Interviews for Every Missionary, Cute Kid Notes, Bear Misses Us

There is a week during each transfer cycle dedicated to Glen interviewing every single missionary. That means while he's interviewing, I'm talking to every single one of their companions.

One of these is not like the other... He's one of about 35 short-term youth missionaries from the Murrieta Stake who was assigned to various missionary companionships during the school break the week between Christmas and New Year's Day.

Generally the interviewing works out okay, but... more often than not, some of the missionaries take way more time than their allotted 10 minutes and then the missionaries start stacking up. That makes it the perfect photo op for the ones sitting around waiting.

Glen has them choose a goal every transfer cycle that they write down so they can discuss it with him in the interview and review how they did on their previous goal.

Elder Friend is one of the California Carlsbad recently returned missionaries who returned to his mission and spent the night with us so he could attend the baptism of a person he had taught. 

Little tidbit of information is his previous mission president and wife, Hal and Julie Kendrick, now live in his ward in Texas. They had sold their home before the mission and after their mission they chose to buy a home in the part of Texas where Elder Friend lives. 

Let's face it. Sometimes this calling just really takes it out of you. We generally go to bed totally exhausted and wonder how we can ever have enough energy to face a new day. Then in the morning we jump out of bed, bounce out of bed, get out of bed ready to get at it once again.

With the rough couple of weeks we had just had, one day I found Glen on the computer looking longingly at the screen.

He was thinking how much we would enjoy going on a 60-day cruise. No phone calls, nobody needing us, people waiting on us hand and foot, leading the life of leisure. It sure looked appealing...

But he refrained from pushing the "buy" button and everyone can rest assured there will be no MP and MPW jumping ship to get on a ship any time soon.

It just takes something like a wonderful zone training meeting to help remind us of why we are here and what our responsibilities are to help lead, guide and direct our missionaries. I always go away from their meetings feeling uplifted and spiritually edified.

These are two of our zone leaders who wrote some lyrics to the song "Nephi's Courage" which they sang to their zone. It is all about the standards of excellence Glen has set for the mission monthly goal for each companionship to have four new investigators a week, four investigators at church a week, and have one baptism a month.

It was such a cute song that I recorded them singing it to show at the upcoming zone conferences. It was a hit! I loved it!

Another zone training meeting with the selfie stick selfie taken at the end of the meeting.

Since we have now been here over 6 months, it seems weird that we hadn't already spoken at all 6 of the stake conferences. We just had our first one with the Carlsbad Stake. Bishop Gérald Caussé was the visiting general authority. He is a delightful man and we really enjoyed the time we were able to spend in his presence.

This is probably one of my favorite perks we have in this calling. We are always included in the meetings with any visiting authorities. I love it! All except the part where we aren't given an assignment beforehand and we get called on to speak extemporaneously. ONE OF MY LEAST FAVORITE THINGS TO HAVE HAPPEN TO ME!!!!

Sure enough, in the Saturday evening session, he called on the Jergensens (San Diego Temple president and wife) and then us to come to the pulpit as a couple and share the answer to this question "What evidences do we see that this is Christ's restored Church?" The subject had already been talked about for an hour previous to our comments.

Thankfully there was not enough time for us to speak get called upon to say something in the Sunday session. He asked the Jergensens to say something again, though. Don't get me wrong. I don't mind very much speaking if I have been thinking, praying and pondering about what to say and then come prepared to speak...

But the spur-of-the-moment stuff is so nerve-wracking for me.

To get to the Carlsbad Stake Center we drive up our street, turn right and as we drive down the hill a short few blocks to the church, this is the view we see. The ocean! So cool!

The assistants and these three missionaries spent the night here one night mid transfer so we could get one of the missionaries to the airport the next morning.

That evening we met up with another of these missionaries so we could drive him up to Murrieta where he met up with some family members who were driving him to Utah for his father's funeral. It was the second time we had to tell one of our missionaries about the death of a parent. Not a fun thing to have to do.

Glen is such a nice guy and fixes a French toast breakfast if it's not a huge group here. The missionaries love to get breakfast because they never fix themselves a substantial breakfast. 

This is the room where I spent an entire day while Glen interviewed missionaries from the Escondido zone. There was a viewing and funeral going on for two children from a Spanish branch who died in a house fire. So sad!

Glen found out there is a man in the Escondido Stake who is one of the newly-called mission presidents who will be serving in Glen's exact mission--the México Torreón Mission. We got together with the McBeths after the interviews were other and went to dinner with them. They had lots of questions about what to expect.

