Missionary Department Visitors, Tented House For My Birthday

Brother Hemingway, the director of proselyting in the Church missionary department, went out teaching with our assistants.

From what each of us learned from being out with our respective sets of missionaries, we were able to figure out what things ought to be trained about at our next mission leadership council.

We had a terrific experience at MLC with Brother Hemingway and Brother Tanner doing most of the training and teaching of this fine group of zone leaders, sister training leaders and district leaders. Everyone loved the experience of learning and feeling the Spirit in the meeting that day.

At the end of the day, the visitors took us to dinner so we could debrief on all that had happened the three full days we spent with them. We loved that they modeled such good teaching and training. It helps us see how we can improve. Hopefully they were able to help show the missionaries what they need to work on as well so we can be the best mission/missionaries ever!

In the midst of the visitor week, we moved out of the house and set up residency at a hotel nearby. We just had to stop by the house one morning on our way into the mission office to see what our tented home looked like. 

I must say I was VERY DISAPPOINTED that our house tent was not brightly colored in red, yellow and orange like a circus tent. If you're going to be the laughing stock of the neighborhood, I figured you'd better do it up right!

There were warning signs all around the house. 

This was the day we were taking another batch of missionaries to the Mormon Battalion Historic Site--the group who had just finished their first twelve weeks of training and some of the missionaries who would be going home soon.

After the tour, our group met in a meeting room to be instructed by Elder and Sister Woods, the director of the site. Someone knew it was my birthday so the group sang to me.

This is what happens when the missionaries get a hold of my camera.

Since it was my birthday, we decided to linger a little longer in the area and walk through Old Town San Diego.

It was interesting walking through Fiesta de Reyes and seeing all the skeletons. The Mexican holiday Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) had just been celebrated a couple of days before my birthday and the decorations were rampantly on display. The holiday coincides nicely with our Halloween holiday.

On Google I learned that traditionally November 1st is the day for honoring dead children and infants.

November 2nd is the day for honoring deceased adults.

In homes, people create altars to honor deceased loved ones.

In graveyards, families clean the graves of their loved ones, which they then decorate with flowers, photos, candles, food and drinks.

People stay up all night in the graveyards, socializing and telling funny stories about their dead ancestors.

Musicians are hired to stroll through the graveyard, playing the favorite songs of the dead.

During this time it is believed that the dead return to their earthly homes to visit and rejoice with their loved ones.

Look, Sarah!! We found somewhere we can have Thanksgiving dinner!! (Just in case you don't feel in the mood to cook the traditional turkey dinner.) You do know you are the one cooking for me that day, right?!?

The day after my birthday we were told we would be able to get into our house around noon. That was going to work out perfectly as we had a morning meeting and then Glen was going to stay at the church to make the final transfer decisions while I came home to work on putting all the stuff back into the drawers and cupboards and unbag the stuff in the refrigerators and freezers.

This is what I saw upon arriving at our home. UGH! The big unveiling was just barely beginning and I knew it would be several hours before we got the all clear to enter.

I was able to watch the unveiling of the front tarp dropping after all the clips had been removed.

I left and went to the mall for a few hours. When I went back to check on the house, I saw this notice on the front door saying it was safe for re-entry. I was still scared!

Somehow I had no confidence that after our house was fumigated with LEGAL GASES that it would all of a sudden be safe for habitation.

I got a kick out of the comments made when I posted this on Instagram.

Believe me when I say I was never so happy to finally be back in the house with all our stuff unbagged and put away. It had been a stressful week for us with visitors in town and being kicked out of our house and then having to move stuff in and out on top of it all. We just wanted to put that experience BEHIND US!!

We had a new challenge in the near future which we weren't looking forward to at all--my foot surgery. Knowing it was coming and I wouldn't be able to enjoy going out for our morning walks, we decided to go to the beach one last time for a while.

It was a very foggy experience for us as we walked along the beach with the fog enshrouding us. As we walked back toward the parking lot, we walked right out of the bank of fog that was slowly moving out of Carlsbad.

Now there is the blue sky we are used to seeing above us!!

Quotes of the Week

I can sum up what I know about work in three words: "example" and "do it".  If we apply this in our lives, we will be successful.
--Ronald A. Rasband

Rather than have our mistakes, disappointments, struggles, and trials push us downward, we can use them to help us build toward heaven.
--Dale G. Renlund

I testify that our Savior lives.  He is the only begotten of the Father and He will come again on this earth to reign.
--Robert D. Hales

By applying gospel principles, it is possible to live together in peace, reaching out to each other instead of fighting with each other.
--Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Mission President Seminar

This is our third group of new missionaries with their trainers all coming together to review how the past month has gone for them and to receive additional training and motivation to keep at it and give the mission their best effort.

Glen and I left all the darlings for a few days and went to San Diego to a Mission Presidents' Seminar at the Coronado Island Marriott Resort. It was for all the MPs and their wives in California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska and Hawaii.

We used our mission van to pick up three other couples at the airport and get them to the resort. This is the view as we were driving over a huge bridge to get to the island.

This is the big bridge we crossed to get to our lovely resort.

The flower pot arrangement in the lobby was unique and pretty.

We got an upgraded room because of Glen's status with Marriott after having lived in a hotel for 2 years.

 What a beautiful view from our room.

I played the piano in the first day's morning session of meetings. All the newbie couples sat on the front row the first day. 

There were four general authorities instructing us: Elder Donald L. Hallstrom, Elder Carl B. Cook (married to my high school friend Lynette Hansen who was there with the other wives), Elder Ian S. Ardern and Elder Weatherford Clayton. 

We had such wonderfully spiritual and informative and instructive sessions each day. 

Breakfast was served inside, but the other two meals we ate outside.

