This part of the history takes us from our retirement in 1989 to my 70^th birthday July 1^st, and our Golden Wedding Anniversary July 21, 1998.

As we looked forward to being free from many of the duties of the past, we decided to turn our canoe rental business over to Jeff.  We gave him the canoe trailer, 6 well used canoes, paddles, life jackets, etc.   Since then he has rebuilt\rerivited and fix up the canoes and bought a lot of new equipment.  He has added several new canoes to the fleet and built an additional new trailer.  He has a lot of business each summer and still lets members of the family use them when they are available.  We all still enjoy the canoe trips each summer.

We had planned to take a trip to Egypt\Israel in June 1991.  However, on June 14^th, Dr. Donald Doty performed a “Aorto-coronary bypass graft X 2” on my heart in Salt Lake City.  He said the trip was off for the time being. 

By then we had received a call to go on an 18 month LDS mission to Micronesia Guam in September.  We wondered if the doctor would let us fill that assignment?  He said, “Yes, that will be a good place for you to go and recuperate from your heart operation.” 

Mike brought us home from the hospital in Salt Lake City in his new van.  Since I had let all my canoes go to Jeff, I had my eye on a new one at Smith & Edwards store in the Odgen area.  While enroute home and the others were asleep, I asked Mike if he would stop at the Smith and Edwards store so I could use the rest room.  That was an excuse to see about the new canoe again.  We found it on sale at a good price, so Mike offered to bring it home on the top of his van, which we did.  Bonnie had forgotten to bring a belt for my trousers, so I had to hold them up with one hand they were so loose.  With the other hand I had to hold my shirt away from incision on my chest.  They all joked about the way I looked walking around the store making the canoe purchase.

For several years, I had been working with Tressa Garrett, co-authoring a new 413 page book called HOMESTEADING AND PIONEERING IN THE UPLAND AREA BETWEEN FALL AND TETON RIVERS.  I continued working on that project through the rest of the summer.  The book went to press in 1992, and we got a copy of it while on our mission.  It is the history of the old Farnum Ward area and several hundred families who homesteaded and settled that area.  It includes our grandparents, Joshua and Sarah Ann Hawkes, and their family. 

In August we hooked the travel trailer on the car and took a trip to Glacier National Park.  This was our last little side trip before going on our mission.  It was delightful.  We saw several white mountain goats grazing close by and got a lot of good pictures. 

After many goodbyes and a farewell at our church sacrament meeting, we entered the missionary training center in Provo on September 16^th.  They told us we were not scheduled to come until the next week but they let us come in anyway.  After our two week training period they sent us back home to St. Anthony for a week.  We were lucky to do that because we were able to go to Megan’s baptism.  Also, Toni had given birth to Stacey while we were gone, so we were able to help bless her that Sunday.

When we arrived in Guam, President Nord assigned us to work in the Chuuk Lagoon (Truk) in the Eastern Caroline Islands.  We lived on the island of Moen and served in a leadership training and reactivation position.  Our island and home was the meeting place for about 22 missionaries as they came in from the various other islands in our 40 mile wide lagoon.  They came in for P-Day, zone meetings, and district conferences.  One of the presidency would come out about every 6 weeks to meet with us and the missionaries.  He and his wife would stay in our house during the time they were there.

We had two districts with 5 branches each.  It was also my job to help train them to keep accurate accounts and reports of the money coming in and out.  Bonnie did a lot of cooking and entertaining.  She was a very good hostess and the idol of all the hungry missionaries.  We gave them their immunization shots every 6 months and otherwise cared for their concerns.

Half way through our mission a new presidency came on the scene - Pres. Gordon and Beth Thatcher, Lyle and Jacque Bowen - who came to see us often.  We knew them back home in Idaho, so it was great to renew their friendship.

After a great many experiences, some very good and some not so good, we returned home after our service time plus was up.  It was a wonderful experience.  We did love the people and still think most every day about many of them.  We arrived home March 31, 1993.  Terry and Toni lived in our home while we were gone until they purchased their home from Steve just a block east of our place.   It was good to be back in our own home using our own things and among our wonderful family and friends again.

The night we got home from our mission, the ward bishopric came to see us and asked me to be the Boy Scout Master/Deacons quorum advisor (my fourth turn at it.)  It worked out fine and I served there until September 4, 1994.

In February 1994, we took a trip to Mexico to visit Billy and Luisa and family.  They took us to the Gulf of Mexico, Jalapa, and places Billy had been on his mission.  We visited many old Indian ruins, pyramids, markets, and locations in Mexico City.  It was a very wonderful trip.

Now we get to go on the trip to Egypt\Israel!  On April 22, 1994, Bob, Sharlene, Bonnie, and I started a tour with Jeff Chadwick and a few others on a 4 day tour of Egypt.  We went to Cairo, Luxor, and various other places.  We saw the great   pyramids, temples, burial places, the Nile River, and we rode camels, the whole works.  It was a most interesting place historically.

On April 27, we flew into Tel Aviv and joined an official BYU Israel/Holy Land tour with George Pace.  We took bus tours north up the west coast, then circled east around to the Sea of Galilee, Jordan River, Dead Sea, up to Jerusalem and vicinity.  We visited the Jerusalem BYU Center several times.  We visited all the important sites that Jesus walked, the Garden of Gethsemane, the tomb site, etc.  Time and space will not allow a good report of this trip, but it was a high light in our lives! We gained much information and a greater love for the Savior.  This was both historically and spiritually wonderful.

