Quotes of the Week

"Our consistency in doing seemingly small things can lead to significant spiritual results."
--David A. Bednar

"Put your trust in God and move forward with faith and confidence in the future."
--Gordon B. Hinckley

"Trust in God, then go and do."
--Henry B. Eyring

"Like the sunflower, when we follow the Savior...we flourish and become glorious."
--Quentin L. Cook

Purple, Punching Tree, Zone Training Meetings, Temple, Mariachi Band

One day I noticed the assistants, Glen and I were all wearing some purple. I had to document the moment. Comp unity times two!!

We had a really rough few days of staying up late from sisters in the E.R. after having accidents. Added on top of that were some of our disobedient elders causing grief. Late nights and early ups took their toll on this MP. He sat down for just a minute and fell asleep.

A positive of MP needing to go see a disobedient elder was this tree. It's a punching tree and it's located at the apartment complex of this elder. Early on in the mission, I learned about punching trees. The missionaries told me they are all over Carlsbad and you can go up to them and punch them and they are soft and have a give to them and your hand doesn't hurt after punching it.

I have always been fascinated by these kinds of trees that look like the bark is falling off. Before, I have wanted to peel off the bark when I see these trees. Now I have the strong urge to punch every single one of them.

I was surprised to see these toys at one of the church buildings. I was thinking this would be a great ward to visit when the grandchildren come to see us. The little ones would love visiting this nursery.

I took a lot of pictures at the Temecula zone training meeting. It is a huge zone. We arrived there way early so MP could interview 8 of them before the meeting began. After we ate a quick lunch, he interviewed the rest of them. 

Sister Mitchell was one of our E.R. accident sisters. She did the bike safety tip in the meeting. She explained how she used the left-hand front tire brake, which was a mistake, because she flew over the front of her bike.

Ecclesiastes 10:2 "A wise man's heart is at his right hand; but a fool's heart at his left." She told the missionaries to be wise and use the right-hand brake going down a hill. Her companion is now carrying a first aid kit wherever they go.

After all the missionary interviews, MP interviewed the Burgons and extended a call to him to be Glen's first counselor just as he had been for President Kendrick. We went out to eat a late dinner at Outback to celebrate.

These are some of our Spanish missionaries. Glen had invited them over for "a Mexican dinner" of Frito bandito which made me laugh so hard because what we fix is such an Americanized meal compared to what these missionaries are used to eating at members' homes. 

They brought pandulce (Mexican sweet bread) for dessert.

Glen insists we have fresh flowers in the house whenever we have company. At Costco he picked out this flower arrangement for our Mexican dinner. I thought the flowers looked so fake, but he said Elder Wockenfus loves bright colors and he would love them.

Sure enough--Elder Wockenfus commented on the flowers. They made him so happy. MP was inspired with his flower picking.

This day we attended the Fallbrook zone training meeting. After lunch MP interviewed all these missionaries.

The next day we attended the Del Mar zone training meeting. I neglected to get a group photo, but grabbed these willing missionaries after the rest of them had left to go to lunch. There were no interviews this day because we were off to the temple right after the meeting.

We have seven missionaries going home in two weeks and since the San Diego Temple is now closed for the next three weeks, we had to get their temple session in before it closed.

Del Mar is the southern-most part of our mission, so we were not too far from the temple. Our busload of missionaries got a late start leaving the mission office because some of their meetings went long that day. We were really cutting it close hoping they would get there in time for our scheduled session.

I got the inspiration to call them in transit and get their temple clothes sizes and shoe sizes so Glen and I could have the temple worker get the clothes all pulled for them so they could just walk in and pick up their pile of rental clothes and hurry in to the dressing room.

They made it and the inspired plan worked like a charm giving us no minutes to spare in making it into the session. Whew!!

For this group of departing missionaries, we decided to take them to a restaurant and treat them to a nice dinner. This place was located close to the church where Glen had a meeting that evening. I had driven my car to the church and left it there while we went to the temple.  

The restaurant turned out to be awesome. The missionaries loved the mariachi band and the food so much. They had a really good time.

