Quotes of the Week

Never assume that you can make it alone. You need the help of the Lord.
--Gordon B. Hinckley

Our role is also to help and bless, lift and edify, and replace fear and despair with hope and joy.
--Dale G. Renlund

Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.
--Acts 5:29

You must ... see that studying the scriptures is not a burden...but a marvelous blessing and opportunity.
--Ezra Taft Benson

Returned Missionaries Keep Returning, Dinner With the Clarks

The missionaries keep returning. Here we have RM Elder Wight visiting the mission during the time Glen was doing interviews with the missionaries. He came to the church where the Del Mar zone was interviewing and got to see one of his favorite companions.

Two more returned missionaries came to visit us. On the left is Elder Mark Phillips with his sister and next to me is Elder Skyler Higginson with his brother.

They had planned a fun day at the beach and we offered our boogie boards, beach chairs and umbrella. After their hours at the beach, they came back to the house to clean up and get ready to go to dinner with some members.

Speaking of dinner...

For one of our date nights, we were invited to President and Sister Clark's beautiful home for dinner. He's the stake president of the Del Mar Stake. He knows Glen's friend Randy Bambrough.

They have a zip line in their back yard.

They fed us a most delicious salmon dinner. We loved it. And we loved visiting with them. They served as mission president and wife in Spain.

I had heard of the quilt Sister Clark had made, but seeing it was so much better than just hearing about it! She loves to sew and at the beginning of their mission, she asked every departing missionary to give her one of his ties.

From that, she embroidered their name on each of their individual little tie-shapes and turned them into this most interesting and uniquely different and beautiful quilt.

She embroidered all the sister missionaries' names along the border of the quilt. I loved the idea and the completed masterpiece. And NO!!! I did not get any bright ideas from her. I will NOT be implementing this idea myself with our missionaries.

Seth was in San Diego for a couple of weeks for work. When Kenna, baby Terje and Zack came to visit him on the weekend, they drove up to our house for dinner and a visit. Little Terje was so adorable. And social. He would walk around the house and every time he looked at us, he would wave his hand and say "hi." So cute!!

We had another RM come to see us. Actually two RMs from this mission. Even though one was before our time. Elder Jacob Ruhl and Alyssa had each gone individually to a wedding reception in Logan of a fellow missionary. Elder Ruhl was then supposed to hook up with two other friends and take a road trip to California.

His friends stood him up. Alyssa likes road trips. So off they came together to California to visit the mission. They came to our house for Sunday dinner right before they road tripped it back to Utah.

Glen very bluntly asked them if there was anything romantic coming of it. Way to get it all out in the open for all of us to inspect and comment on together.

Needless to say, they were a little embarrassed. We were enjoying the interaction. Even more delight today (weeks later) as we called and wished Elder Ruhl a happy birthday. When asked how he is spending his birthday, he said Alyssa would be visiting St. Louis to meet his parents and be there with them for the holiday weekend...

Sounds like love is in the air to me!!

Quotes of the Week

Most often it is the sacrifices we make to keep our covenants that sanctify us and make us holy.
--Carol F. McConkie

Faith that motivates us to action gives us more access to His power.
--Russell M. Nelson

You cannot speak of the light in the world without speaking of the Light of the World, Jesus Christ.
--Mark A. Bragg

Because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, ... the Holy Ghost will have a sanctifying and purifying effect on your spirit.
--Henry B. Eyring

Zone Conference and Meeting With Missionaries From MCRD

Zone conference week was upon us. One of the elders had asked me to accompany him while he sang a solo. It gave me the excuse to have to spend time practicing the piano. It is something I definitely enjoy and do not get to do very often. I am so thankful we have a piano in the mission home.

The past couple of zone conferences we have only had two zone conferences instead of three because our total number of missionaries has been down. Next time we'll go back up to three because our numbers are definitely increasing.

Our first zone conference this transfer was with the Vista, Del Mar and Carlsbad zones. It was held at our favorite location--at the mission office church building in Vista. That huge double chapel building is wonderful for meetings.

We always do trainings which include the missionaries breaking off into small groups to do teaching role plays.

Lunch is always a highlight. The ladies prepared a delicious taco salad for us with brownies and ice cream for dessert. The stake Relief Society president in charge of lunch usually will include women who have missionaries out in the field help with the meal.

In my previous post I mentioned how relaxed we felt at Legoland on our date night and how we felt like things were running pretty smoothly...

Well, the VERY NEXT DAY we were bombarded with issues that needed immediate and ongoing attention to try and get things resolved. 

We felt very discouraged, to say the least. Made us even more thankful for our evening's respite from the rigors of overseeing a mission.

On top of all that, we came home to see our front yard was flooded and precious water was FLOWING down our driveway. Glen could not figure out where it was coming from. He called our guy from the church who oversees our property who told Glen to take pictures of it and send to him. 

The next morning the water was still flowing as we departed for our second day of zone conference. 

Glen saw a guy down the street take a picture of all the water running down the driveway and into the street and was sure he was going to turn us in. 

Nothing we could do about it. We were on our way to Murrieta for zone conference with the Murrieta, Temecula and Escondido zones. 

The lunch ladies had some cute centerpieces on each table.

They fed us sloppy joes, salad, chips, watermelon and brownies for dessert.

As the last of the elders were leaving, they asked me to take a picture of them posed on the steps. 

And then a serious pose. Looks like the man in the back wasn't feeling very serious. Can you blame him? Nothing but smiles for us when zone conferences are completed.

One of the sisters jumped in the scene and wanted to be photographed with all the elders. I wasn't feeling it, so her companion joined her.

As I was reluctantly getting ready to take the photo, I had to chuckle when the sister on the right stepped into the pose and photo bombed the picture.

I am happy to report when we returned home that day, the driveway was dry. Someone had been out to deal with the flooding/flowing water problem.

We took an evening walk since we had been unable to walk that morning and also to unwind a bit. Glen wanted to walk through the South Carlsbad Beach Campground. He thinks it is so entertaining. And he grumbles all throughout our walk about how much he hates camping. And don't think for a second we will ever go camping, etc., etc., etc.

This sign caught my eye. His regular greeting to everyone each day is "Just another day in paradise!" Combine his favorite saying with a camper and a couple of pink plastic flamingos and it really tickled me pink!!  

Our missionaries (the 6 on the back left) teach at Edson Range on Camp Pendleton each Sunday. The other missionaries are from the San Diego Mission and do their teaching at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego.

The branch president in charge of both locations called a meeting to do some training to make sure both places are communicating with each other about the recruits who spend several weeks at MCRD, then go to Edson Range and back again a few weeks later to MCRD.

No one wants to have any of the recruits get lost in the shuffle. So an ongoing coordination effort is in place to make sure that doesn't happen.

No recruit left behind!!!