We soon started receiving nice notes, little gifts and other kind gestures from the missionaries showing love to us.
The church buildings in our mission are beautiful. Palm trees are my favorite.
The Carmel-by-the-Sea church building is very unique where there is a big inner courtyard (which makes for great parties and wedding receptions) with classrooms along two side, the chapel on the third side and the gymnasium on the opposite side.
This is probably my favorite building. It has a unique steeple.
But what makes it my favorite is the beautiful palm trees and vegetation.
One day some of our missionaries noticed we were wearing matching clothes (which we try to do as much as possible so we don't clash when people look at us). We are standing in front of the door leading into the mission office. The office is attached to a huge double chapel building. It makes it nice to have so much space to hold meetings there whenever we need to.
We put the space to good use just four days after our arrival when we had a new batch of missionaries arriving in the mission. We brought them straight to the church after we picked them up at the airport so we could have them fill out paperwork, feed them, have an interview with President Thomas, talk to me about medical stuff, get their trainers assigned to them and then we sent them off on their way.
Elder and Sister Christensen are the ones who order and bring in the meals. He is our mission financial person and she works the front desk and does the secretarial stuff. They are delightful people. We definitely realize how much we rely on our senior couples to keep the mission running.
The new missionaries are being paired up with their trainers.
No sooner had we gotten the new ones taken care of but we were running back to our new home to get dinner ready for the outgoing missionaries. We fed them roast beef, mashed potatoes and carrots. It was a very interesting and learning experience as it was the first time we had cooked in our new home and we had to hunt for everything because we didn't know where anything was located.
After dinner, the assistants washed all the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen while the rest of us sat in the living room and had a testimony meeting. It was wonderful hearing their testimonies, but we sure felt like imposter stand-ins for the Kendricks who we knew the missionaries were wishing were sitting there in their midst rather than us--the interlopers in their mission. They were kind and gracious and it all turned out okay.
The missionaries grabbed one of the many sleeping bags we have stored in the garage and the elders slept on the main floor of the house and the sisters slept upstairs.
Following in the tradition of the California Carlsbad Mission, we got up early and all went to the temple to attend a session.
The Mormon Battalion Historic Site is close to the temple, so we stopped by for a few minutes there as well. The guide thought it would be great fun for the MP (Mission President) of the group to be the model of what a soldier back then would be wearing and carrying.
At the airport there were hugs and tears. Then they were gone. Off to go back to wherever they came from with the prayer in our heart that the mission had made them rooted and totally committed to the gospel of Jesus Christ and that they and their posterity will never go astray.
Glen spent many long days interviewing every single missionary--either at the mission office or at different church buildings around the mission. That meant I, too, met every single missionary. I spent my time visiting one-on-one with the interviewee's companion, or I would be listening to a group of missionaries interacting with each other.
This photo was taken inside the mission office. The shelves behind us are where the mail and packages are stored for the missionaries as they arrive in the mission. On Fridays it is dispersed throughout the mission by the zone leaders. Then the missionaries read their mail and open their packages on p-day.
The mission president's office is the door on the right.
The missionaries love mail and packages!!
Our missionaries like to ride bikes. They feel they are more effective at contacting when they are on bikes rather than in cars. The sister missionaries are pros in their skirts and helmets.
I learn lots of things from the missionaries such as why they all have a Chastity pamphlet inside their helmets. It protects their hair from getting ridges in it from the helmets. There are different pamphlets available to them, but they all choose Chastity.
These elders were doing service right before they came for their interview.
I also learned which sister's shoes and which elder's shoes were completely worn out. And they were proud about the fact! They had other shoes to wear, but they continued to wear their favorite shoes as a badge of honor--or because of the shoe tan lines on her feet, according to the sister.
At this particular building, a lot of the missionaries took turns playing the piano while they waited which made it even more enjoyable for the many hours I spent in that room visiting with the missionaries.
I really liked this statue grouping when I first saw it at the airport. After making three unexpected trips to the airport in the first three weeks we were here, I am not so sure I like seeing them as much anymore.
One missionary wanted to leave early, another missionary went home for health issues. This week we took an elder to the airport so he could go home for his mother's funeral. Her unexpected death was really a shock to him, to us and to all the missionaries in the mission.
We had certainly run ourselves ragged in trying to meet all the missionaries and do all the extra stuff that came up along the way. Thank goodness for a little reprieve from it all when Bill and Jan Evans stopped by one evening for a visit.
They had come to California on a family vacation to Newport Beach and were willing to make the hour drive to come see us for a few hours one evening. Bill walked in wearing his white shirt and tie and it was not a Sunday. I commented about it and he said he put it on as a symbol of love and respect to his friend and fellow mission president.
We just love these people and all our friends and family who show us such love and support. Thanks to you all!!!!
