I Know Them! Glen's Birthday, Zone Conferences, The First From Nicaragua, Cinderella Reception

One day I saw a notification about an event going on in North Salt Lake. As I looked at it, the little girl in pink in the left corner picture caught my eye.

WHAT IN THE WORLD?!?!?!???? The little girl in pink is my very own GRANDDAUGHTER, Madison!!

I looked closer at the big picture and noticed it was my very own DAUGHTER and her family!! So funny that I didn't recognize the family at first glance. I guess that means we've been gone toooo loooonng!!

Glen received a birthday care package in the mail from his sister. It was so sweet of her!

Barbara and Rich were in Hawaii and the treats came from there. I must say the chocolate-covered macadamia nuts were a hit with me!!!

We spoke in the Carlsbad stake conference and as we were leaving, Kathleen Wardle handed me one of the beautiful flower arrangements to take home and enjoy.

She is the woman who catered the meal at our home when we first arrived in the mission. She will always be dear to us for preparing the food for the six stake presidents, the Area Seventy and their wives.

That was not our only gift that day. Somebody we do not even know handed us a painting of the San Diego Temple that her mother had made. She handed the member of the temple presidency a painting as well. That was awfully kind!!

Former Elder Baylor Romney was in town for a wedding and brought his wife into the mission office to meet us. They had been dating each other before the mission.

Every 6 weeks zone conferences roll around again. We started off with the Escondido, San Marcos and Del Mar zones. 

We got member volunteers to come and be investigators. They walked around the parking lot and the missionaries role played contacting them and transitioning the conversation into a gospel topic.

Sister Radford worked her magic again to come up with a cute thank you gift for the volunteers.

 

She also arranged for our lunch that day--Firehouse subs--as the stake whose turn it was hadn't been able to do it this time. It was Glen's birthday that day, so he got a lot of birthday greetings from the missionaries.

Elder Jordan is always so happy and enjoys whatever he is doing. He continues to train Elder Lundquist on everything that goes on with being an assistant.

The assistants work hard making sure everything runs smoothly at zone conferences (and the mission in general). We appreciate them so much!!

Off we went to the airport to pick up an elder coming in from Nicaragua. The Church is moving all the missionaries from the two missions in Nicaragua out of that country. 

This elder and his friend, who was in the other Nicaragua mission, left on their missions at the same time. The friend got evacuated out of the country and got sent home. This elder got sent to our mission.

There has to be some reason he is here with us--if only for a transfer plus a couple of weeks. We have already seen the positive impact he is having on the Spanish missionaries around which he serves.

He spent the night with us and at zone conference the next day (Carlsbad and Vista zones) he met his new companions.

Once again we had members who were willing to be investigators for the missionaries to contact. They were also helping do role plays of member visits with the missionaries practicing turning the conversation to a gospel topic for a message.

Third day of zone conference was held with the Temecula and Murrieta zones. It was the traditional waffle lunch that we love so much.

(A disclaimer for Elder Jordan... He is not sticking his tongue out at the camera. He was trying to make sure he had no food on his teeth for the photo.)

We were happy Brother Badal (blue dress shirt) was there participating in the role plays with the missionaries. 

Glen had submitted his name to be his new counselor in the mission presidency, so it was good for us to watch him interacting with the missionaries and be able to talk to him a little bit to try and get to know him.

We went straight from zone conferences into interviews at the end of the week. We usually do all the interviews the following week, but we had MLC the following Friday so the Vista zone got moved up a week. 

There was definitely a bonus for doing interviews that particular day at that particular church building. A Cinderella-themed reception was happening and I was able to see the beautiful decorations. 

I asked if I could take pictures to show to my sister who decorates for weddings.

There are glass slippers in the baskets at both ends of the table. 

And with that, I whisked my very own Prince Charming away from the church and off on our weekly Friday night date. 

Quotes of the Week

Many of the events that occur in our lives are out of our control. However, on matters of religious observance and righteous living, we are in control. Our faith in and worship of God is a choice that we make. And we must make that choice every day.
--Quentin L. Cook

You are the child of our merciful and everlasting Father in Heaven, the Lord of Hosts, the One who created the universe, spread the spinning stars across the vast expanses of space, and placed the planets in their appointed orbits.
--Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Just do the very best you can each day. Do the basic things and, before you realize it, your life will be full of spiritual understanding that will confirm to you that your Heavenly Father loves you.
--M. Russell Ballard

Quotes of the Week

Jesus Christ is the Savior, the Redeemer of the world, and He has done for us something that only He could do. His Atonement, for us, means everything. If we make a mistake, we can find forgiveness.
--M. Russell Ballard

