President's Day

One of the missionaries told Dell that today was his day.  What?  Yes, President’s day.  Well his day started off leaving the house at 4:50 to pick up a missionary to take to the Burbank airport.  He was able to help me with my hair prior to going on a bike ride.  (No, we don’t have the same schedule as the younger missionaries.)  We went to the mission office so I could drop off some notes to be sent to the departing missionaries.  Timing was good because a missionary was there needing to talk with him.  Needless to say, we were there longer than planned.  We’re now back at the house doing our own things (emails or zone conference prep for him and blogging, zone conference prep and tags for the birthday leis for me).

We have been listening to CDs recorded from when we were at the MTC in June.  It jumped out at us regarding dates and P-days.  It is important so we will try to do better.  We knew Valentine’s day would be busy with baptisms so we calendared a DATE on Wednesday.  We went to a restaurant we had not been to, the Lure.  We will definitely go back as we really enjoyed it.  We thought we would go there with the Floyds after they get here.  (For those of you reading this besides our family, the Floyds are our friends and neighbors in Cottonwood Heights that will be serving in the mission office starting in May.)  After dinner we met one of the senior couples for a movie.  Yes, we went to a movie and laughed at ourselves.  There were advertisements that were shown prior to even the trailers of other movies.  We were totally entertained.  We could have left after that. 

Dell went to the store to pick up something I needed to make dinner on Friday.  Good timing as he came home with these beautiful roses.

The Wertz surprised us with these fun valentines.  I want to share them with you all.  Sandy is so clever and creative!

Tuesday, we had two of our missionaries return to the mission after being home for just two weeks.  Jared Teeples and Mike Moser stayed with us.  The main purpose for coming back was to attend the sealing in the LA temple on Saturday for a family.  The father went through many missionaries before getting baptized and now sealed. 

Friday night the Moser family came to dinner along with Mike and Jared.
 (We have to learn their first names.) 

Sunday night Jared came back with his guitar to sing for us.  Mike drove home with his family and will be giving his homecoming talk on Sunday.  He wanted to wait until he had experienced the temple with the Falcoa family.  I would like to hear it.  He did such a fantastic job at transfer meeting when he bore his testimony. 

This week I did a lot of scanning of pictures of Christ.  President Felix has requested the missionaries study The Living Christ.  We wanted to put together a video to Kenneth Cope’s song “Miracles.” I really put my whole self into scanning.  The head worked since my right hand needed to prompt the computer.  Saturday I was able to make a “movie” with the pictures.  I really tried to have pictures appear that would go along with the words of the song.  I know I was helped from above.  I was very excited with the outcome. 

Saturday was great with going to three baptismal services which included 5 people getting baptized. The first was very special.  Elder Gardner’s father got permission to be baptized here in Ventura by his son.  He will go back to Pennsylvania for the confirmation.  The room was full with supportive members that Elder Gardner has worked with and many missionaries that are serving in this area.  While Elder and Brother Gardner were dressing the time was given to those who would like to bear testimony.  One of the missionaries arrived late due to traffic.  He told us when they walked into the room the spirit was so strong.  It was amazing!

President had some issues he had to deal with but we were able to get to a 5:30 baptism in Ventura and another in Camarillo at 7:00 where a mother and her two children were baptized.

Landon Wallace, one of the assistants, went home in December and returned with his mother for the sealing and stayed with us Saturday night.  I love being able to hug the missionaries when they come back.  It was so great visiting with them but staying up until midnight and getting up at 6:15 was not enough sleep. Those are giant strawberries dipped in chocolate from our home/visiting teachers (the Jones).  They are locally grown strawberries.  We had breakfast but had to be on the road at 8:30 to go up north to Solvang for 10:00 Sacrament meeting.  I wish you could all take the drive from Ventura up north.  I am in awe of God’s creations. 

As I walked out the front door this morning, this is what I saw.  Do you realize it is February and we get to see so many different kinds of flowers?

