October 26, 2014

Kinda reminds me of the sand castles 

that we make when the Grandkids come 

- sorta.

They are both made out of sand......  

Oh my, last week's blog was written late and so it seems way to early to be doing this again!  Time flies when you are having fun.

This week was one of lots of preparation for the week coming up.  This next week is transfer week.  It is when the Mission President and the Assistants make a huge mess of the mission and then we have to clean it up and reorganize the whole thing.  Not really, but that is what it feels like.

We are loosing 18 missionaries which always is sad and we are getting only 10 new ones so that makes a difference for Roger with all of his shuffling of missionaries apartments.  He is the one person in the office that gets to know who is transferring and to where so that he can make the appropriate changes in apartments.  The rest of us just prepare.  One of my jobs this last week was to organize the arrivals and departures, make sure we know which plane each group is coming on and going home on and make sure that we have people to pick them up and deliver them to where they need to go.  Most of them come in on Tuesday and are just placed with other elders and sisters until Wednesday.  They then go to the transfer meeting Wednesday morning and get matched up with their companions.  I also have to make sure money is on their support cards in the right amounts and that they have medical card.  This week was also the week that rent had to be put into the system.  It was a big deal last month but this month was quite slick.  I guess we learned something from all of our errors last time.

In the middle of all of this tedious work we get to have lots of wonderful moments with the missionaries.  Wednesday was one of the elder's birthday.  He and his companion brought over a lunch on Roger's birthday for the whole office staff so we returned the favor on his.  We thought that it would be just Elder Jennings and his companion but other missionaries showed up before taking off to do some service - lots of them! and the mission president's wife and her parents came buy just then too!  Talk about the loaves and the fishes!  We really did end up feeing them all and had a bit left over even......

We thought this table would fit us all - surprise, we fed 23
of us!  Thought there would be 9.  

Elder Felix and Jennings with us.  Roger
is loving being dressed for moving furniture.

Our lunch gang.  Happy Birthday Elder Jennings.  

Elder Jennings the
birthday boy!

Elder Jennings was really surprised and felt loved.  We asked him to give us great words of wisdom - thinking that he would have fun telling us a joke or two.  He surprised us with bearing his testimony of the atonement and how much it meant to him.  He told us how he has used the atonement in his life to change and become better.  He left us with such a sweet spirit of love and humility.  These missionaries constantly teach us.  How we love them and being with them!

We were able to spend some time one evening helping a sweet lady in our ward who is going through a divorce.  We went with several others to show our love and let her know that she isn't alone.  That she has a great support system.  It was a sweet evening with it ending with her receiving a blessing from her home teacher, our former bishop and Roger.  We are so blessed to have the gospel and the peace that it brings.

Not real sure how to explain this picture.  Elder Soffe is in charge of the cars in the mission.  What a job that is!  To be in charge of 250 young adults driving cars is a real trick.  He has a great sense of humor that always has you wondering if he is serious or joking.  Here he is carrying out the threat that he has put out to the missionaries many times.  This elder has had two small accidents in two weeks.  He is taping the elder's wrists to the file cabinets and then he says that he will take the elder's socks off and tickle him until he throws up.  He got the wrists taped and didn't quite carry out the tickle portion.  He used the moment to talk to the missionary and help him realize that he needs to be careful.  All in love and concern for their safety.

This is the office staff on Saturday!  We invited them to all go to the private beach in La Jolla but the key wasn't in the lock box where it was supposed to be so we had to go to La Jolla Shores beach.  It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed each other, some great treats and the beach of course.

Saturday night was the ward Halloween party.  It really was a great event.  This is the desert table! The lady in charge of decorations out did herself and we had lots of food, lots of people and lots of good Halloween fun.  All kinds of chili and cornbread, salads and great deserts.  They had a bunch of different activities for kids, a costume parade and trunk or treating.  The cultural hall was full and lots of kids.  It was almost like a Utah church activity.  We just had to have three wards together to get that many people.

Sister Thaler on the left leaves in a few days!
We will miss you!

Cute!

Trunk or Treat