August 24, 2014

Roger enjoying talking to kids
out on our "veranda".

What a great, fun, busy week!  We had Cameron and Kami here with us for most of the week and took every advantage and minute we had that we weren't working and played with them.  Besides having Cameron win almost every game we played with them we had a great time!

Of course we took them to the Mormon Battalion and got the official photo taken there.  Cameron was able to be the star of the show and be the soldier!  We make everyone play that game when they come to the Battalion with us.  He was a good sport.

Soldier Cameron

We went to dinner several times, to the beach a bunch of times and played lots of games in the evenings.  We took them to the private access beach by the La Jolla Institute and it fast became our favorite place to hang out!  There are hardly any people there and the other beaches were wall to wall people, umbrellas and towels.  The water is so clear there and we had a great time.  I even got in the water a lot and played on the boogie boards with them and enjoyed it.

Kami and Cameron - volleyball!

Cam and Kami didn't get the benefit that Heather, Brett and Ryan's family did by being able to stay in our place without us.  We are now out of the kooshy Institute apartment and back in to our cosy little apartment. So they had to sleep on our futon.   We would wake up each morning and quietly try to get ready, eat breakfast and slip out to be to the office by 8:00 am.  Then we would see how things were going at the office and slip away if we were caught up on things.  The other couple that we are replacing isn't gone yet so we were able to get away several days early!  Yay!

They found a Tiki pole and of course, had
to get on top of it!  

Then of course, they had to jump
off of it!

We went to several yummy spots to eat and really enjoyed playing more than we have in awhile.  Roger especially like the fact that the beach was their favorite place to go!  That meant that he had to be a good host and take them there.   Thanks Cameron and Kami!  What a fun week!

We only have two days left with the Trotters and then we are on our own.  We really feel that it is time for them to let us see if we can do it by ourselves.  They are tired and have worked so hard at making the office run smoothly that they are more than excited to be back home living a more normal life.  But at the same time they are having a hard time turning things over and are sure we aren't trained well enough to do what they have been doing.  They are probably right but we won't know what we don't know until we take over.

Sunset!!!

We kept hearing about rent and what a big ordeal it is.  There were two days blocked out to be able to pay rent.  Roger has to put in all of the changes on apartments.  He keeps a list all month of new apartments to add, old apartments to not pay, changes in rent prices etc and then has to make sure they are all in the computer correctly.  With over 151 apartments that can be a bit tedious.  Roger is actually learning the computer - at least enough to get it to do what it needs to do.  I then pay all of those rents.  Mostly by clicking a check box and then clicking "pay".....  It took us about two to three hours to do it.  We are still trying to figure out what we missed!  Maybe we will find out and have big stories about how we messed everything up but it seemed really easy to spend $150,000!

We had a wonderful experience in the temple on Tuesday night!  Veronica, a lady that we have been helping and working with went to the temple for her temple endowment.  Cameron and Kami went with us and were asked to be the witness couple.  What a fun experience it was for me to be there as Veronica's escort and to have Cameron and Kami there as witnesses.  There were many people from our ward there to support Veronica too.  I had some sweet feelings as I sat there with all of those people that I love.  It goes down as one of those miracles of missionary work!

We were able to teach our last two Institute classes Tuesday and Thursday mornings and are going to miss doing that.  We are tired though and really couldn't keep them up with all that we have going on now so we are excited not to have to plan so much.  We had our Scripture class for our ward on Wednesday night and that will keep going.  But one class is easy compared to 6 each week!

We said good bye to Cameron and Kami Friday night.  They left early Saturday morning - 5:30 am! So we hugged them that night and I sat in bed and missed them before they had actually gone home.  What a great time we had!

Lindy, Nate and their darling little girls -
Hannah and Ludy

We woke up Saturday and went to clean the church with the ward.  After we had an appointment to help the Relief Society President in our ward move some furniture around her house with the elders.  Lindy had called earlier that day and said they were in town and would like to meet up with us.  Roger got caught helping an Institute student and so I went by myself to go through a tour with them and then out to lunch!  Oh it was fun to see them!

Soldier Hannah

For those who don't know Lindy, she is my step-sister - Grandma Judy's youngest daughter.  It was fun to catch up and get to know the girls a bit.  They are adorable!















