Quotes of the Week

"Nothing is more crucial to your eternal life than your own conversion."
--Russell M. Nelson

"'Come unto Christ.'  Isn't that what this mortal life is all about?"
--Ronald A. Rasband

"Be better today than you were yesterday, and be better tomorrow than you are today."
--Lorenzo Snow

"Our destiny is not determined by the number of times we stumble but by the number of times we rise up...and move forward."
--Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Transfer Week Again (#3), Priesthood Session

Time must be flying because it was hard for us to believe another 6-week transfer cycle had come around again--the third one for us. Our wonderful assistants, Elders Ruhl and Phillips, went to the airport with us to help get the missionaries and their luggage to the mission office church building.

Six missionaries flew in from the Provo MTC, three missionaries flew in several hours later from the Mexico MTC and one 6-week mini missionary joined us when we got to the church.

Glen had previously interviewed the trainers. He began interviewing the new missionaries as soon as we got to the church. I talked to each of them about any medical issues they might have and any medications they are taking. We fed them, paired them up and sent them off on their way to get settled in the mission.

Elder Castillo loves to take group selfies whenever a bunch of missionaries are gathered. I enjoy watching them huddle up together and smile into the camera. Elder Castillo always makes me join in with the group. Love that guy!

As soon as the new missionaries got taken care of, Glen and I hurried home to begin cooking dinner for the outgoing missionaries. This time we were very organized when the missionaries arrived for dinner. Perhaps practice is making perfect...? Or maybe it's just the fact we know where most things are located in this kitchen now.

We have a new assistant, Elder Miles, joining us as Elder Phillips is leaving us. I found some lovely aprons in the closet here for the assistants to wear. For some reason Elder Phillips loved wearing my apron at the last dinner and at this dinner.

We had testimony meeting after dinner with this group of missionaries while the assistants cleaned up the kitchen and did all the dishes. The two steps from the entryway into the living room make for a great place to take a group photo.

MP, Elder Leal, Elder Willes, Elder Phillips, Elder Woolsey

MPW, Sister Zimmerman, Sister Dickenson, Sister Sweeney, Hermana Young

I quite enjoyed myself hanging out with the missionaries the rest of the evening. I am getting more familiar with the missionaries and this group I did know all of them, but still not all of them very well. It was a great way to get a feel for their personalities a little bit more before trying to get some sleep--elders on the main floor (literally on the floor) and sisters upstairs in the bedrooms. 

Glen and I left early the next morning to get a sister to the airport for her flight back east. We met up with the group at the Mormon Battalion History Site and went on the tour with them. We had such great tour guides who related so well the experiences of the Mormon Battalion to the experiences the missionaries have just had the last 1 1/2 or 2 years on their missions. 

We felt the Spirit so strongly and felt so blessed the missionaries had such a spiritual experience when this group was unable to attend the temple on the day they left the mission. They were blessed with this memorable experience enhancing the temple experience they had a couple of weeks earlier.

Usually we have been in such a hurry to get out of there to make sure the missionaries don't miss their flights that we have not had the time to pan for gold.

Elder Phillips noticed he was in the brown theme of the day. Photo op for sure! We love this missionary. He has served faithfully assisting us since we arrived in the mission. We feel so indebted to him for helping us so much.

It is fire season in California. I spotted a fire off in the distance. We are also now in the middle of an earthquake warning. This all freaks me out knowing we are in charge of 170 missionaries' health and well being.

Our yard people this week were busy cutting off the dead fronds from the palm trees using a saw at the end of a very long pole. It doesn't take many fronds to fill up a trash can.

Two days after the new missionaries arrive we bring them back to the mission office church where we take care of paperwork, do some training with them and their trainers, feed them lunch and then send them back out to do missionary work.

This is the day they get their picture taken with MP and MPW which we send in a letter to their parents. I wanted to hold up a sign in this picture saying hi to this sister's mom and sister who worked at the chiropractor's office I went to a million times back home.

