Safari Park Date Night, Zone Conference, Dinner With the Treadways

For one of our Monday morning adventure walks, we found this trail close by our home. It wasn't very long, so we walked through a neighboring neighborhood as well. The polka-dotted roosters were interesting...??

One day when I opened my weather app, I saw this earthquake information box pop up. Not sure I like that addition to the daily weather information. It looks like all of California is shaking!!

It is very rare when we find ourselves with several free afternoon hours to make a trek to the Safari Park for an extended date night.

Whenever we get to go there, we feel so excited when we're actually on our way there and then so rejuvenated after walking around among the animals. Watching the human animals is entertaining as well.

The imp chimp gorilla on the right is still a baby (we saw it nursing a little while later). It was spying the cardboard the small baby had and when it had a chance, it swiped the cardboard from the baby and turned toward the watching spectators to gnaw away on it.

I like the big gorilla on the far right sitting there watching everything and everybody with its arms crossed.

This was the first time ever we have seen the cheetah run. They first send out dogs to run the course and then the cheetah runs. The people sitting in the special seats have paid extra money to have an up-close and personal encounter with the cheetah.

We were asked to speak in another Spanish ward. This was our third time to speak in a Spanish unit.

We had told them when they asked us to speak that we would take the whole time, meaning they didn't need to get a youth speaker and especially not another adult speaker. We were letting them know we could fill the time and they didn't need to worry about that. And we told them I would be speaking in Spanish.

They all know I don't speak Spanish. Easy assessment when they see I don't understand a word they say to me. But, we did tell them I WOULD be speaking in ESPAÑOL!!! So, I was totally FRUSTRATED when I saw the program.

For TWO reasons:

1. It said I would be giving my talk in English. WHAT?!?!???  Did they not understand when I told them in English a few weeks earlier that I would be speaking to the congregation in Spanish?!???
2. There was a second speaker following me. WHAT?!???!??!! Not only did we not request a speaker, we didn't want a youth speaker, we didn't want an adult speaker (which this one turned out to be) and we definitely did not want him following me because we had no idea how much time he was going to take for me to know how to judge the time I should take with my talk.

I was in a tizzy. Thankfully, we were able to talk with the conductor before the meeting to request the man be changed to speak before me. And we reminded him that I would be speaking in Spanish so he could announce it.

Well, he remembered the first request--to have the man speak first.

And he did not remember the second request--to announce to the congregation that I would be speaking in Spanish.

I was going through my talk trying to figure out which parts to cut out based on how much time the man took. His family was moving from the ward and they were having him give his farewell testimony.

Once I got up to speak--in SPANISH aka ESPAÑOL, not ENGLISH aka INGLÉS--I started out my greeting to the congregation in Spanish telling them how happy I was to be there with them and a bunch of them got up and headed toward the back of the room to get their translation headsets.

An older woman on the second row looked at me with total disdain and threw up her arm to start waving it around signaling for someone, ANYONE PLEASE!!, to bring her a headset and rescue her from the torture of listening to someone speaking in English.

I became so discombobulated at what was going on in the audience that I was having a hard time concentrating on trying to speak my well-prepared and well-rehearsed Spanish talk. I had given this same talk two other times and both those congregations had been able to understand me. I could not figure it out. They were still waving for, and still getting headsets even after I was well into the first paragraphs of my talk.

Perhaps, I wondered, they were really NOT understanding my pronunciation of their Spanish language and they needed the headsets for the interpreter to not interpret for them into English like he was doing for the other speakers. Perhaps they needed the headsets for the interpreter to interpret for them my Spanish into a better Spanish so they could understand. I was TOTALLY confused!!!!

But, I kept persisting in my well-enunciated (so I thought) Español and soon everyone calmed down and had taken their seats once again. Glen told me when someone finally brought a headset to the waving woman, she waved the headset away as she had finally taken a moment to listen to what I had to say and figured out she could actually understand me.