Roger and I got home in the afternoon and sat down for a few minutes and both of us fell asleep!  We didn't realize how tired we both were.  We woke up in enough time to get ready to take our friends Vera and Charles to dinner.  It was Vera's birthday this last week and this was the first time we could find to get together.  We went to a wonderful little fish place on the harbor and had a great time.  Charles asked us about Family History and wants to know if we can help him find out about his grandfather .  That will be fun.  I might need your help Judy.  What do you know about Swiss research?

Well on to church and starting a new week.  We are excited to try this office stuff by ourselves and see if we really know what we have been taught.  Besides work each day we have ushering on Tuesday, a tour guide meeting and scripture class on Wednesday and our last meeting with our MLS group of missionaries on Friday.  Three of them are going home this next month.  We have enjoyed our little group and will miss them!

August 14, 2014

Elder Wendell - he served with us in
our ward for almost 8 months.
 He was transferred this week.
We will miss him!

Sister Palmer served in the YSA ward
that we helped out with this summer.
She went home to Farmington.
I am so glad she lives close enough
to see her after our mission.  

I want to be like Nephi!  Our Senior
Couple FHE

Well it was a wonderfully busy week this last week and this week has been even busier - hence the late post - sorry.  This will have to be short because I don't have a lot of time now.  Last week started with our Senior Couple Family Home Evening.  One of the Senior Sisters has written some wonderful poems and songs and she
entertained us all and even got us all participating with balloons made into swords and the sword of Nephi.

Tuesday was full of saying goodbye to many of our dear missionaries.  It was transfer week so the older missionaries went home, we got new ones, our ward elder got transferred out etc.  Changes, changes, changes.  Wow It is hard to get used to it.  All of those changes have to be planned meticulously by the Assistants to the President and the Mission President.  This was our new President's first transfer and he worked extra hard to make sure it was right.  I have been amazed as different things have come out that makes us know that the Lord is in the details of the mission.  One missionary has been waiting for a visa for over 6 months.  He is going to Brazil.  His visa finally came through and he will be leaving in 4 weeks.  Unknown to us, his new companion happens to have been raised in a home where they spoke Portuguese.  He will be able to study his language and brush up on it while waiting the last bit of his time here.

Good bye to Elder Cena

We have been madly changing all of our lists so that the mail will go to the right zone instead of the previous zone, so we know what phone number to call to get in touch with each missionary, what car they are driving etc.  We have said goodbye to many of our "favorites".

Transfer meeting - all of the missionaries who are
getting new companions or changing areas
come to the meeting packed and ready to
drive off to where ever the Lord calls them!

During all of these changes and long hours at the office, at transfer meetings etc. we have had six lessons to teach this week again.  The director of the Institute was gone again this week so we had all of his classes to teach plus ours.  We actually love teaching but it is so hard to find time to give to prepare.

Roger and Ron enjoying a good laugh!  Something
about snorkels......?

Sunset over La Jolla shores just a short walk from
our temporary abode.

We had Ron and Linda Snowden come to visit us this week too!  How good it was to see them and hug them!  It made us feel so good to know that we aren't totally forgotten.  Linda brought me some fun new clothes to wear!  What a fun treat that was.  We weren't able to take them everywhere we would have liked to because we had to play missionaries during the day but they let us play with them in the evenings and even came to church with us.

One of the new Senior Couples who will be coming to work in the office in a month, came out to train for a week with the couple that is leaving next week.  So we were able to have Elder Knorr come hang out with us too.  It is fun to note that Elder Knorr's wife is really good friends with my cousin Jane!  Small world.  We are looking forward to getting to know them better and serve with them in the office.

Beaching it with Ron and Linda!

So we are already into Thursday of this week.  We have been busy catching up at the office and in the ward, moving out of our wonderful fairy tale apartment in La Jolla and back into our little home back in reality, learning more, serving more, teaching classes, preparing one of the ladies I have been working with to go to the temple next week, helping with a lady who I love greatly who suffers with depression, ushering at the Old Globe theatre etc.  Not much time until tonight to sit and type.

Things should be slowing down a bit this week.  Cameron and Kami come next week!  Can't wait to see them.