We are excited about zone conferences which begin tomorrow and we repeat it three more times.  I am doing a segment on Etiquette.  I hope they accept what is said and that it will help them.  We have wonderful missionaries!  The afternoon will have the focus on Christ.  We hope and PRAY all will go well.

Eggs

I was at the grocery store last week to buy some eggs.  I just couldn't do it.  For 18 eggs the cost was between $6 and $7. I'm wondering if something has happened in the world to cause the jump in price. We don't watch the news.  We went to Costco today and purchased these eggs for $4.99. As we were driving home Dell googled eggs in California.  The increase in price is because the law is now chickens in California have to have enough room in their living conditions to be able to spread their wings. I think it was 114 square inches. That means fewer chickens or farmers have to make bigger areas.  This is crazy.  It is already expensive here,  it's going to get worse. 

On the brighter side,  this is a huge bush that I passed walking yesterday. The flowers are large. We continue to be amazed with the vegetation here.  There are many trees that are blossoming with white blossoms.  We'll wait and see what comes next. 

North in the Mission

We were in the most northern part of the mission last week.  We had interviews in Santa Maria on Thursday.  We stayed in San Luis Obispo Thursday night because interviews were in Atascadero on Friday. We enjoyed having dinner with President and Sister Casper. 

 Saturday we drove to Paso Robles which is the most northern city in our mission.  From there we drove to see the elephant seals. Our drive reminded us of being in Jace's mission in Santa Rosa, California.  We came across more vineyards.

 This was such a beautiful sight that we stopped to see the green and realized the ocean was in the distance. 

 The pregnant females begin arriving about mid December.

 The pups nurse for 4 weeks and quadruple in weight. 

 We were told there are thousands on the beach from January to May. 

 These two that are raised up will go at each other's necks. They battle for breeding rights. 

 The males have big long noses.

We drove to Morro Bay.  We went to a baptism of the wife of a member. 

Stake Conference was in Atascadero on Saturday and Sunday. We were asked to take 2 minutes each Saturday night. We thought we each had 5 minutes on Sunday.  Sunday we were asked to take 2 more minutes each. Elder Packer who is an area Seventy was so great to listen to.

Sister Casper put together a box lunch for us and we ate it as we drove back to Ventura.  It is a beautiful drive. 

Dr. Suess

 When I went walking last week I came across these plants.  I have no idea as to what they are called.  There are some of these plants on the way to the church in Ventura. We've labeled them Dr. Suess plants.  Don't they look like they came out of one of his books? 

I said this statement last week "If I were home,  I would be cold outside; but here I'm cold inside."  Today I had the same sentiment.  We were in Santa Maria for interviews.  I was freezing in the church and went outside with missionaries to warm up.

Last week we were invited to be in Newbury Park for Stake Conference.  We were asked to take 15 minutes in the Saturday night's session.  That meant I had 5 and President had 10. Elder Sitati in the First Quorum of Seventy presided. He is from South Africa and has a great accent. We met him in the foyer and walked up to the stand.  He leaned over to President and asked if we were going to be there on Sunday.  He said yes.  Elder Satati then said I would like your wife to take up to 10 minutes tonight and you talk tomorrow.  President had prepared a talk. We were told the focus for the meeting would be ward councils.  He was going to tell them that MLC is like a ward council in the mission field and how we come together to coordinate the activities in the mission in hastening the work. All week I studied Preach My Gospel, the Ensign, and scriptures because I had no idea what I was going to say and I just wanted to prepare myself.  Really, what do you say in 5 minutes?  I had one sentence written down that I thought I may use.  "There is neither man or woman in this Church who is not on a mission. " That quote is from Brigham Young. I did use that statement but I was given stories or experiences that I was able to share. Our focus right now is working with the members.  The members make such a difference in the success of missionary work. I shared the experience we had of going to a baptism earlier in the day of a young married man. They were married in May. She was a member and the church was important to her. Mainly by her example he became interested.  His parents did not go to the wedding because he was marrying a Mormon and have disowned him.  He started taking the lessons and the ward embraced him and he was baptized.  He expressed thoughts after being baptized and it was great. Another experience was hearing from a bishop last week.  He called to get phone numbers of two sisters who had taught one of his employees.  About 5 months ago the employee was in his office.  The man from Mexico was concerned about his immigration and his wife who was still in Mexico.  Their marriage was suffering. During the conversation the bishop was prompted to ask the man if he would talk with the missionaries.  He agreed to the offer. That night the bishop went to a baptism (in fact we were at that one) and gave them the man's contact info. Well the employee went back to Mexico but met with the sisters a couple of times.  The bishop wanted the sister's numbers so he could tell them the man had called and wanted the bishop to thank the sisters for planting the seed. He, his wife,  and children were getting baptized in Mexico. As the bishop told me the story,  I got chills. 

