Dear Loved Ones All,
On P-Day after doing laundry and cleaning, we decided to go to the Richard Nixon Birth site and Presidential Library. By the time we got there they were only open for 2 more hours but we decided to go in anyway. It was very interesting to see history we remember in our youth there on display. The original home is there on the property where he was born and much of what is in there is original. A few items are things from the time period, but most of it belonged to him and his family when they lived there. It was amazing all the good things he accomplished during his political career. It is so sad that what he is mostly remembered for is Watergate. FYI 2 hours is not long enough to see all that is there.
We have had some success with our phone calls, texts, and visits this past week even though we discovered a couple of members have moved and disappeared into the abyss. That doesn’t seem too difficult if you don’t want to be found. One of our successes this week is Julio A. He moved here from Guatemala with his mother and sister as a teenager just as he was preparing to go on a mission. His mother died suddenly and he quit going to church. His sister is the RM that we spoke with last month who has returned to activity. Thus he has decided that it is time that he needs to fill that void in his life too. One of the major problems with our inactives in this area is Disney. So many of them work for Disney and do not get Sundays off. I do not know the answer but hopefully if he is sincere the Lord will help him work it out.
We went to do our usual Wednesday serving at Mary’s Kitchen we discovered that they had been shut down from preparing food because some mice were found in the building. So they had hauled out everything that wasn’t nailed down, threw away the food they had prepared plus anything that was opened, eradicated the mice mess, hopefully permanently repaired the place where the mice gained entrance, and were painting the interior. The young missionaries were there in P-day clothes to help haul everything back inside. We hadn’t received the memo and were still in Sunday clothes (our normal what we wear) and I wasn’t sure if I was up to such activity so we left to take our Hungarian lady shopping a little earlier that we had scheduled. She treated us with dinner afterwards. I made cake mix cookies as soon as we got home for Zone Training the next day. I used Duncan Heinz devil’s food cake mix and it was really dark chocolate. I gave Elder Macbeth one and he wasn’t impressed. He thought it had a bitter after taste or something. I tasted one and didn’t think it was that bad, but I dusted them with powdered sugar. Two cake mixes make about 5 ½ dozen cookies. The next day I let each missionary take 3 cookies and they loved them. I guess the Lord improved them during the night. Anyway I ended up with only 5 cookies left.
The R.S. presidency asked me attend their planning meeting to work on trying to get some routes that a sister missionary could partner with a member who could use a little training on doing visiting teaching. The idea was to split up the missionaries to go with 2 sisters each who had 3 sisters each that were to be taught. After 5 of us struggled over trying to make it work for more than two hours we decided that either the timing was not right or the Lord didn’t think it was a good idea. Basically our wards are in a holding pattern because the stake is eliminating one ward and realigning the ward boundaries, and that is supposed to happen in March. By then one of our Sister Missionaries is being transferred back into the Samoan zone. Point being that there isn’t time to really get it all in place and functioning.
We continue with the Book of Mormon class and the numbers continue to fluctuate. It is really awesome to see the growth of the newly baptized and those who are ESL members. Of course the long time members are a great help when we discuss the various events and issues which we read about.
Seems like we have been regular visitors in about 3 different hospitals as some of our health fragile members are admitted for their ailments. Usually the young missionaries can’t go to most of the hospitals because they are out of their assigned boundaries. As senior missionaries we have much more flexibility, especially with Elder Macbeth being the executive secretary to the Bishop. He gets asked to do some of that as an extended member of the bishopric.
Friday night after a day of visits, both attempted and real, we went to the Westergards for pizza. Then we worked on trying to select some of the thousands of pictures and recordings of the 50th with the goal that eventually people can access them electronically or they can be made into an actual book. We worked for a couple of hours before we came back to our apartment. Elder Macbeth continues to edit the material. Part of it needs to go in the history for the mission and of course many of the missionaries that were serving here at the time will want to have access to the celebration itself since they were participants.
We got a couple more tender mercies this past week. We got to phone or Skype with some of our children which is always fun. Little kids have such delightful voices and antics which I’m sure grandparents always appreciate. We got to meet up with Brad and Becky and kids because they came up to take some friends from Kennewick who were here going to Disneyland to the airport. We all met at Mimi’s Cafe for breakfast. Grandkids are so entertaining. To top it off, we are getting another grandchild in August. What great blessings we are getting. On that happy note we hope you have a fantastic week.
Love, Sister and Elder Macbeth Go! Fight!! WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! J
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