Glen's idea was brilliant to eat close to the church and have me park there. We got to that church with about 10 minutes to spare before the meeting began. I was able to drive myself home. MP went out visiting inactive members with two of our missionaries as part of the meeting. One of the missionaries was one of our newer ones and he felt like it was a good thing to spend time with him.

We did our best to make sure we got our date night in as we stopped at Black Angus after a morning of meeting with the assistants, driving north to Temecula, and attending a baptism. 

An early dinner sounded delicious to us before driving back home to Carlsbad.

Quotes of the Week

"If you are determined, He will help you find the strength to do it."
--Henry B. Eyring

"Obedience is powerful spiritual medicine.  It comes close to being a cure-all."
--Boyd K. Packer

"The more we trust God, the more our hearts are filled with love for Him and for each other."
--Dieter F. Uchtdorf

"As we search for the shore of safety and peace, ...Christ is the only beacon on which we can ultimately rely."
--Howard W. Hunter

Podiatrist on P-day, MP Spending Day With a Missionary

We always look forward to p-day. It means we venture outside our neighborhood to do our morning exercise. I enjoyed the day we took a walk down the main streets in Carlsbad.

The evergreen trees here are different than any we have seen.

We trespassed on the campus of the Army and Navy Academy military boarding school for boys. A security guy came over to talk to us. I thought he was going to get mad at us, but we were really friendly with him and asked him a lot of questions about the academy and in the end it netted us a picture near the tree with the gigantic trunk that was the reason we were trespassing in the first place.

Imagine our delight when we found a Kangen water dispenser right in Carlsbad.

We aren't the only ones who tout alkaline water as being healthier for the body. Captain John A. Frazier discovered the famous Carlsbad Mineral Water.

There is an organic juicery food place that has a green outdoor space around it for people to sit and enjoy their organic food. You can pull up a cushion and sit at a table and enjoy the painting and planter boxes mounted on the side of a building.

 We found the place where we are going to live after our mission.

I made a third visit to Dr. Dustin, the mission foot doctor. He is such a nice man who treats all the missionaries for free--including me. He said my left foot is doing better and didn't give me injections in that foot. He was not too happy about the right foot still bothering me so much. He shot it up in two places and said he hopes it heals as much in the next three weeks as the left foot did in the last three weeks.

At least this time he wasn't talking about another surgery...in my left foot. Let's hope next time he's not talking another surgery in the right foot either.

Look at MP working so hard on trying to answer all the missionaries' letters to the president. Just a mere 161 of them each week.

Elder Richards felt like MP does not know what it's really like being out working in the field every day, so MP spent a full day with this missionary--beginning at his apartment at 8 a.m. to do an hour of personal study followed by an hour of companionship study.

This photo was taken with them working at MiraCosta College in Oceanside.

Sister Jones and Sister Miraglia were also working on the campus. Glen said he really learned a lot from these wonderful missionaries about contacting and being bold. Elder Richards told Glen he loves him and told him it was his best day on the mission.

This is what time Glen got home and he had a very sunburned head to prove he had been out all day.

Glen and I enjoyed seeing this note the next day that had been stuck on the MP's desk at the mission office.

One day we went to the San Diego Mission office and met with the Just Serve representative for a while. Then we went to lunch with the Schmitts, the MP and MPW of the San Diego Mission. She is an ER doctor, so she is wonderfully qualified to deal with all their mentally and physically ailing missionaries.

Makes me very thankful we have some wonderful doctors and nurses in our mission so I don't have to carry the responsibility of making medical decisions for the missionaries.

These sweet sisters were decorating up Elder Ruhl's desk at the mission office. Sister Parris, standing on the chair, was also having a birthday the same day.

Hermana Adams was one of the missionaries who kept us awake late into the night recently. She was riding on a scooter (the kind you push with your foot) and ran into the curb and fell. As the day wore on, she was in more and more pain and then went to the emergency room after bedtime. What she thought were two jammed fingers turned out to be two broken fingers at the base of her hand.

This is the splint the hospital put on her. She was then referred to a specialist who put a cast on her hand.

These fine missionaries were at the mission office when we arrived early one morning. They were ready to have the meeting for new leaders an hour before Mission Leadership Council. Such dedicated and willing missionaries. 

These are the future leaders of the Church. And they will be fabulous because they already are fabulous!