That afternoon we took buses to the temple. (I happened to catch a blurry picture of my friend Lynette in this shot.)

We felt very honored that Elder Hallstrom requested us to be the witness couple in one session and the MP and MPW from the San Diego Mission to be the witness couple in the other session. We are the two missions that go to this temple.

We had a lovely meal upon our return, enjoyed this view while we ate and then took a walk along the sidewalk bordering the water after dinner.

The second evening we put our stuff down at a table and when we got our food and went to sit down we found Elder and Sister Ardern at our table. 

Look closely at the people at the round table behind Glen. The Hallstroms are on the right and next to them are Elder Ronald A. Rasband and his wife who had joined us for our afternoon session that day. 

Part of our afternoon session we split up into MPs and MPWs. The wives had a very spiritual experience as we had all of the wives of the general authorities speaking to us. I loved it so much!!!

Sister Hallstrom presented each of the wives with this beautiful canvas of the woman at the well after she'd told us the story.

Turns out it was Sister Ardern's birthday that day and she had a "little tiny muffin" (her words) with a candle in it presented to her at lunch and people sang to her.

One of the MPWs had mentioned to Sister Ardern in a quick passing that it was her birthday that day as well. The Arderns had decided to order a birthday dessert for that woman for them to present to her at dinner that evening and have everyone sing to her.

Try as they might, the Arderns could not locate the woman in question. Sister Ardern had no idea what the woman's name was and she only knew she wore glasses and had longer dark hair. Elder Ardern was going up to almost every man there and quietly asking if his wife was having a birthday that day.

Sister Ardern got out the booklet we had been given which has all of the couples in attendance listed with our pictures and our bios. She still could not identify the other birthday woman. We determined they must have gone somewhere else to celebrate her birthday (which Sister Ardern later learned that is exactly what happened).

By this time the Arderns were feeling like the hotel staff had done such a magnificent job making such a birthday masterpiece (truly--compared to the "little tiny muffin" that was presented earlier in the day to Sister Ardern), that someone had to accept the birthday cake.

I had made the mistake of telling them my birthday was coming up the following week and that put me in position for the Arderns to insist it was MY birthday and I became the fall guy for them to not waste the efforts of the chef who made the decorative birthday treat. 

The Arderns and Glen really got into the plot and by the time the dessert was placed in front of me, the candle was lit, and our husbands were singing as loudly as possible, we were all laughing so much that our sides ached.

Honestly, it felt so good to be relaxed and having a good time. Laughter is the best medicine! We got another good laugh as we walked by the Arderns later that evening as they were also walking down by the water. They had changed into exercise clothes and she had a hood over her head so we didn't recognize them until she quipped, "Happy birthday!" to me as she walked by. So funny! Great memory! 

Sister Clark was in our study group leading up to our mission and it was fun seeing her and her husband again along with a couple of the other couples who had been in our study group. I had told her earlier that it was my birthday next week (I told several people because something very unexpected was happening on my birthday and it was making me crazy thinking about it.)

Right during the singing of "Happy birthday" to me, she came over and whispered in my ear, "Sister Thomas, are you honest in all your dealings?" That made me laugh even harder. She had first impressed me as a very serious woman and by the time this seminar was over, I realized she has a very quick wit and she was definitely in great need of a group therapy session (as were we all!!).

It was a very good experience to be able to talk with other mission presidents and their wives and find out what kinds of things they had been dealing with in their first four months on the job. We learned we had similar things we had experienced and we heard of other things we were glad we hadn't experienced.

I think we came home feeling like we would take our problems over anybody else's problems. We also came home convinced that we definitely live in the most beautiful mission in the world. That's what everyone was telling us and we keep believing it. No reason to think otherwise!

It was hard for me to want to leave the resort because I knew what was awaiting us at home...

It was a big job of pulling everything out of the cupboards in the kitchen and the bathrooms so we could get it all bagged up in special double bagging bags that the pest control company was providing.

We had a big flying termite infestation and needed to TENT THE HOUSE. Whoever has heard of that?!?!? NOT US!! And the tenting was going to occur ON MY BIRTHDAY!!! Whoever would want that?!?!? NOT ME!!

It felt like we were moving and I didn't like it. We just moved in 4 months ago and moving is not my favorite and now here we were moving again. ICK!!

Sister McClellan provided some Halloween comic relief with her cute witch hat.

We had a pretty intense few days with Brother Mike Hemingway and Brother Nathan Tanner visiting our mission. Brother Hemingway was our instructor in our study group before our mission. He is the director of proselyting in the missionary department. They met with us for a couple of days. Then each one of us went out with a set of missionaries to watch them teach and do their nightly planning.

I went out with these sister training leaders. They chose for us to eat dinner at Texas Roadhouse. That's where Elder Tanner's missionaries wanted to go as well. Glen was hoping for a good steak dinner, but his missionaries opted for JJ's Hawaiian BBQ. He was NOT as happy about that choice especially when he heard where a couple of us had gone. Poor Glen!!

The sisters had been telling me how happy they were that they had found a Christmas tree in their apartment and they had put it up that very day.

We came home very late that night to find all our food double bagged--even the food in our refrigerator and freezer. It was so totally inconvenient to deal with this when visitors were in town!!

That note is telling the people to not bag those items as we needed them for breakfast the next day.

The company had left half of the stuff I'd pulled out of the cupboards un-double bagged, so that made me nervous. They had opened every single door and cupboard in the entire house to allow for the lethal fumes to pass through.

I set this note from our Mission President's Seminar out where I could see it to remind me that through all this moving out, going to stay at a hotel for a couple of days during the time we had visitors in town, getting our house tented, having to move back in again, surgery looming in the near future, etc., this is some good advice.