Sister McBeth has a lot of concerns about their 12-year-old son they will be taking to Mexico with them. Yet again Glen and I gave thanks we did not have to bring any children with us on our mission. The 160 missionaries we deal with are plenty enough "children" for us!!

Here's some cuteness that I love so much. It is kid writing. Sarah had Eli sit down and write a thank you note to us for the Christmas money we sent him.

He wrote "Blah Blah love Eli" and thought that would suffice. Well, suffice it to say, Sarah did not feel it was sufficient and made him write more. 

Carson is quite the sounder-outer.

Caroline's note made me laugh when she referred to the bugs. They made quite an impression on the Golden family since they were the ones who discovered all those pesky flying termites.

Glen has been complaining of his shoulder never being pain-free since his shoulder surgery a couple of years ago. He had an MRI last year to see if he needed more surgery and things looked fine in there. Well he had another MRI last week to see what is going on in there.

Doctor saw him today and told him the MRI showed the same rotator cuff tear not all the way through like it was when he had his surgery before and the doctor just cleaned out some stuff in there and hoped for the best.

The doctor suggested a cortisone shot and physical therapy for a few weeks to see if that gives him relief. This is very discouraging that he is still struggling with this same problem.

Brooke sent me some pictures of Bear wearing a tie, sitting on some copies of the Book of Mormon, holding his scriptures, wondering when we are going to be home from our mission. 

I guess a 3-year mission seems like a very long time!

Quotes of the Week

By and large, I have come to see that if we complain about life, it is because we are thinking only of ourselves.
--Gordon B. Hinckley

We become more Christlike as we are more virtuous, more kind, more patient, and more in control of our emotional feelings.
--Ezra Taft Benson

Of this be sure: You do not find the happy life...you make it.
--Thomas S. Monson

Whatever problems your family is facing...the beginning and the end of the solution is clarity.
--Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Quotes of the Week

Because He came, there is meaning to our mortal existence.
--Thomas S. Monson

All thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children.
--3 Nephi 22:13

If you decide to make a difference in the world, you must be different from the world.
--Elaine S. Dalton

As we come to trust rather than resist our divine teacher.  He can work with us to enlighten and lift us to a new reality.
--D. Todd Christofferson

Christmas In Carlsbad, California

The orange rolls were delicious for breakfast on Christmas morning.

We were given some sweet gifts by Nani and Andy's family.

Group photo before we headed off to church.

Definitely the highlight of the day was when we got to Skype with Preston in Argentina. He is such a cute young man and radiated happiness and goodness as he chatted with his family for a few minutes.

I really loved the experience of Skyping that day as that was exactly what our missionaries were also doing all throughout the mission. I pictured our missionaries as the head on the monitor as they were talking with their families on Christmas day.

Christmas dinner in the formal dining room.

One of my favorite things we did while our visitors were staying with us was play Qwirkle. I now LOVE that game!! I had never played it before and it is actually a game I can play. I think that was the night Rachel was spouting off joke after joke after joke. I was laughing so hard. It was good therapy.

The next day Nani, Glen and I went to the zoo. Andy's family went to Sea World. Nani had been there not too long ago and she was anxious to see something different. Glen and I love the zoo because it is free for us every time we go now that we have our season passes.

We ate lunch at Poppy's Patio.

We walked around the zoo in the opposite direction we had gone on previous visits and found animals we hadn't seen before. Like, for instance, the penguins.

They would slide down the slide or jump off their perch into the water and swiftly swim right over to the window and pop up right up in front of the people watching them. It was hilarious.

The night before when we were all together, Amanda, Maggie and Rachel were telling us the fact that you see an elephant every day.

Nani and I did not believe them. Amanda said once you start looking for an elephant, you will find an elephant. It might be a picture of one on a shirt or on a bag or something like that.

Well, they were right! We saw this elephant...

and this elephant...

and this elephant...along with real elephants at the zoo.

We saw other animals as well.

Glen grilled some flank steak for our dinner that evening.

We had a roaring fire going when Andy's family arrived home. Rachel showed us the stuffed animals she had gotten that day.

Tuesday morning Andy's family was hitting the road so they could drive back to snowy Utah.

One last pose in front of the palm trees in our front yard.

Nani posed in front of another tree in our front yard. Look at that beautiful blue sky!! I love where we live!!!

We went to the temple since Nani didn't have to catch her airplane until later that day.

We were admiring the beautiful flowers on the temple grounds.

