July 13, 2014

Sundays seems to come closer and closer together each week.  We are getting excited to have Dave, Heather and boys here this next week!  We are moving to the apartment over the Institute building to help out there and Heather and family will stay here in our place - the timing works well!

Our new Mission President and his wife.
President and Sister Schmidt

The first Monday of each month is set aside for a Senior Couple's Family Home Evening.  This last Monday was the first one with our new mission president so we were able to have them come and introduce their darling family and each other to us.  It was a delightful evening with a great family.  They have 4 kids and they are amazing.  They showed us the video of when they opened up the email that said were they were going to be assigned for THREE years!  They were all so excited.  They are from Texas have come to San Diego for their family vacation each summer for many years.  It is their favorite vacation spot.  They were all yelling, "We are going to be on vacation for three years!"  They have traveled all around the mission this last week and each one of the kids has given a talk at "Meet the President" meetings.  We are all excited to be a part of this new era in the mission.  They seem like such a wonderful family and Pres. and Sis. Schmidt are amazing.  Both about 40 years old.  They have left their jobs, sold their home and really put everything aside to come and serve the Lord.  Amazing.

Next week we will be teaching several big Institute classes for the director because he will be out of town in meetings.  We are a little nervous about that.  He is teaching a series of lesson on patterns from the scriptures that help with solving problems.  Yup, how do you step in and teach one of those lessons?  No manual.  So we decided that we would go to his lesson this last Wednesday night and see how it goes.  There were over 30 wonderful, intelligent students - many who are in doctorate programs here at UCSD - and he gave a great lesson on Joseph Smith's prayer and vision and the challenges that came from that.  It wasn't the typical Joseph Smith story though because he talked about the problems he had individually and then how he was able to learn skills along the way to solve the problems that came along.  It was beautiful and scares us even more to try to teach that group.  The classes we have been teaching have been so laid back with 1-5 kids each time and we are able to relax and enjoy them.  This will be like real teaching!

Some of the tour guides at our meeting.

Along with all of the regular assignment we had a San Diego Professional Tour Guide meeting on one of the ships in the Maritime Museum at the harbor.  It was a great place to have a meeting. After, we were able to tour the other ships and submarine in the museum collection.  It was a beautiful night and so fun to be with our friends.  Actually it was only me that was there because we also had a meeting with the Ward Missionary council.  We had to divide and conquer.

Our dear Vera!  

I have to come and sit in the front and take notes of each meeting and then read my notes from the previous meeting at the first of each gathering.  I also keep the email lists up and send out emails when we have events and meetings.  I help put together a newsletter which goes on our website to keep everyone informed.  There are over 100 guides in the group and they are such an interesting group of people.  They sent us a gift card the other day for $50 to spend at some great restaurants in town.  I was amazed.  They keep being so impressed that we would just donate our time to help them and are so generous and grateful.  I told them that the blessings won't be there if I get gifts for serving but they just laughed!

This is Irina.  She is another guide who we
have grown to love and admire. She is from
Russia.

It is such a huge miracle that we were able to meet these people.  Vera got really sick after the 4th of July and called and asked us to pray for her.  She has shingles and was in lots of pain.  I told her about Priesthood blessings and how they work on faith and asked her if she would like one.  She was thrilled and we were able to go over and teach them about blessings and faith and then Roger and our high councilman gave her a beautiful blessing and blessed her that she would be healed.  The Spirit was so strong in their home!  What a sweet experience.  It is now 5 days later and she is feeling so much better already.  She has so much faith and trust in God and his ability to perform miracles.  She is amazing and it was a highlight of our mission so far.


 Our ward has a softball team and Roger has been able to play with them on it every now and then.  It is, of course, not "real" softball because it is slow pitch but he is enjoying playing with the other guys in the ward.  

He is getting the reputation of "the guy to beat" at the Institute Ping Pong table.  We stopped in to the Institute tonight to take a few things over to our new little home away from home and they were having a birthday party for one of the kids.  It turned in to a bit longer stay than we thought when the ping pong games started!  I think that we won all but one game tonight and that was a gift to the birthday boy!  He was also asked to give a blessing to a darling new convert from China.  She is going back to China in a month and trying to get geared up to be able to handle the challenges that are sure to face her there.  

I got called to go on splits with the sister missionaries in our stake.  They are in a trio and needed to get lots done.  But the day that we were supposed to go out, one of the sisters wasn't feeling well.  So I ended up going over to their apartment and babysitting her while the others went out visiting.  It was nice because I had a lesson in Relief Society on Baptism to prepare for and it gave me lots of time to put the finishing touches on it while she slept.  There was a baptism that night that she didn't feel she should go to either  so I brought her to our apartment and fixed some chicken fried stake and mashed potatoes with country gravy for us all.  It is always nice to have time to cool a real meal.  These sister missionaries are wonderful and it is always so enlightening for me to spend time with them and hear their hearts.  They all three came today and sang a song for my lesson, "If the Savior Stood Beside You".  Oh it was beautiful and Sister Thaler was feeing so much better.  She sang like an angel.  Must have been the chicken friend steak!  

It is very late - so off I go to bed to start a new wonderful week in the morning!

Moon over San Diego