After feeling so sad and discouraged about several missionaries going home early in the past couple of weeks, we received this photo from Elder Woolsey letting us know he had arrived home safely. It brought a smile to our lips!

We were looking forward to spending Saturday at home watching general conference on television. Thank goodness this house has the channel we needed to watch from home. (I guess there's always the computer, but the television is a much better picture.)

Glen ended up going to the mission office building to meet with a missionary, so he watched the priesthood session at that building with all these fine missionaries. He said he asked them for a picture because he was missing his own sons.

These were his stand-in sons attending the priesthood session with him this session. 

Quotes of the Week

"What we love determines what we seek.  What we seek determines what we think and do.  What we think and do determines who we are."
--Dieter F. Uchtdorf

"When we keep the commandments, our lives will be happier, more fulfilling and less complicated."
--Thomas S. Monson

"It is a plan of freedom that gives discipline to appetite and direction to behavior."
--Gordon B. Hinckley

"Prophets and apostles speak for the Lord.  They are His servants, authorized to act for Him.  He goes before them in the world.  This I know."
--Henry B. Eyring

Stitches, Rain, Tequila Factory, Texas Roadhouse, President Marin, Cute Kid Notes

This is where we spend our p-days every third Monday. My feet are still struggling to get better 9 months after surgery. It is so frustrating. This time my left foot was problematic again after thinking it was so much better last time I was there.

So Dr. Dustin put two injections in each foot...again...

Missionaries like to have fun on their p-days. Sometimes they pay for the fun they have such as getting a whole eyebrow stitched up. This missionary went ice skating and fell on his face. OUCH!!

A very memorable event occurred last week. IT RAINED!! First time in the 2 1/2 months we've lived in California. Everyone loved it. One sister commented about it in her letter to the MP. It made her week!

Glen had a great idea to take the new missionaries and their trainers who have completed their first 12 weeks of training to the Mormon Battalion Historic Site. We took them to Tequila Factory a half a block away for lunch before going on a tour. The missionaries loved it. The restaurant seated us at the best tables in the restaurant overlooking Old Town San Diego.

We had a wonderful training meeting for new leaders with two sister training leaders and our assistants doing most of the teaching. Love watching these young people develop into great leaders.

It was a big moment in my life when we were able to eat for the first time in the new Texas Roadhouse which just opened up less than 2 miles from our home. OH HAPPY DAY!!!

Our house cleaner Brenda surprised me by rearranging the furniture in the family room. And I LOVE IT!!!! The original layout has never been my favorite. It always felt so closed in and uninviting with the back of the couch as a kind of barrier to entry.

Brenda moved the love seat and positioned the brown chairs in a more inviting angle which has greatly opened up the feeling of the room. I enjoy sitting in the chairs more than on the couches, so now I actually like sitting in this room. The celestial room (formal living room) is still my most favorite place to sit.

Our dear neighbor back home is proud of the fact he is Catholic. He is always calling his Mormon neighbors "pilgrims."

For the life of me I could never figure out why he doesn't call us pioneers instead of pilgrims, but I have very frequently heard him referring to his LDS friends as "the pilgrims."

I must say I think of him with fondness whenever I see this church across the street from the Mormon church building near our home in Carlsbad.

This sight made us laugh with all the birds perched evenly spaced on the light pole.

When we first came to the mission, a man told Glen of a person he should get for one of his counselors in the mission presidency. He gave us the man's name. We were so swamped with meeting new people and everything was so overwhelming and new to us. We were running on overload and could only remember the man's first name was Israel.

We kept thinking we wished we knew the man's last name as the weeks wore on. At a baptism we attended, the man who suggested Israel was in attendance and we were able to find out Israel's last name is Marin.