Nani had a little bit of time between the temple and the airport, so we walked around Old Town San Diego for a while.

Glen felt right at home in one of the Mexican stores. He bought himself a handful of Chiclets gum that he remembered from his time spent in Mexico.

This beautiful life-size nativity was on display.

Inside the old hotel is a restaurant.

Amanda, Maggie and Rachel would be happy to know we saw an elephant this very day as well as the previous day. It is a true statement! You see an elephant every day. We just proved it!

After we dropped Nani off at the airport, we drove to Coronado Island which is right by the airport and picked up Jamie Jensen (our friend from North Salt Lake) and took her to dinner.

Greg was also in town, but he had an infection in his eye that was driving him crazy and he didn't feel like socializing. He did come out to say hi to us wearing his dark glasses and squinting like crazy.

It was fun talking with Jamie and getting caught up on what's been going on with her and her family. Their family has been coming to San Diego the week after Christmas for years and years and years. We'll probably see her again two more times before we go back home.

With all our visitors gone, it was time to get back to work. Glen spent the next two days interviewing missionaries in the Vista, Fallbrook, Murrieta and Temecula zones. Super long days!

On Friday we had a new MLC leadership meeting in the morning before our day-long MLC meeting. It is always so nice when our meetings have lunch with them like this one always does. After several more interviews, we drove to Urgent Care in San Diego where our mission doctor works and met up with the sister missionaries who had been there most of the day getting testing done. We took them to dinner for our date night.

We came home to no internet at our house. FOR THE ENTIRE LONG WEEKEND!!! It was so annoying!!! Glen was able to hot spot his phone to get his computer to work. My phone or my computer wasn't cooperating with me trying to hot spot my phone to be able to use my computer.

Saturday we were supposed to meet the assistants for our weekly planning meeting, but just as the meeting got started, a missionary called to say his depressed companion would not get out of bed. He has been struggling for weeks resulting in him meeting with Glen almost weekly. Off Glen went with the assistants to see what was up with the elder. They were gone for several hours. Then it was too late for a meeting and that didn't get done that day. UGH!

That was New Year's Eve and Glen had told the missionaries to be in early that evening and do some cleaning of their apartments or enjoy going to bed early. With no internet, it was the perfect opportunity for me to do some cleaning.

I took down all the Christmas decorations. It made me sad because I loved looking at the beautifully decorated fireplace mantle and all the other stuff I had around the house to bring the festive spirit of Christmas into the home (minus a Christmas tree that Glen and I are still not sad we didn't put up).

What I had really wanted to clean was the cupboard above my desk to get that more organized and clutter free. And I cleaned the hall closet as I was putting Christmas decorations away back inside there. I finally had the time to go through each box and figure out what was in them and put the ones I will never use in the very back so I will know I only need to pull out the few in the front of the pile of storage bins. It felt wonderful to get those two areas better organized.

On New Year's Day we had planned to attend church and then have our meeting with the assistants. That plan didn't work out once again. We had just sat down at church when Glen got a text saying the depressed elder wasn't getting out of bed once again. Off Glen went to spend 4 hours in the apartment having companion study with the functioning elder. Glen got our mission counselor to call so he could do a counseling session over the phone with the elder.

Finally he got out of bed and got cleaned up. Glen brought him and his companion back to the church where I had been hanging out for hours. We attended an afternoon sacrament meeting and then we went with those elders to teach a lesson to a man while standing outside in the front yard of the home where the man was staying. Wonderful experience to teach--helping the elder remember the reason he is on his mission.

Needless to say there was no planning meeting that happened that day as well. We were finally able to connect with the assistants over dinner on Monday. It was a wild and crazy couple of weeks for us. We have several medical issues going on with missionaries. We have the ones struggling with emotional issues. We have zone conference coming up with the necessity to plan for that. Not to mention the days and days of interviewing every single missionary. Throw in an internet problem and it made for a lot of stress.

But, we are surviving!! Glen always manages to say or write the right things to help the missionaries with whatever it is they need at the time. I am so much in the background of everything he does. But yet I feel like I am on the front line as well because I am in on most of everything he's dealing with. It is an interesting experience, that's for sure.

May I say--there is never a dull moment. And just when we think we are in a groove or we might be getting a little bit comfortable, then we are knocked down and dragged along for a while with something (or several somethings) that help us understand just how vulnerable we are and how much help we need to get through each and every day and each and every individual person and circumstance.

Such is the life of a MP and a MPW.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!