News from CAM January 11, 2017
Dear Loved Ones All,
Well, I feel like I am in a “Fast Forward Time Warp.” One minute it is the beginning of the week and the next the week is half gone without having accomplished half of what I thought we should. I finally got around to permanently fixing our fitted sheet so that it FITS our bed along with repairing 3 or 4 pair of problem pants and a horrible zipper on a hoodie. Laundry is a snap when you do it every week when there are only 2 of you and your wardrobe is minimal. We went shopping for the usual groceries but this week the Bishop ask me to go to the church book store and get a new calendar to go in our ward bulletin board that had pictures more church related and not just scenery. Of course I got the new Del Parson calendar and it pleased the Bishop.
The Westergards invited us up for FHE. She made a potato soup which was delicious. I offered to bring something but she had it all planned out so there wasn’t anything we could bring unless it was some of the stockpile of candy that we have been given for Christmas. However, they are cutting back on sugar so we just took ourselves. It is really nice having another senior missionary couple upstairs to visit with once in a while.
Elder Macbeth is very faithful trying to keep Bishop scheduled for interviews, which happens every Tuesday when Bishop is in town as well as on Sundays. Unless I am prepping for my R.S. lesson I usually go to the Family History Library. This week Sister Carlsberg had me update some of my records. There are still some lines that have missing information but on others I am filling in the gaps on my records. It is nice that that can happen with the push of a button.
Of course we continue to send texts and make phone calls and attempt to visit the less active members, and sometimes we are successful and feel like flipping cartwheels and other times we are not. Obviously we don’t really do cartwheels because as some wise person noted, it is not the same as riding a bike…the skill is not automatic anymore. And Mary’s Kitchen always seem happy that we come there every week. Of course it is quite fun to serve lunch since most of the homeless are quite grateful.
I took the turkey breast out of the freezer to thaw (hooray, more room in the freezer) because we invited the young couple that loaned us the “Anaheim Christmas Tree” over for dinner on Wednesday evening. What a wonderful couple. They are both fairly new converts and after a period of inactivity have come back and he is now the Elder’s Quorum President. I did the full meal deal except for the pumpkin pie which I never do. (“Sister” Costco does my pumpkin pie.) I made molasses cookies instead because that is what I baked for the missionaries’ districts meeting the next day. They liked them as much as the missionaries do. So glad I have that recipe.
We continue to go help our Hungarian lady. She always needs Elder Macbeth to get her TV to the right channel. He also vacuums while I do the dishes. This time however, she had him check out why her dishwasher was not working right. So the dishes I started to wash were loaded in the dishwasher and sent through. It seems to work just fine, which thrilled Maria because she thinks I work “too hard washing her dishes.” If only everything in life was as easy…so I may be out of that job. Really she just wants me to sit and visit while the young elders do her yard and Elder Macbeth takes care of whatever she had gotten out of whack. J
Our investigator had a funeral in the family to attend so she postponed her next lesson. Of course we were disappointed but at some point we are going to have to give her to the missionaries in Brea since that is where she lives and is out of our area.
The most time consuming thing we did this week is help with a wedding. The groom is the son of an elderly sister in our ward and he is a member who never comes. The bride is a non-member. Both delightful people. She has been making things for her wedding for at least a couple of months: bejeweled cups with succulent plants as thank you gifts for the guest, jeweled dishes for many of the food items, decorations for the tables complete with jewels, individual jeweled containers to hold the birdseed for the guest to toss, etc. She made much of the food including her wedding cake. Friday we went over and helped with the initial setup. We did not stay to help with cutting up the fruit since she said she had friends and family come help with that. Saturday morning we went to finalize decorating, etc. Elder Macbeth spent a long time helping blow up balloons and attaching them to the centerpieces on the tables and to arrange chairs. In the meanwhile I was in the kitchen putting food on platters, putting birdseed into the little containers, arranging decorations and flowers, and helping put frosting on the cake. It was rather chaotic since the only one who knew the master plan was the bride and at one point she had to go get into her wedding gown and have her make-up done. When it was time for the wedding to start we were still finishing the cake and trying to heat up the Swedish meatballs that we discovered were still cold and waiting. Sadly some of the key people didn’t get to witness the actual marriage because they were still trying to finish what they were working on and nobody thought to give them a high sign that it is “now or never.” The rest of the affair was wonderful and everyone seemed to have and enjoyable time. After the guests departed we helped the groom and friends take things down while the bride finally got to eat a few bites of her wedding feast. There was a ton of food that had to be put into containers and dishes to be washed. The R.S. presidency was there helping with last minute preparations in the kitchen and cleanup afterwards. Considering they are not very young (but at least young in heart) they put in a full day. When the food and gifts were hauled out, the decorations were dismantled and boxed up, the table and chairs stored, the kitchen mopped, the rooms emptied and mostly restored to their original order, and all the people left, Elder Macbeth got out the vacuum to suck up the bird seed, and the big push broom to finish cleaning the floor in the cultural hall so that the building was ready for Sunday morning. It was almost 7:00 pm when we locked up the building. We stopped at the store on the way home because I promised the Bishop I would bring a tossed salad when we came to dinner the next day.
Sunday was our first day of having to get to the church for the pre-block meetings starting at 6:00 am. It was fast Sunday so we didn’t need to fit breakfast into the schedule. It was also my day to teach the R.S. lesson, so I tried to re-read the lesson out in the car. Of course at that time of morning the sun wasn’t up, and it was rather cold and rainy and even though I took my minki blanket thinking that if nothing else I could catch a few extra z’s, but I finally gave up and just went inside the building. My lesson went well, and even with staying afterwards while the Bishop did interviews we were home by 1:30. Seems like we had lots of time to take a walk and make a salad and just kind of relax before going to the Bishop’s for a pork roast dinner.
Upon returning home we Skyped with one of our daughters back home which is always a delight and commiserated about still waiting for our newest grandson to be born. I think we might even get out the Martinelli’s Sparkling Cider when that happens since we won’t be there in person. Anyway, we are still alive and striving to be good missionaries. Have an awesome week.
Love, Sister and Elder Macbeth Go! Fight!! WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! J
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