Fire Clean Up, Transfer #14, Two Sisters Get Visas, Safari Park

The missionaries have been helping with the clean up from the fires the past few Saturdays.

This group spent their time cleaning up at a nursery.

Others have gone to neighborhoods and helped sift through ashes of homes that were burned to see if anything salvageable could be found.

In the ashes at one home, a missionary found the owner's wedding ring.

The people affected have been very appreciative of the help they have been getting.

This group of departing missionaries came to our home the night before they were to leave. The date happened to be New Year's Day, so that's how we were spending our holiday--feeding the missionaries.

We fed them our usual roast beef dinner

After the testimony meeting, we had them pose for a photo on the steps.

From left to right (back row) Elder Walker, Elder Draper, Elder Ledbetter; (front row) Hermana Mathews, Hermana Mendez, Sister Odette, Sister Guiver, Sister Robinson, Hermana Brockhausen

The next morning we got up early to get to the temple for the 8 a.m. session. We never know how bad traffic will be at that time of the morning.

These sisters are quite special to us because they were in the group of missionaries we met while we were at the Missionary Training Center in Provo at our Mission Presidents' Seminar. We got to meet with them for an hour and teach them a lesson.

They arrived in the mission as part of our first transfer, which was just a short few days after we arrived in the mission. Now we've watched them grow and mature as missionaries and I think they will agree they watched us grow as well as we have served together the past 18 months.

I told them they remind me of my 3rd grade teacher Miss Agee, who was my favorite elementary school teacher. Our class was her first class of students as a young, new teacher, and she told us we always held a special place in her heart because of that.

Likewise, these sisters (along with the elders who will be going home in 6 months) will always hold a special place in our hearts because they are the first group of missionaries we welcomed into the mission as a brand new mission president and wife.

We said our good-byes at the airport and then they were off. So long. Farewell. Until we meet again at a mission reunion some time in the future.

Since the MTC changed the time of our arriving missionaries to later in the afternoon, we now have hours to wait in San Diego between the old missionaries leaving and the new ones arriving.

Like last time, we decided to have lunch at Tom Ham's Lighthouse Restaurant. We love sitting at a table by the water as it is so beautiful and relaxing.

We had even longer to wait this time because we didn't have to get back to the airport until 4:15 because we were not getting any Spanish-speaking missionaries from the Mexico MTC this time. The Mexico flight arrives an hour earlier than the Provo flight.

So we decided to use our time wisely and went to a nearby public library so the assistants could do their emailing home to their family and friends while Glen started working on reading and answering 162 missionaries' letters.

Because of the Monday holiday, the libraries were closed. When that happens, we change preparation day to Tuesday--as was the case this week--so the missionaries can go to the library to email.

Unfortunately, Glen was only able to get some of the letters answered before it was time to go back to the airport. He didn't even get half of them done, but at least he spent several hours working on them rather than just twiddling his thumbs all those hours as we were waiting, waiting, waiting.

We saw President and Sister Stubbs from the San Diego Mission at the airport as they were expecting one missionary.

Their elder is the one on the far left. We received three elders and one sister. Our elder from the Philippines kept his winter coat on all the rest of the day. He says he's not used to the cold here in America...and it was in the low 70s that day.

I thought about my brother Mark who served his mission in the Philippines. He said he would shower in the morning and never dry off all day. He was constantly sweating.

Traffic was slower, but we got to the mission office in pretty good time. We found this food table all set up. Sister Radford was ready for our arrival.

She has carried on the tradition of getting California burritos for the new missionaries. A California burrito has french fries in it along with the usual other burrito ingredients.

After the missionaries ate, we had them do the office paperwork, the finance stuff, learn about housing information, hear about medical information from me, have some car/driving instruction and have an interview with Glen. That all got done in time for them to meet their trainers at 8:30 p.m.

We sent them off on their way and told them to come back in two days for their new missionary training meeting.

Then we waited at the mission office for a while until these sisters arrived. Two of the sisters have received their visas and we brought them to our home to spend the night so we could get them to the airport early the next morning.

We got up at 4 a.m. so Glen could fix a French toast breakfast for them before we headed out to the airport. There was a long line at the airport we had to wait in to get the sisters checked in and get their luggage tags. 

We were glad we had planned plenty of time to deal with that. There were some very frazzled travelers who were fearing missing their flights.

Once back home, Glen had lots of missionaries' letters left to read and answer because he hadn't been able to finish them the day before.

It was such a relief for him when he finally got them done. He was able to get in a short nap before the phone woke him up. We decided to take a little break and spend a few afternoon hours at the Safari Park walking around for exercise before it closed.

Bonus for me was the Christmas decorations were still up, so we got to enjoy them as we walked around.

I was intrigued with the mountain goats which blended so well into the rocks.

A couple of them gave us a little show when they started head butting with each other. I liked the one sitting on the rock platform.

A condor was perched in a cage nearby.

From the condor cage we could look out over the many acres of the zoo and see the balloon safari in the distance.

It is so peaceful walking on the paths through the Safari Park. There is so much beautiful vegetation to enjoy. We love it!

A tiger was up and prowling around its habitat.

The elephants are a favorite of ours.

We had just enough time to take a tram around the African plains before it got dark and the park closed.

After some busy weeks, and a transfer we had just completed, it was a much-needed respite to spend a few hours with the animals.

All the while enjoying nature and Christmas decorations at the same time.