It's p-day, so we're going to an art museum. And tonight we'll be back on the road, a bus back to moscow. The new missionaries come in tomorrow, so we'll go to the airport with president to pick them up. Sister Carver will be one of them. 
Be sure to tell dad good luck and I love him. 
Tell Brother Y thanks for the letter, and maybe I'll ask around about the name and see if I can find anything out. 
And to Amy and Ana: remember, with great power comes great responsibility. That look is a dangerous weapon
Well, gotta go. Tune in next week: Lipetsk and Veronezh. Tell everybody hi. Love you. I can't wait to see that plaque. Elder C is happy that his career as an artist is finally taking flight, and in Placerville. Have a great week.
Love 
Elder Hamp

Barrett's email, July 1st

 Indian guys singing near a metro. They were a huge hit

Two guys from English club. They've been with me from the beginning

graffiti on the back of a storage unit

Even the dogs get down on their luck sometimes

Station #1 on the Moscow Metro Tour

Station #180

KIM IS GOING TO ВЛАДИВОСТОК!!!! 

...That's the coolest thing I've ever heard!!! Oh man, she's going to have such a good mission! I can't say much about what it will be like in Vladivostok, but I can say with some confidence that it will be very different from my mission so far. Oh man, I can't believe it. That is too cool.

Concerning the plaque: So which two pictures are our options? I don't remember the winter picture. Maybe it's just because it is fresher in my mind, but I might lean toward the newer one. But I trust you to pick the better one. And the verse is Romans 10:13-15

Concerning badger pin: I don't remember the pin, and the question... Do you know the question? Maybe if you asked me the question, I could tell you the answer. I don't know

Well, things are getting exciting here in Moscow. The merge is coming. We're going to have a mission conference tomorrow, everybody together. It's going to nuts. Well, everyone except the current west assistant. He's having some visa issues coming back from Kasakstan, so he won't be able to get back until the day after. And when he gets back, he and I will start serving immediately, and then we'll head off to Veronezh and Lipetsk. Everyone is getting way into figuring out transfers. Every transfer it gets a little like march madness among a lot of the missionaries, and this transfer is the biggest transfer, so everyone is freaking out a little bit. 

Oh, man Kiril is awesome. He passed the sacrament yesterday. I love that guy

Holy cow! Not much to report this week, but next week should be a good one. 

Have fun. Love you all. Tell Kim congratulations again. And if she has any questions, go ahead and ask. Talk to you soon

Love
Elder Hamp