News from CAM                                                                                             January 23, 2017

Dear Loved Ones All,

In case you didn’t read last week’s letter, we got our long awaited BMW!  He arrived by C-section on 1-17-2017.  His parents, Jayann and Paul Wright couldn’t be happier and by everyone’s report, he is perfect.   J  Oh, and his name is Bridger Michael Wright.  We are ecstatic to say the least.  We also got to talk by phone with several of our kids this week.  Our daughter Mindy always has such a gift of gab and can tell it like it is while being totally entertaining.  The rest all have kids that delight our hearts as they get to say hi to grandma and grandpa.  That is fun, but even more fun is to see all the pictures that were forth coming from family.  Did I mention that senior missionaries have special privileges not available to the young missionaries.

The rest of my e-mail is basically same as usual.  However, I got to repair a severed skirt in addition to problem pants this last week.  We have spent much of our time going back and forth to various hospitals to visit some of our more health fragile members.  We continue to text, phone, and visit less active members with less than stellar results.  That part isn’t as fun, but it seems like we want to bring out the fireworks when we do make contact.  It is even more exciting when some of them actually commit to come to church and then show up. 

Last week in Ward Council the Ward Mission Leader was given the assignment to come up with a mission plan to be handed out in Ward council this Sunday.  We spent a good portion of time going over his outline at our WMCM (Ward Missionary Coordination Meeting.)  He had several pages of ideas and Elder Macbeth was asked to put it into a useable format.  Even though Bishop, his wife, and his youngest son were in Washington D.C. all week so they could attend the Inauguration we still went to the church so Elder Macbeth could work on Executive Secretary responsibilities and I got to go spend some time in the Family History Library.  So far all I have been doing is updating my records.  At some point I will have to learn how to research to fill in some of the gaps. 

It is still a delight to serve at Mary’s Kitchen.  Although this week we had to hustle off to the dentist to find out what was the matter with my jaw.  TMJ.  Bummer.  Chew on the side that hurts, take some Advil to control pain and reduce swelling, eat soft foods, and quit stressing.  Actually it is starting to feel much better and I only get reminded that it is not all better when I chomp down on something.  Hence I am getting really adapt with my knife. 

We have been experiencing enough rain as to be considered a deluge.  We decided to check the dry riverbed, or at least it has been dry ever since we got here.  Well, there was a raging river in it while it was raining.  We thought about taking a picture but there wasn’t a good stopping place so we decided to come back the next day.  Unfortunately the rain stopped that night and the river had only a few large puddles left.  A few days later we got another downpour and this time we captured the RIVER on our phones.  Needless to say, there is quite a lot of water in the streets and gutters and the river while it is raining and as soon as it stops, it all goes away in a fairly short time.    Another phenomenon is that the people go into hiding when it rains.  There weren’t very many people at the Book of Mormon class on Thursday.  Stranger than that, we went to get gas at Costco and instead of every line having 8 or more people in it we drove right up to a pump and gassed up.  Weirdly wonderful.  J

Friday we were signed up to help clean the temple with our ward, so we went early enough to be able to do a session.  Kinda like “date night.”  We finished early enough that we had a leisurely wait before time to start cleaning.  We cleaned the front part of the temple and then as the last session finished we could do the main locker rooms and the ordinance rooms.  Bishop told us that when he cleaned the temple there was no dust or dirt anywhere, but he must not have cleaned the kitchen or the front locker rooms.  We didn’t get home until rather late and we ate after we got home.  That meant we slept in a little longer on Saturday.  We could hear the rain coming down in torrents.  Later in the day we also got to take some young investigators to a baptism for some Elders in a different district.  That was a lot more fun than just taking ourselves.  As a matter-of-fact I can see why having your investigators at a baptism is an uplifting experience for them.  If they are worried about being immersed it waylays their fears, and the spirit is always felt.  To finish off the day the Westergards invited us over for a Spaghetti supper.  Nice not to have to decide what to fix for dinner, nor to have to prepare it either.  

Sunday morning 5:00 am wake-up doesn’t leave you any time to dilly dally.  If you haven’t decided what to wear the night before you are on a dead run until you pull into the parking lot at the church.  The rain was still coming down in buckets.  It is such a blessing to have nice church buildings to meet in.  After church I fixed a ham steak I had been saving for a rainy day.  LOL.  It was quick and delicious. All I had to do was reheat some buttered potatoes and make a salad and we had a great feast.  Afterwards we worked on catching up reports, journals, etc.  It was after dark when we got a call from an elderly widow in our ward that was worried that the pump that her neighbor (who was sick) came over and put into her pool had pumped out enough of the rain water, but she couldn’t turn it off.  So we drove over in the pouring rain.  She had a rain suit that she got out for Elder Macbeth to put on, and by the time he was ready and instructed on what she wanted him to do, the rain had stopped.  By the time we got home it was 8:30 pm our time and we hadn’t called to wish our granddaughter a happy birthday.  She just turned two but she is a little talker and so adorable.  We were glad she was still up.  After we hung up we got a text from the new parents wanting to know if we had time to Skype.  So we got to end the day seeing our newest grandchild live in real time.  Technology is such a marvelous thing.  Well, enough news from CAM.  Hope you are all loving life and living it to its fullest.  Until next week…

Love, Sister and Elder Macbeth         Go!        Fight!!        WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  J