New Missionary Training, MLC, a Chair Gift

As usually happens, the departing missionaries immediately get back on Instagram as soon as they get home from their missions and then ask to follow us.

Sister Robinson (next to Klarissa in the photo) went home with our last transfer group and she immediately posted on Instagram to let her adoring fans know she is back home.

I had to laugh so much when I saw this photo as part of her multiple-images post. And I totally laughed when I read what she wrote, especially since she just met Abe's family once.

The assistants always help do the training for our new missionaries. Elder and Sister Kopenhefer are now officially out of the office and are out working with the missionaries. They really enjoyed this new missionary training meeting and suggested all the senior couples go through the training as well.

The missionaries were rewarded for their efforts of going through the training by getting lunch afterward.

We had Mission Leadership Council (MLC) later in the week. At this meeting we had our 12 zone leaders, 8 sister training leaders, 2 assistants and the Kopenhefers.

The meeting lasts most of the day and by lunchtime, the missionaries are ready and eager to get some food.

Glen was thrilled to see it was Chick-fil-A box lunches. Sister Radford keeps amazing us with all the different restaurants she uses when she is in charge of providing the lunches for the missionaries.

The sister training leaders wanted a photo with their mission president. I wanted in on that!! After all, he is my mission president, too!!

One day I saw a stack of large boxes in the housing/vehicle coordinators' office and asked what they were. When I found out they were new office chairs going out to some of the apartments for the missionaries for their study chairs, I jokingly asked if I could get one.

Ever since we got here, I have not been too thrilled with my computer set-up. Although, one thing I really do like is having it in the kitchen area because that is where I spend the majority of my time when I am home.

But, I have missed having a desk with a pull-out ledge for the keyboard. I have missed having work space to spread out papers as I am working on things. And I have really missed having an office chair with good back support. And wheels. WHEELS!! What a great invention!!

One of the kitchen table chairs was being used as a desk chair. It has always driven me crazy because the chair screeched across the tiles. Once we got felt pads put on the legs, it was somewhat better.

The chair is so hard it needed a pad and even with a pad, I would still sometimes get a blanket to sit on for more padding. The back did not give good support, so I would get another blanket and position it for back support if I was going to be sitting there for any length of time.

I had often thought of getting an office chair, but kept thinking it would not look good in the kitchen. The chair matched the other chairs. I thought a rolling office chair would stick out too far into the walkway area.

When Sister Van Aarle mentioned she had bought herself a new office chair without armrests so she could slide her chair up under the desk better, that is what made me think maybe I could use an office chair without armrests in the kitchen. Sister Van Aarle had been enjoying her new office chair so much. I sat in hers to try it out. I think she could sense I really liked her chair. She just knew I would love one, too.

Within days, I noticed an assembled black office chair with a ribbon around it with my name on it. WHAT??!!?? I had only been partially joking about it.

Now that I had one gifted to me, I just had to bring it home with me and see how it looked and see if I like it. With all the black of the computer, the monitor and the keyboard, I feel like the black chair doesn't stand out like a sore thumb as I had originally suspected it would.

With the comfort of the office chair with back support and the mobility of the wheels, I now pronounce it a KEEPER!!!!! I have never been so grateful for a gift being thrust upon me!

Glen had a super busy weekend. With MLC all day Friday, he was doing a lot of teaching that day. He did take me to dinner for date night.

Saturday morning we moved our planning meeting with the assistants an hour earlier so Glen could go on shepherding visits right after that with the Carlsbad Stake in conjunction with their stake conference under the direction of Area Seventy J. Scott Dorius.

Elder Dorius is the one who called on us so many times last time we were at a stake conference where he was presiding. That was many months ago when I was sick with influenza and had been feeling miserable and coughing my head off for literally 3 months. The last thing I felt like doing was being the center of attention multiple times in various meetings.

This time I had been struggling with a sore throat for 2 weeks, but was at the end of the illness and was counting my blessings it hadn't turned into a sinus infection or settled in my lungs. I kept putting cough drops in my mouth and hoped for the best whenever he called on me.

Elder Dorius had called Glen ahead of time and asked him to do a 15-minute training in the Saturday afternoon priesthood leadership meeting. Glen came home from that feeling really good about how that had gone. 

In the evening session Elder Dorius called on both of us to share our testimonies. He also put us on a panel for him to randomly get us to share things if the people in the congregation were hesitant to comment. They did a good job commenting, so only one of us on the panel ended up being called upon and it wasn't us. Then we both gave talks in the Sunday morning session.

Elder Dorius had invited the ward Primary presidents to the dinner on Saturday before the evening session. He did this at both of the stake conferences we have been to with him. 

I think I have figured out why he enjoys so much asking various people to come to the pulpit and share their testimonies of Christ during the meetings where he presides. As part of his conference message, he encourages all Primary workers to always share with the children their testimony of Christ at the end of every lesson--nursery leaders and song leaders included. 

He told about his memories of each one of the buildings where he attended Primary in his childhood. Most vivid in his mind are the testimonies of Christ his Primary teachers shared at the end of their lessons. Those testimonies are tender and dear to him and helped his testimony to grow.

When we got home from stake conference, we noticed the plant on the left side of the garage was half broken off and looked very sick. 

It looked like it had been decaying. Since it was the day we roll the trash cans out to the curb, Glen started pulling out the plant to put it in the trash to get hauled off the next morning. 

We were surprised at how brittle the branches were and how easy to break off. We have no idea what happened to the poor thing. But here's the good part. We just called our contact at the Church and they will take care of getting a new plant planted in that spot.

Tuesday morning we attended a district meeting with a new district leader at the mission office church building in Vista. We didn't realize the assistants had planned to attend that very same meeting or we would have gone to a different district meeting. It felt like we were ganging up on the new leader, but he did a great job and didn't seem nervous at all.

It was a momentous day that particular day because IT RAINED!!! That is an anomaly around here, that's for sure!

We had an afternoon conference call with the Missionary Department for a couple of hours in the afternoon. The purpose of the call was to help instruct us on how we are supposed to implement getting smartphones in the mission. The roll-out for this will happen at our next MLC in a month. In the meantime, the missionaries are being informed they need to purchase a smartphone that meets the guidelines given.

This is exciting for the missionaries as we haven't even been an iPad mission. Our missionaries have only had flip phones. We'll see what exciting things will happen with our new-found technology. We were instructed to have Glen join a MP Facebook group so we can get tips and pointers from the Mission Presidents who are already deeply immersed in technology.

Glen brought me home before he went out working in Escondido for the evening with some missionaries. As I mentioned earlier, it was raining that day and not just a sprinkle here and there. It was RAINING!!!!

He came home SOAKED! Needless to say, we took that suit to the cleaners. Glen was freezing cold the rest of the night. We're hoping it is a myth that if you're out in the rain/cold without a coat you'll get sick. Technically, he had a coat on--a suit coat. I was happy to hear the missionaries he was with were wearing jackets and were staying a bit more dry than Glen.

Today we went to a district meeting in Murrieta and upon arrival back home, walked into a freshly-cleaned home. Oh my!! I can't even adequately express the happiness we feel when we walk into a clean home. It is divine!! The only thing that could possibly be better than having a house cleaner would be having a personal chef. That would be my dream come true!!

Note to self: next year put "chef" on my Christmas list to Santa.