Coyotes, Dinner with the Neuendorf Family

One morning we ventured to San Marcos to the Rancho Carillo trail.

It seemed great until we saw the coyote warning sign: "Do not let small children wander out of sight."

We saw huge spider webs, but no coyotes.

Part of the trail goes around the perimeter of the Leo Carillo Ranch Historic Park which is closed on Mondays.

One day we got five love notes from Rebecca's four children. Spencer wrote two. We loved reading them!!

One of our sister missionaries is from Bolivia. She is the sweetest person. She arrived from her country with a smile on her face and the best attitude about being here despite not knowing English very well. She has worked hard on learning English better and is doing very well. She adores Glen and me. She feels like we are her parents here in America.

She gives us gifts for every holiday and our birthdays. She gave me a sack full of gifts for my birthday. One of them was a picture of us together with a sweet note telling me how much she loves me and how I will always have a daughter in Bolivia.

When I looked closer at the photo, I laughed and laughed. My eyes are half closed. So funny!! I wrote her a thank you for her gifts and suggested we take another photo together where I don't look quite so silly. I really don't want her to remember me like this for the rest of her life. 

One of the baptisms we attended was for a man and his son. I thought this display was so beautiful as the first thing we saw when we walked into the church. 

 At another baptism, Sister Radford was asked to give the talk about baptism. She always goes all out in whatever she does, so she brought this bear as an object lesson.

We bear Christ's name.
We bear one another's burdens.
We bear testimony.

She did a beary good job. We love them both beary much!!

We have a Persian group of people who meet with the Del Mar ward. They just recently were officially made a Persian branch and hold their own meetings which are spoken in the Farsi language. We have two missionaries assigned to their branch who are learning Farsi on their own. This language is not offered at the MTC. 

I absolutely love it when Sarah posts a Sunday porch picture of her little bunch of boys. Especially when they are all wearing white shirts and matching ties. Four little future missionaries in the making.

Dr. Neuendorf is our mission doctor. He helps us with the tough cases. And with a lot of my health issues. Actually, I am remembering we made a house call to his house one morning way back when we were new in the mission for him to look at Glen's sore shoulder. Let's just say we use his medical knowledge with all of us missionaries.

In this case, he invited us to his house for dinner. Following dinner was a youth fireside where he was speaking and sharing his experiences of going on a mission and some of the ways his mission has blessed his life. 

 He had Glen and me make a few comments before the youth were turned loose to eat the refreshments they had provided. The missionaries who are assigned to that ward were there as well.

It was a great fireside for the youth and it was a wonderful evening for us. I really felt relaxed and enjoyed myself. It was a treat to be invited to a dinner appointment.