Grandma & Grandpa Warne: Missions & Orchids

We got an email from my grandparents announcing that they are going to serve a mission in the Salt Lake South Mission Office. We are so excited for them! They are such a great example to my family and we feel like it is such a blessing to have grandparents on a mission. They have served several other missions including one teaching special needs seminary, one at the church archives, and one in the Manila Philippines Mission (where they each lived as children and again later as they were raising their own children). I love my grandparents and I know you have all heard me talk about them. They lived amazing lives and have accomplished so much. They travel around speaking and giving firesides about when my grandma was a prisoner for 3 years during the war. They have touched the lives of so many including their family, the Filipino people, those in their wards, from their missions, and over a hundred who they housed and loved as foster children. They have been working on a book that I can't wait to have and share. Here's a few pictures of them on their last mission.

I like this picture of my grandma because it reminds me of her foster care days. When Amanda and I were coming to visit my grandma in California, she would always make sure she had 2 babies for us (and they were always different ethnicities).

I had to add these pictures too. My grandpa has grown orchids forever and his father before him. He has a greenhouse in his home where he grows these beautiful orchids. He just entered some in an orchid show and won 2 1st place ribbons and several others, one was for this one below which his father made (by mixing pollen and actually breeding the flower, it's very involved really, there's like orchid genealogy) and named after him when my grandpa was 16. My cousins wife was at an orchid show a while back and came upon this with my grandpa's name on it and found out who it belonged to. They contacted him and found that he knew my grandpa, his father, and his uncle Milton. Anyway, he sold my grandfather his namesakes and now he won 1st place in this show. Cool, huh?

This white one is the Dendrobian Thomas Warne .

We love and miss you Grandpa and Grandma and can't wait to see you this summer for the 4th of July! Congrats on the mission call!