I am learning to trust in the Lord.  He does put thoughts and words in my mouth. In preparing for the 5 minutes I knew I would be guided but I needed to prepare myself.  

More to the stake conference story --So President is not told how long he would be talking on Sunday.  We'll the talk he had was not going to work.  He put together thoughts on our purpose. With talks that transpired prior to his 10 minutes,  he didn't give that talk.  His remarks were about the memory of being called to be a mission president and his heart attack.  He told them we were to be here at this time. He shared what the missionary purpose is and invited the congregation to invite their friends. 

He did an excellent job. 

This week we are attending San Luis Obispo 's stake conference. Elder Packer who is an area Seventy will be presiding. President has 15 minutes in the leadership session, evening session is not certain, and Sunday we each have 5 minutes.  Here we go again. ..

Sunset

I wish the pictures could show how beautiful the sunset really is.  Dell took this picture from the deck of the mission home.  We have some glorious sunsets.

It is so neat how we belong to the Church and it is all around the world.  President interviewed a man from the middle east for baptism.  He speaks some English but he had been taught by missionaries speaking Farsi over the phone who were in Los Angeles.  They came up for the interview so that they could translate.  He was baptized last Saturday along with a young adult from the YSA ward.  The meeting was held in the chapel.  All talks were translated into Farsi.  It was pretty amazing.  The missionary spoke Farsi when baptizing him and then said it in English.

This gentlemen has been in the states only 3 months.  He feels that he came here to find the Church.  The president had to interview him because he was Muslim.  If a person is planning on returning to his country, it is counseled not to get baptized in the Chruch.  His comment is if I go back, I will be killed any way.  He is a very sweet man.  His wife attended the baptism and sacrament meeting the next day for his confirmation.  

After those baptisms we met the Stake President and his wife (of the man's stake) for dinner.  We couldn't spend a lot of time because we had two more baptisms that were at the Spanish branch.  It was conducted in Spanish and English but the talks were all in Spanish.

The missionaries like to do object lessons for a message after having dinner with members or investigators.

They showed me a couple while waiting for interviews with the president.

 The board represents the cross, the one nail in the board represents Christ, and the other nails are the sins of all of us.

You can see Christ carries all of our sins.

This rat trap is used to demonstrate faith.  With a pencil the spring is touched and it goes off.  While the companion is reading a scripture the other missionary releases the spring so when touched it won't hurt.  The people are promised the trap will not hurt them.

FYI -- this month are interviews.  It takes 11 days to complete them.  We've done all but 3.  Next week we go up north and will be there for four days as we also have stake conference in San Luis Obispo on Saturday and Sunday. 

While the missionaries are waiting for their interview I get to visit with them.  This go around of interviews they each received a ___________ (you need to look up Mosiah 4:16)

It was fun to see their reactions as most of them had a chuckle.  The hope is every time they see a succor they will remember our experience and Mosiah 4:16.