Jonah Jeffery Excell, Mormon Battalion, Chalk Sayings

It was fun getting some pictures of newborn Jonah Jeffery Excell from Sarah. What a cute little guy!

He is an absolute picture of perfection!

Now back to the missionaries...

Glen had nine hour-long exit interviews last week. He did several of them up in Temecula. I was recruited to take a picture of this Temecula district after their district meeting.

Nice mission vehicle one of these companionships gets to drive, agreed? We have areas in our mission where it is necessary to have a 4-wheel drive to get around.

While Glen was interviewing, I went back to the doctor I had seen the week before to tell him I was still really struggling to breathe. I had been on an antibiotic and prednisone and I was still feeling pretty worn out and weary from all the coughing and being out of breath so much.

They gave me a breathing treatment in the office.

Here I am--just me and my nebulizer. I was told to just relax, sit still, and breathe. Quite honestly, it felt comparable to a spa treatment--just sitting there relaxing and the only thing I was expected to do was breathe. It seemed to help a little bit to make me not quite as short of breath.

The doctor said I was doing better than the week previous. He suggested I get a nebulizer to use at home and hopefully that would get the medication down deeper into my lungs than my inhaler can get.

I was off to the pharmacy and to a medical supply store to try and get the nebulizer during the time before Glen was finished with his interviews.

We had to be back at the mission office building for our new missionary follow-up training that afternoon. It was a wonderful meeting. They each did a 3-minute role play on something they had been training on. These missionaries are going to be fabulous!

Then we had to do an ode-to-the-pinkie photo in honor of the sister missionary I ran into at the doctor's office who had a p-day accident and was getting her pinkie splinted.

She's proof it's not just the elders who get injured on p-days.

This dear sister requested a picture with Glen. When I saw the reason for the request, I must admit, I was not all that thrilled at what I saw.

Their zone had made what they think are cool-looking t-shirts with their mission president's head on it. They are all working together in the spirit of working hard to see miracles in their zone, so I guess if a head gets them motivated to go out and preach repentance and baptize converts, then so be it...??!!

It was that time of the transfer cycle again when we took a group of missionaries to the Tequila Factory for lunch and then to the Mormon Battalion.

We are still trying to get the missionaries who will be going home soon and have never been to the Mormon Battalion to have a turn.

But mostly it is for the newer missionaries and their trainers who have just finished The First 12 Weeks of training. It serves as a bit of a celebration of achieving that goal. It also helps them know what the Mormon Battalion is all about so they can recommend the site to members and investigators.

Just entertaining ourselves under the shade while waiting to pay the bill.

After Glen finalizes transfers, he notifies the new leaders he has chosen to join us in a new leadership training meeting. This time we had two new sister training leaders (back middle) and six new district leaders (seated).

There were several baptisms on Saturday, but we had to pick and choose because we had stake conference meetings and baptisms scheduled at the same times.

When we pulled into this church parking lot in Escondido, it was fun to see all the general conference sayings in chalk art all throughout the parking lot.

We went to another baptism in Oceanside. Glen had to leave early to go to the Vista stake priesthood leadership meeting. Turns out nobody informed him that the meeting started an hour earlier than usual. Glen felt like an idiot walking in an hour late. SHEESH!!

He made sure to double check to make sure the evening meeting started at 7 p.m. He was told yes. We arrived and saw a full parking lot and nobody walking in. We suspected it, too, had started an hour earlier than usual. 

In we walked to the meeting half over. We were sitting out in the foyer to listen to the rest of the meeting when an usher insisted he walk us up to sit on the second row in the chapel. So embarrassing!!

Then the stake president got up to announce we had just arrived and invited us up to the stand. WE WERE DYING!!!!! There was no excuse for our tardiness. We had just been chilling at home. Waiting for the meeting to start. Or so we thought. We could have been there an hour earlier without one single conflict!

I was coughing so loudly and obnoxiously and so frequently that I was going to be perfectly happy to sit out in the foyer. Instead I was hacking up there on the stand for everyone to watch and enjoy. Thankfully there was a printed program and we were not on it.

Next morning we double checked the times. The first meeting was in Vista at 9 a.m. and the other meeting was in Fallbrook at noon. We were on time.

NO!! We were EARLY!!!!

We had been assigned talks during both those sessions. The stake provided box lunches for all of us who were speaking and those who were in the choir to eat on our way to Fallbrook.

I was totally miserable sitting on the stand coughing. I did huge coughs right before I spoke and was blessed to speak with my croaky voice for the 6 minutes without coughing and then coughed it out as soon as I got to my seat. Rough day of not feeling well, but beautiful meetings.

I shared the story of my Mom's 9-year-old friend inviting her to church with her and that was the beginning of my mother's conversion story.

I also told about my youngest brother Mark's friend Lucas who became interested in being baptized because of the influence of the teenagers he was spending so much time with and he wanted to be like them. 

Matthew 5:16 "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven."