We Moved

We took Monday and Tuesday off to move.  It all went very smooth.  Especially with the help of 8 Elders to carry all the boxes and stuff down the stairs of our apartment complex and into the trailer.

Here are the pictures of our new home.

It is a Great Room configuration.

The kitchen.

Picture from the far corner looking back to the front door.

The backyard with my little BBQ grill.

Other than moving, the week went fine.  This coming Monday we will have the missionaries going home come to the office to get their bags weighed, their bikes mailed home, and get their travel papers.  The 6 week Transfer Cycle begins again as new incoming missionaries arrive on Tuesday.  This will be the biggest group we have processed thus far.  We will have 17 missionaries leaving and 17 coming in.  It does not always match up that way, and there are other things to take into consideration.

We have 2 Hmong Elders leaving, and 2 are coming in.  We have 0 Spanish Elders leaving, but 1 Spanish coming in.  We had an odd number in the mission, so they will be in balance again.  We have 0 Sisters leaving, but 3 Sisters coming in.  So one set will be assigned as a "Three-some".  Not ideal, but how else do you manage that.

Another variable are the vehicles.  We have some elders that can't be in a bike area for medical reasons.  None of the Foreign Missionaries can drive in our mission.  All the Sisters are in car areas, and for this coming transfer one of the Foreign Sisters will become a "Trainer".  New missionaries are not allowed to drive for the first 3 months.  I guess they will need to make an exception for the New Sister assigned to be trained by the Foreign Sister so they can use the car.

It will be exciting and busy and we will be fine.

Take care,
Love,
Dad

We will be moving this week.

Dear Family,

This past week I took a missionary to the airport.  He is one of our Hmong speaking Elders.  He is going home a week and a half earlier than the rest of his group that will leave on "Transfer Day", August 30th, so he can get into school on time.  He is one of our really great Elders.  In our mission we have 3 Hmong speaking Branches, and 6 Hmong speaking Elders.  Hmong is a very old language, that comes from an area in China that geographically was absorbed thousands of years ago.  During the Viet-Nam war, they helped the US, and so when the US pulled out, many Hmong people came over as political refugees.

This coming Wednesday, I have another Elder to take to the airport for the same reason.  Taking this missionary to the airport will be a little different.  His plane leaves at 6:30am!!!!  You start counting back time for travel and checking in baggage, etc., and I will have to leave the house to go pick him up, at 3:30am.  Good thing his apartment is in Rocklin, which is only a half hour away. (Of course it is a half hour in the opposite direction from the airport).  That early in the morning, I wonder if anyone will care if I wear my jammies to the airport, with my missionary badge of course.  

With each of the missionaries I have taken to the airport (not that many), I always park the car somewhere in the short term parking area, and I walk them in to the ticket counter to make sure their bags get checked in right and that they have their boarding pass.  I then walk them to the TSA area where I have to leave them.  This might only be the second time they have flown, and I worry as I see them look uncertain about what to do next as they see the other passengers take off their shoes and get their carry on x-rayed.  You really get attached to these guys, and you love them like your kids.

Elder and Sister Stephens, one of the Senior Couples, have completed their 18 months of service.  They are starting their drive home to Pocatello this afternoon, and we have had a couple of farewell parties for them yesterday.  We had a lunch with the Zone at 1:00pm, and then a dinner with the other couples and the mission president and his wife that evening.

Elder and Sister Stephens with Sister Polidario.

Gwynn, Finch, Morgan, Stephens, Johnson, Kolditz, Weston.

We wish the Stephens well as they leave the mission field, and we are very excited for them, . . . . . . . and for us.  We get to move into the house they have occupied.  The day has finally come.  We will be packing on Monday, and then we will have the whole Zone come over on Tuesday to move all our stuff to the new house.

This is what we will be leaving . . . . 

But, this is what we will be moving to . . . . 

To Martin and Karen who will think that we are soooo spoiled, I would respond "Yes, we are, and we love it!"

Guess that is all for now.

Love you all.

Mom and Dad

The Weeks just fly by.

Elder and Sister Finch arrived Tuesday evening from Orem.  They are a delightful couple.  I had given them instructions to get off I-80 at a certain mile post, and to then call me so we could make arrangements to go get them.

So while I am at Winco shopping for some last minute things, I get this call from Mom that the Finches are in town but are lost, and to give them a call.  I call them and ask where they are at, and, of course, they don't know.  I ask for the cross roads, but they are still driving, so the crossroads change, and Sister Finch can't always read the street sign in time because they are in traffic and feel they can't slow down.  In the mean time, I am heading over to the checkout stand to pay for my stuff.  As you may know, at Winco you also have to bag your own groceries.  All this time I am on the phone with them.  They finally say the name of a street I recognize because I have paid the rent on a missionary apartment on that street.  From that I realize they are still East of where they need to go, and I tell them turn around to get back to I-80 West, and take the next exit.  By now I have made it home and am off loading the groceries, still giving them directions to our apartment complex.  I met them at the gate, and they were sure happy to see me.

We have been here now 4 months, and I felt a little like the Elder in the movie, "The Best 2 Years of My Life".  The movie takes place in Holland, and this Elder, the main character, struggles with the Dutch language.  Anyway, the closing scene of the movie is at the train station where somebody asks him for directions, and he is able to spout off in fluent dutch the directions to this man, and is surprised when he realizes he just gave directions in Dutch.  I felt pretty good being able to give directions to the Finches that got them here to the apartment.  As they are taking "this leap of faith", leaving home, coming to a new area, being totally out of their comfort zone, I recognize how discouraging it can be to get lost in a strange area.  I am glad Heavenly Father allowed me to help them.


Another cool thing happened on Monday.  One of my tires on the Prius had a slow leak that I had been watching and refilling with air on Saturday and Sunday. So, Monday afternoon I took the car to Les Schwab to have the leak fixed.  I had bought the tires at the Les Schwab store in Longview WA, and they will fix your flats for free.  As I came back to the store to pick up the car, the counter man said that the tire could not be fixed because there was damage to the tire wall, but . . . . . . they had a free tire replacement program for tires affected by "road hazards".  And so, they replaced the tire, and rotated the tires all for free.  The way the counter guy and the manager at the desk were smiling at me , I can't help but think that my Missionary Badge had a lot to do with this "Free" tire.

I have decided that when I am home again that I will continue to wear my badge.


We love our missionaries.  They are the best, but sometimes we forget that they are only 19.   An accident report came in this week involving a mission car and a tree. The rules state that a companion assists behind the car in any backing up situation.  The following is an excerpt from that report.

"We were leaving a referral.  My companion was backing me up. My window was down and I couldn't see him because the sun was right on my mirror so I couldn't see on the driver side.  He didn't scream STOP or anything.  Just let me back right into the tree!  He panicked and didn't say a word.  It could have been avoided.  No one else was involved but us and the tree!  If I could have seen out the driver side mirror I would have been able to avoid the whole situation!"

You can be sure that we will have driver safety training at the next Zone Conference.


I have some pictures to share.  Jeni's girls made a necklace for mom and a tie tac for me.  They are pretty.

We also had collected some huge pine cones that would be great for a Christmas display.  I can't remember ever seeing them this large.  (That's Mom's hand).

We are grateful for our blessings to be able to serve here.  We love you and pray the Lord will watch over you.

Love,
Mom and Dad

I am back !

Dear Family,
We have had a couple of eventful weeks.

First there was a little fender bender I had with the Prius.  I "think" the other car changed into "my lane" just as I was entering "my lane" from the parking lot, and my left front bumper barely touched her car's right rear quarter panel, leaving a stripe on her car.  That was 2 Wednesdays ago.

It really looks worse than it was.

This picture makes it look not quite as bad.

There is a fellow who repairs all the mission cars who fixed it for us.  The only damage was to the bumper.  The car frame or the metal body work, or even the front headlamp was not effected.  We were lucky. He fixed it this past Tuesday, and the car looks as good as new again.

Then the Thursday after the accident, I had a "slight uncomfortableness" on my right side that by early afternoon we decided to have looked at.  After a blessing from Elder Morgan, assisted by one of the Assistants to the President, we were off to the Emergency Room for an evaluation.

Elder Morgan is the 83 year old General Surgeon we serve with in the office.

The hospital confirmed that I had a 3 mm kidney stone traveling from the kidney to the bladder and send me home with some pain medication, and instructions to lay low until it passed into my bladder.  I guess that is a larger place and I would instantly feel better.

I finally did feel better by that following Monday evening, and was my chipper self again on Tuesday.  (Sorry!  No photos of the kidney stone to insert here).

That same Tuesday morning Mom and I attended the funeral for the wife of one of my BYU friends who lives here in Folsom which is not too far from the mission office.  Ron Bair lived in the same apartment complex I lived in at BYU and we were in the same ward at school.  He is an excellent mechanic and he replaced the engine in the Corvair I drove while at school.  His wife, Mary, died of cancer, and they have 6 grown sons.  Ron has totally grey hair, and still needs to wear the very thick glasses he wore when I knew him at school.  As we can imagine, we all have aged over the past 40 years, but I needed to be reassured several times by Mom that I had not aged quite as far as my friend Ron has.

From all indications, they all have been faithful members, which was wonderful to see.  Some years back, Mom and I attended an Area Leadership Meeting where Elder Lee of the Seventy talked about the number of members the Lord could count on.  He started with the average number of a Ward - 500, and said average attendance is 50%, which left 250.  He then said with an average family size of 5, eliminating the children would leave 100.  He then said that out of the 100 adults, 35 are full tithe payers.  He then said that out of the 35, 10 will accept any calling the Lord will give them and will truly magnify that calling.  That is 2% of the membership!!!

Later that Tuesday evening, Ross and Dixie and the kids came by on their way back to Washington from Southern California.  It was wonderful to see them and to visit with the little guys.  They have grown some more.  Ross brought me a present to impress the Elders with.  It is a Radio Controlled Helicopter.  I will have to try it out in our building's cultural hall.  Our building is a Stake Center so there will be plenty of room.  Now "the Cool Couple" in the office will be even "cooler".  Unfortunately they still had to get some more miles done, and we said our "good bye's" after a couple hours of visiting.

The grandkids decided that their already very cool grandparents were even cooler when they discovered that grandma and grandpa had on their bed what every young grandchild wishes they had.

2 Pillow Pets

At one time we each needed an extra pillow, and these were soft and cuddly.

We have a new Senior Couple arriving from Utah tomorrow.  They have been assigned as "Member Support" Missionaries and will be assisting the Dry Creek Ward in our Stake here.  They are from Orem, and will be living in an apartment here in the same complex we live in.  We will do our part to make them feel welcome, and help ease their "jitters".  It is funny as we think of our own journey and how we have "matured" and are no longer the "greenies" but are the "veterans".

We love you, and can bear testimony that the Lord watches over us and comforts us in our time of need.  We are grateful for your prayers.

Love,

Mom and Dad