In order for Him to endure the most excruciating experience ever endured on Earth, our Savior focused on joy..The joy of paying for the sins of all who would repent. The joy of making it possible for you and me to return home.
--Russell M. Nelson

Please do not lose hope in the Savior and His love for you. It is constant. He promised that He would not leave us comfortless.
--Joseph B. Wirthlin

Mother's Day, Senior FHE, Puerto Rico Missionaries Depart, Various Meetings, Safari Park Date

On Mother's Day we drove north to Temecula so we could go to three different wards for sacrament meeting. The first one was a Spanish ward and the missionaries were passing out these love notes to all the mothers. I thought it was very sweet and enjoyed receiving one.

At the second ward we attended, they passed out a bag of See's candy--6 pieces!! That was a fabulous gift because I was starving at that point and ate a couple of the chocolates to hold me over until we made it back home for dinner.

I liked the quote picture on the front of the program because it reminded me of Abe. He is the new Elders Quorum President in his ward and he was in charge of getting the Mother's Day gift for his ward. He had sent a photo of what he was giving out and it was a monster cookie with this picture quote attached to each cookie.

The third ward we went to was going to be giving the women brownies and ice cream during the third hour. We opted out of sticking around for me to get that treat.

I enjoyed the Facebook post our Mission President friend in the Nebraska Omaha Mission posted of his wife. They have an artistic missionary who made this beautiful portrait of her for Mother's Day.

It made me recall the portrait one of our missionaries gave us on his last evening in the mission. We love it so much!! What really makes us laugh is he wasn't even a Spanish-speaking missionary, so we still have no idea why he is using the Spanish version of our names. 

It was that time in the transfer for our Family Home Evening with the senior missionaries.

Sister Radford had brought two delicious bundt cakes to put candles on for the birthday people--one of which was Glen. She loves to go the extra mile in whatever she does and we love her for it.

We had another memorable meeting after dinner with everyone gathered around in what we call the celestial room of the house.

We hadn't even finished that meeting before this group of missionaries showed up. They were bringing over the two missionaries who were leaving the next morning headed back to Puerto Rico.

They spent the night with us, got up early for a French toast breakfast and then Glen took them to the airport.

The bugle bushes growing all along the street in our neighborhood is so beautiful this time of the year. There are more bugles than ever this year.

This is a punching tree. If you punch it the tree is soft and it doesn't hurt your fist too much. I am fascinated with the bark because it looks like it's all peeling off.

This is our house on the left and then our neighbor's house.

Just beyond our next-door neighbor's house, there are these two houses. (Notice the tall palm trees.) Parked in front of the white house was a car that caught my attention one morning as we were walking by.

The words "Respect your Elders" made me laugh out loud. Since we work with Elders (missionaries) all day every day, and we hear stories of how people are sometimes mean to them, I would wish everyone would Respect your Elders!

I was getting ready to take a picture and this guy opened up the door and stepped out of the car.

Wow!! Didn't see him and it startled us! He was happy we'd stopped to admire his car and took time to explain it to us. I then told him why I liked the saying and asked if I could take a picture. We took time to listen to his story and we started telling him about what we are doing here when his workers arrived on the scene.

They climb the tall palm trees and trim them. The picture above is what freshly-trimmed palm trees look like. We went back later to talk to him some more and gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon.

This plant we see every morning on our walk is one of Glen's favorites. All the green leaves/fronds/whatever-you-call-them that are pointing upward are new growths. It's been interesting to watch all the brown stuff in the middle get bigger and then the green shoots started popping out.

We went to the Bear Valley district meeting.

We had a meeting with this group of new missionaries and their trainers.

They did role plays with each other after the assistants did a demonstration.

 Elder Lundquist is getting the hang of being the new assistant working with Elder Jordan.

That evening we had a youth group from Fallbrook come to the mission office to have us talk to them. We were told there would be 6-8 young men there and a lot more than that were there--more than the pictures show.

They really perked up when Glen opened up the transfer board and they got to see every missionary's board card, who they are companions with and the area where they are serving.

We attended the Oceanside district meeting. Glen went out working that evening with some elders in Murrieta.

The next day we had a rescue training meeting with the Temecula zone. Glen brought me home and turned around and went right back to Temecula to spend the rest of the day working with some elders in that zone.

We were able to spend a few afternoon hours at the Safari Park for our weekly date.

 

 

We walked around this area that we hadn't fully explored before. It was so peaceful and relaxing for us.

 

 

We finished our date night at Mike's BBQ.

We always see signs for this place whenever we go to the Safari Park and so we decided to give it a try.