As frustrated as I was in the beginning of the talk, I was equally as thrilled in the middle of the talk when the chapel became completely reverent and I felt the Spirit so strongly as I was able to finish my talk and bear testimony of the principles I had just taught. I felt it was an inspired talk when I wrote it. I spent hours and hours translating it into Spanish and hours and hours more practicing pronunciation of it with Glen.

As I said my final "En el nombre de Jesuscristo. Amen," I spoke it directly to the woman in the second row who had been so disgusted to have me there as a final plea to her that I had done my best and I hoped she had felt the Spirit that I had worked so hard to bring with me to enrich the lives of the people who had made the effort to attend sacrament meeting that day.

After the meeting, she stood waiting to talk to me as we walked down from the stand. I am not sure what she said to me (because as noted earlier, I do not understand Spanish, I do not speak Spanish, I can only read Spanish), but she reached out to hug me and kissed me on the cheek. The Spanish people instantly love Glen. It's a bit more work for me to gain their love and acceptance.

That night we had this elder stay with us so Glen could take him to the airport early the next morning for his flight to Madagascar. No one has died from the plague in several months, so the quarantine has been lifted and the missionaries who had been evacuated to other missions are now returning. The other missionary from Madagascar has requested to finish his mission here.

Monday was doctor day. First up--the dentist. I loved how the hygienist decorated her room. She said she took the room without the window because she only works a couple of days a week.

The other appointment was the foot doctor...again...for more shooting of shots into my feet. He feels there has been improvement and only did one shot in each foot. Fingers crossed my feet keep responding.

We saw a rainbow on our way to Temecula for our second round of technology training zone conferences starting with that zone and the Murrieta zone.

The assistants and zone leaders helped with the training.

This is our group of car inspectors--Elder Van Aarle recruits missionaries from other zones to inspect the zone conference participants' cars.

We always LOVE when the Temecula stake feeds us because it means breakfast for lunch. YUM!! Smelling the bacon cooking during the class before lunch gets our mouths watering.

Glen wasn't that thrilled about taking a selfie with me to send to one of our returned missionaries for some reason and I wasn't thrilled at the finished photo. Not all that flattering from the angle taken, nor the door backdrop, but I thought we were dressed pretty cute despite how it turned out.

I always try to have us wearing clothes that match and don't clash since we are together all the time. Here's an example.

Now this is a cute couple with the camera at a good angle with a beautiful background. They are the Treadways who are newly-called to be Mission President and Wife in the Utah Orem Mission.

They attended zone conference for the first half of the day to get a feel for what that is all about. Then they went home and cooked us a most delicious dinner to enjoy when we were finished with zone conference that day.

Poor Glen was feeling very miserable that day. He had been sick for a few days and this day was by far his worst day. He could barely speak because his voice was so hoarse. He was coughing. He was exhausted. But, the work must go on! 

He did amazing when it was his turn to teach. I had prayed that he would have enough of a voice to do his teaching at the end. The missionaries so need the teaching of their Mission President and especially to hear his testifying of the truthfulness of what they are all about and the encouragement that they can do hard things. They are about the Lord's errand bringing others unto Christ. 

When I told Treadways that morning that Glen was sick and worried about his germs in their home, they said they had been sick and weren't worried about germs. They were more worried about him and how he felt.

As they were leaving at noon, Glen let them know he was still up for the evening with them and so off we went. I thoroughly enjoyed myself as I was feeling great. I thought I had done the very best with my part that first zone conference, so I was happy they were there for that one.

It seemed to help them feel a little more informed about what to expect after going to zone conference and talking with us. They are wonderful people and will be fabulous working with the missionaries in their mission. 

He is already out of a job and is very anxious to get started with the mission. She is thrilled at their location because their children and grandchild live in or near that mission. She said most people are sad to leave their family and go on a mission. She said they are thrilled to leave to go on a mission to be closer to their family.