We had our new leadership training meeting with four new district leaders and two new sister training leaders. President Marin joined us for the meeting as a new Mission President in training.
Notice I am wearing a jacket. It got really cold (by Southern California standards) for a couple of weeks.
It was that time of the transfer cycle where we took the missionaries who have been here 12 weeks and their trainers to eat at Tequila Factory and then on a tour at Mormon Battalion.
The Allens have now replaced the Hemingways as Director of the Mormon Battalion. They are delightful people and stepped right in talking to the missionaries after the tour in a fun way and left good messages with the missionaries as the Hemingways used to do.
I knew it was unseasonably cold for a while in Southern California, but I was shocked to see white stuff on the freeway!!! Crazy!! Didn't last long, but I can now say it snowed while we were here.
Looks like it also snowed in Las Vegas. Looks like three of Sarah's four sons were enjoying playing outside in it.
We had our Mission Leadership Council (MLC). Here the zone leaders and sister training leaders are looking over the recent survey that the missionaries took to see what areas need improvement. Then we counseled together about what we should do as a mission in the various areas.
Elder Van Aarle, our vehicle coordinator, is always busy doing something or other.
I had postponed surgery on my left foot for two weeks because of Elder Klebingat's visit. Unfortunately, in the few days leading up to surgery, I got the shingles again for the second time.
Thankfully, I was able to recognize the symptoms and the rash, diagnosed myself and started on anti-viral medication. I got a second confirmation when I went to see Dr. Dustin for my pre-op visit. He encouraged me to keep taking the anti-viral medication and see how it progressed in the next couple of days.
I had been so worried the surgery would have to be rescheduled when I was better, but the medication worked quickly and I only had two small spots affected this time--one on my chest and another on the back of my head close to my neck.
Another thing I was worried about was Ben, Haley and baby Kade were coming to town. Young children who have not yet been immunized for chicken pox should not be around people with shingles. Haley called her pediatrician to ask about it and the doctor didn't seem concerned. The rashes were covered by a shirt or by hair on my head, and by the time they arrived, the sores were healing nicely.
Now back to my visit to the podiatrist. My favorite part of this surgery was looking at the x-rays of my floating big toe. He showed me a light view and then a dark view. So interesting to see that toe. Glen calls it my pointer toe.
Perhaps these x-rays show why the tops of my left shoe would get a hole in them from that big toenail pushing up on it!!!
We went to the doctor on Monday, the day Glen is so busy spending hours and hours reading and answering the missionaries' letters. It was also the day we were going to be hosting the departing missionaries at our home for dinner and to spend the night with us.
Can I say how happy we were when the water remediation company came to survey our living room and do their measuring of the walls to see if they were finally dry after 10 days of the machines roaring.
Ta-da!!!! DRY!!! And the plastic make-shift walls were taken down. HURRAH!!!!
The plastic came down literally just a couple of hours before the missionaries showed up for dinner.
We were so thankful we could have our testimony meeting in what we call our "celestial room." We love that room and we love the feeling we have during our last meeting with our missionaries.
After the meeting, we always line up on the stairs for pictures. Such a perfect place since we can have differing heights for the photo.
(left to right) Elder Brightman, Elder Meyers
Sister Kovach, Sister Lee, Sister Hamblin, Sister Porter, Sister Durfee
The missionaries are given their departing packet that has their flight information, boarding pass, a departing letter from their Mission President and some other various things including their board card--the magnetic card hanging on the transfer board that Glen and the assistants look at during transfer planning.
The next morning we leave the house at 6:30 a.m. so we can get photos taken by the temple and then attend an 8:00 a.m. endowment session.
The information booth was empty. Usually there are two missionaries from the San Diego Mission manning the booth.
Off to the airport we go after the temple.
It is always hard to say good-bye to our dearly-beloved missionaries. Sister Porter, to my left, reminds me so much of my good friend Chris Janes and I will really miss her because of that and because she is a dear person herself.
After we watch the missionaries get through security, we then have several hours until the new missionaries arrive. We usually go to Tom Ham's Lighthouse. It is right by the water and we love it.
For some reason, as soon as we were finished eating our lunch, I was craving ice cream. It is probably because Steven and Patricia were such ice cream lovers and we had gone to get ice cream with them.
So, we decided to go back to the exact same ice cream place and treat the assistants to ice cream. Turns out it was a blessing we went there because we didn't have time to eat dinner once back at the mission office and so the ice cream held us over. I am happy to report I took another lactaid pill and was able to eat the ice cream without any tummy troubles.
Time to go back to the airport and pick up our newest arrival of 13 missionaries. It was a lot of hustling to get them all interviewed once we got back to the mission office before their trainers came to pick them up. But we did it!!
This is what our mission front office looks like on transfer day. Bikes galore!!
We always breathe a huge sigh of relief when we walk out of the mission office after we've had our short meeting assigning the new missionaries to their trainers and watch them walk off together. We pray for the best that they will be able to adjust quickly to missionary life and that all will be well in the companionship.
The usual schedule is to have the missionaries come back two days later for training. This time we had to have them come back the next day because the following day I was having foot surgery.
Halfway through the training, when they are getting so tired, Glen gives them an assignment to work on while they walk outside around the church building a couple of times. That does the trick to shake the tiredness out of them.
Once the training is finished, we feed them lunch and send them on their way.
Just as we closed a chapter with sending some missionaries home, we immediately open a new chapter as we begin to work with a whole new group of missionaries.
We are already impressed with this new batch and look forward to all the good works they will do while they are serving here.