On October 9, 1994, I was sustained as the Third Ward Historian.

Early in 1996 I completed compiling a comprehensive history of Joshua Hawkes.  This included much of the history of his father and their family as they joined the church, helped build temples, crossed the plains, and settled in the West.  We bound this history in 8 ½ paper booklets and made enough copies to give to all the extended families that came to a great Joshua Hawkes Centennial Celebration in July.

The Raymond Hawkes family and our family hosted this 1996 celebration that was held in Horseshoe Flat southeast of Ashton, Idaho.  We ordered and had made a large bronze plaque honoring him and his wife and families who came here to homestead and prove up on the land in this area.  A meeting was held at the Hawkes ranch to honor him and to dedicate the monument that was erected.  Over 200 of his descendants attended the meeting and then a luncheon that was held at “The Place.”

After Christmas 1996, Ray, Leah Belle, Bonnie, and I went on a two week vacation cruise and tour to Hawaii/Tahiti.  We were on a Princess Love Boat Cruise so of course got the royal treatment.  We were on the ocean 5 days and nights and learned a little about being sea sick.  The night shows were great, the food was excellent, we had a great time.  In the islands we went on various tours that were very interesting.  We had a great time, but it was good to be home again.

On August 1, 1997, we were called on another 18 month LDS mission.  This time it was not on the other side of the world, it was right out our back door on our own block in St. Anthony.  We were asked to be the directors of a new family history center.  A new high school was built north of our town, so a new seminary was built east of it.

With the old seminary building empty, our stake leaders obtained permission to start a new family history center.  We opened for business on October 20^th.  We now have computers, microfilm and microfiche readers, copiers, and all the equipment necessary to carry on family history research.  We have a fine staff of 12 people who come in different shifts to help the patrons do their work.  We also have the stake name extraction program in one of the rooms and work cooperatively with them.  We now are averaging over 150 patrons a month who come in to do their work.

During the last few months I have been able to research and complete the writing of my father and mother’s histories.  We will put these in binders with pictures and distribute them to all of the children and grandchildren of Percy and Ida.

Since November of 1997, I have suffered with a herniated disc in my lower back.  It has caused the sciatic nerve in my right leg to generate considerable pain.  I have been treated with steroid shots to relieve the inflammation and pain.  With proper exercise and care it seems to be getting better.  My therapist son, Bob, assures me that given enough time and care it will heal itself with out surgery.  Time will tell.

During the last few winters I have made several full sized dog race sleds for my children that wanted them.  Now, I am making small model sleds for the others who want them.  They have turned out so well that it will be a hobby I can do for years to come, perhaps I will even sell a few of them.

After Marshall came home from his mission in April, 1998, I decided to give him the Honda Goldwing 1000 that Don gave me when we came home from our mission.  I have had a lot of fun on it, but feel that now is the time to retire from riding it.

Through the month of April, I have finished updating my personal life history.  July 1, 1998, will be my 70^th birthday!  July 21^st will be our 50^th wedding anniversary.  With the birth of Jacob Wells Hawkes, we now have 50 grandchildren and 2 great- grandchildren.

I want to point out that I have obviously not mentioned my children or grandchildren except for incidental things that helped me tell my story.  I have the greatest of love for each of them, but have not included our writings of them in this document.  Our next big family history project is to write a comprehensive life history about each of our children.  Some of these histories are well on their way now.  It will help us if you will send us what history, memories etc., that you now have or can take time to write.  We hope to continue working on this project during the next few months.

Many of the items in this history are very brief in order to save you reading time and space in this paper.  If you are interested in knowing more details of a particular item it can all be found in my personal journals.  At home I have about 20 looseleaf binder journals in which I have written each day beginning 1975.  There are also some journal entries for 1959. 

Let me share a few personal thoughts.  Have you considered that out of the seventy plus souls born in our posterity we are all still alive!  Bonnie and I, over the last 50 years, have seen you all come to earth.  The Lord has favored us so far, and allowed us all to remain here on earth to grow, develop, and enjoy our life and agency.

Some one told me recently how much they loved their 3 or 4 grandchildren.  They asked, “How is it possible for your hearts to expand to love 50 or more?”  Our Father in Heaven has billions of children, and he loves and cares for each of them including each one of us.  That is the miracle of love!  Yes, our hearts have expanded to love each one of our children and extended family.  As our family continues to grow in numbers, so our hearts will include them all.  The secret is for us to live and act in such a way that each one of our posterity will know for sure that they are really our “favorite.” 

Our minds and memories are full of thousands of good moments & experiences with our children, their spouses, & our grandchildren.  These are the precious jewels we wear as crowns of a successful and blessed life. 

Our greatest desire is to persuade all to come unto Christ, to conform our lives through repentance to his will and keep his commandments.  We have faith and hope that in the next world we will all be worthy of exaltation and eternal life as a united family.  We have a wonderful family now, and have had many witnesses in this life that the Lord loves us.

I pledge my life, time, and sacred honor to all of you as you continue living in this wonderful world and choice time.  It will not be many years from now until the promised millennium with Christ at the head will come.  Either way Bonnie and I will be there and share our time and love with you all.