Then Glen kept trying to figure out how he could casually meet the man and see how he felt about him. There had been so many other things to figure out up til that point, that he wasn't really concentrating on figuring out counselors. Within days of when Glen decided to pray specifically to know who to choose for his counselors, we were at a baptism and noticed the name Israel Marin as the person giving the closing prayer.

What a wonderful blessing for us to be able to hear him pray and then afterward both he and his wife were visiting with us. It wasn't just a casual exchange of words. It was a quality conversation and a wonderful chance to meet both of them. We walked away from that baptism just shaking our heads at how the events were unfolded to have us at that particular baptism where that particular person was identified so plainly for us to see and become acquainted with. We both felt so wonderful about him (I should say them--as we instantly loved his wife as well as him).

Glen had invited the Marins to his office as soon as he had done all the paperwork to get his name okayed by the Church and he issued the call. Instead of setting him apart right then, President Marin wanted to be set apart when his whole family could witness it. So they invited us to their home for Sunday dinner.

This is their beautiful new home which he built himself out of mostly recycled materials as his work consists of demolishing homes and buildings.

They live up on a hill so they have a lovely view of the land around them.

The door is MASSIVELY tall and wide.

We felt so bad about being an hour and a half late for dinner. Glen was doing his MP thing and got held up that long while working with a bishop and an investigator who has very unique circumstances making him a very special and tough case.

Needless to say, we appreciated their hospitality in keeping dinner on hold for us. The children were so gracious about it despite the fact they had to be starving.

They are Natalie, Israel, Linda, Jacob, Princessa and Ezra--who is expecting to receive his mission call in the next couple of weeks. Their oldest son Israel is serving now in Mexico and will be returning home soon.

President Marin told Glen he had been praying to be able to live long enough to be able to serve a mission with his wife. And then Glen called him to work in this mission at this time and he was so elated. He is willing to do anything he can to work as hard as he can to help ease Glen's load and help in any way he can with the missionaries and the missionary work in this mission. His wife has the same attitude. They assured us that whenever President Marin was needed for any meeting or anything else, day or night, he would be able to do it.

They are truly such a sweet and special family and we love them already so dearly. Again, we walked away from the setting apart just shaking our heads at how things worked out for this to happen. Our hearts are full of gratitude to now have two magnificently wonderful men in place to help Glen help the missionaries and the stake and ward people do missionary work.

We enjoy our Monday p-day walks when we venture out of the neighborhood since we have more time to spend in the great outdoors because we don't have meetings we need to get to. The beach calls our name some of the time.

We have been in the middle of a heat wave! It was a roaster on p-day! That is more like the temperature in the areas north and east of Carlsbad. Made for a sweltering day of grocery shopping and trying to get everything done to prepare for being invaded the next day with incoming missionaries and feeding departing missionaries.

Every once in a while we'll get something sweet in the mail from one of our grandchildren. I think they are so precious. I love to see kid printing and kid pictures. 

One day we just happened to be home in the middle of the day (which is rare) when we heard a knock on the door. It was the mailman with a 21 cent postage due envelope.

Neither of us had any change, so Glen pulled out his "wallet" which consists of all his money and credit cards held together with a rubber band and gave the mailman a dollar bill who was unable to give change back. It was fine. We didn't mind. It was worth the dollar when we saw it was something from one of the grandchildren.

Brooke had included a little gift with her card. The folded paper gift had a wide blue rubber band holding it closed.

When we opened the gift we found a dollar bill folded up inside. The exact amount to cover the amount we paid for the postage due. And the story gets even better...

Glen's blue rubber band broke when he had removed it to get the money for the postman. But no worries! Brooke had provided an immediate replacement "wallet" for her grandpa which had been a part of her sweet gift to us.

We don't know what prompted her to give us money for food. Perhaps she had heard the story of us starving the first week or so on our mission. I don't know. But this I do know. She made a big sacrifice as she gave a lot of her hard-earned money to her missionary grandparents. We love her for it and we love her for the sage advice to not forget to pay tithing!