The three Stooges!  Elder Trotter on the left giving the
instruction and Roger and Elder Knorr listening
intently.

Ron and Linda Snowden came to visit!  We invited Elder
Knorr to have Roger's famous crepes with us at
the La Jolla apartment.

Roger's new home away from home.

Homemade bread is a must for class!

Some of our Institute class

"Into the Woods" at the Old Globe
theatre.  Great play! 

August 3, 2014

Oh my!  It has been two days less than one full year that we left on our mission!  Wow!  It seems like it has been forever since we have been home and it hardly seems any time at all that we have been here.  Strange.  We have totally loved our mission and are looking forward to our new adventure in the office.  Really I am a bit scared about the office thing but am going to have a good attitude and all of you are going to pray for me that I will be able to have the brain power to do it all and I will be fine!  I really believe that the Lord knows who he has called to do this work and knows that He will have to help me so that I can do it.  It isn't my strength.  I am good with talking to and loving people.  I can do that easily because I really do love people.  But finances for a huge organization!  Oh my!

P-day needs

We started out the week with our first FULL day at the office.  We got there at 8:00 am and had a devotional with the other office couples.  They I started on packaging the "needs" for the missionaries.  This is what a part of it looks like after we are done.  All of their mail for the week and any of the things that they called in to order is placed on these shelves and each zone takes their stuff and delivers it to the missionaries in their zone.  It took me most of the day to get everything packaged and organized.  I will get faster when I know better where things are stored.  We were pooped when we got home 9 hours later and got a phone call from one of the ladies in our ward and she needed a ride to urgent care so I took her.  We fell into bed tired that night.

Kilee wasn't really great at pool but she had
tons of fun and had us all laughing!

Tuesday and Thursday we had Institute classes and office.  Ryan, Tenille and family showed up Tuesday night!  It was soooo good to see them and hug them.  We were able to spend some time during a couple of days with them at the beach and they came over one morning for Grandpa's crepes.  We also played games several nights and spend Saturday afternoon with them taking advantage of all of the fun things at the Institute.  We were able to see a DVD of their dance performance on the big screen there too.  We just couldn't figure out how to make the sound work..... Oh well.  They were able to stay in our apartment too and have some free rent.

Emmie and Seth enjoying the Institute games

Too bad we can't keep up this arrangement much longer!  It has been great to have a place for family to stay and a great place to play too!  We were able to take them down to the same private access beach so that we were there without all of the crowds.  We hear that the other beaches are just wall to wall people so we are thrilled we can be spoiled this way.

This week was full of time at the office trying to get up to speed there and time with Ryan and family.  Wednesday night Bible study class went really well.  Every one, including us, are really enjoying studying the Pearl of Great Price.

Seth

We had an assignment on Saturday at the Clairemont Family Day Celebration.  Clairemont is the area of San Diego where our ward is and they had a fun event that day.  The Mormon Battalion had a booth at the event and we went dressed in our Pioneer Clothing from the Battalion and were able to give information to the people at the celebration.

It is usually a well attended event but Saturday was a very unusual day in San Diego - it rained!  So it really wasn't that busy.  We still got to talk to many people and share the Mormon Battalion story and encourage them to go there with their family.  Ryan and family came by and were able to win some half off coupons for a nearby subway sandwich place where we all ate lunch at that afternoon!

It was hard to say goodbye to Ryan and family.  We love having them here and being able to be with them a bit.

We aren't sure how our new assignment will pan out.  How busy we will be there and how much extra time we will have to put into our wards.  We are hoping that we will be able to do a little of both.

This next week will be really busy!  Again we have to teach the 6 Institute classes and work full time at the office along with doing things with and for our 2 wards.  After this week the Institute classes will be over and that will be good and bad.  We have absolutely loved the association with the kids there!  They are intimidating with their knowledge and faith.  We have grown to love so many of them.  But we really can't keep up all of this and stay sane.  We are pooped and feel a bit overwhelmed right now.

Kilee, Emmie and Seth waiting for the sunset!

Clairemont Family Day

LaJolla sunset!

This is a 35 million dollar hoe right down the street
from where we are staying!  It used to be Michael
Jackson home.