Quotes of the Week

"Difficulties allow us to change for the better, to rebuild our lives in the way our Heavenly Father teaches us."
--Thomas S. Monson

"You can be smart and happy or stupid and miserable, it's your choice."
--Gordon B. Hinckley

"Our Father in Heaven is generous with His power.  All men and all women have access to this power for help in our own lives."
--M. Russell Ballard

"We must never lose our sense of awe & profound gratitude for the eternal sacrifice of the Son of God."
--Dieter F. Uchtdorf

The Beautiful Mission Home

We are so blessed to be able to live in a fully-furnished home that is decorated so beautifully. And a house cleaner comes every other week.

The yard is beautiful as well. And we have yard people who take care of it for us.

 

We love this place!! The house, the palm trees, the cactuses (or cacti), the flowers--it is all so beautiful and we can't get enough of it!!!

Quotes of the Week

"The answers to our greatest questions come to us as we are obedient to the commandments of God."
--Thomas S. Monson

"One of the greatest weaknesses in most of us is our lack of faith in ourselves."
--L. Tom Perry

"You can change.  You can be helped.  You can be made whole whatever the problem."
--Jeffery R. Holland

"There is no choice, sin, or mistake that you or anyone else can make that will change His love for you or for them."
--Ronald A. Rasband

The Few Days After the MTC

We arrived back at home following our five days at the Seminar for New Mission Presidents and found Jeff and Sarah had moved into our house and were hosting Sunday dinner with Rebecca's family, us and Newland--who Jeff and Sarah were taking care of for a couple of weeks.

The grandchildren were happy their grandpa was home to make popcorn for them and sing the "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree" song with them.

When we changed out of our missionary clothes, Newland wanted to know where our tickets (name tags) were.

We had work to do on Monday getting all our furniture moved downstairs to the exercise room to make room for Jeff and Sarah's household goods to be moved in from the garage. Jeff said of all the things he admires about Glen, his ability to get all our stuff into half of the room was absolutely amazing to him.

Glen's past experience working for Bekins Moving and Storage has served him well over the years.

Something I hadn't planned to have to do the few days at home before leaving for California was going back to the dermatologist "for a little surgery" as the doctor put it. I had been told by a nurse a couple of weeks earlier that I had an odd mole on my back and I should get it looked at soon. I hadn't planned to go to the skin doctor since I didn't have any skin tags bugging me, so this was not making me very happy.

Thankfully, I was able to get an appointment right before our Seminar because the doctor called back to tell me the biopsy showed abnormal cells. Hence, the need for this second appointment.

WARNING: The next couple of photos are not pretty, so please don't look if you can't handle blood, guts and gore.

The doctor explained to me that what I had would eventually have turned into melanoma and if I had waited until 3 years when I got back from my mission, we would probably not be having a positive conversation about it.

This is the pre-surgery look after the nurse shot up all around it about a thousand times.

Post-surgery photo. So glad it was "a little surgery" and not "a big surgery." This wound has been and still is driving me crazy with itching. The adhesive caused a horrible reaction to my skin and I have been trying to scratch it as often as possible.

Good news is the lab report came back showing clean edges all around what he cut out of me.

We took the family to Golden Corral. A person recovering from "a little surgery" couldn't possibly be expected to cook for the masses.

Caroline enjoyed herself. The jury is still out on Newland.

This group was super happy after getting the traditional huge gum ball as they walked out the restaurant door.

And look at us another day eating a meal at Costa Vida. Just trying to enjoy lots of family time before we departed for 3 years.

The day for departure was upon us. Jeff and Lincoln so kindly accompanied us to the airport with all our luggage.

Thank goodness our assistants, Elders Phillips and Glover, were at the San Diego Airport to greet us, welcome us to the California Carlsbad Mission and help us haul all those bags to the mission home.

We had part of a day to get ourselves unpacked and then we met the outgoing President Hal Kendrick and his wife Julie at a Mexican restaurant to get ourselves oriented with what they could share with us about the mission and to indoctrinate us into the Mexican culture that is prevalent around here.

This is our beautiful home in a very lovely neighborhood in Carlsbad, California.

President Glen B. Thomas stepped into his office at the mission office and immediately received a call notifying him of the general authority who will be coming for a mission tour next month.

Loving the vegetation of this area.

Dinner at the Coyote Cafe with the assistants at the end of our first day of four combined meet-the-new-president zone meetings where we met all the missionaries.

But our work was not completed yet. After dinner we were off on our respective teaching appointments--Glen with the assistants and me with these sweet sister training leaders.

Full first day...with more full days to follow.