News from CAM                                                                                                         July 10, 2017

Dear Loved Ones All,

Another week gone already.  On Monday, our P-day, we did the normal laundry, cleaning, reports, etc.  I had some lovely strawberries and huge green grapes so I dipped them in chocolate and since I love nuts with all my chocolates I rolled some of the dipped strawberries in finely chopped nuts.  Yum.  The Bishop asked Elder Macbeth to prepare a letter for him to take around to members who seldom, if ever, come to church to especially invite them to attend a special Sacrament Meeting on July 16^th.  So he wrote and addressed the letters and we took them to the Bishop for his signature.  He requested a few more.  On the way home we stopped to make a few visits with varying success.

We had a meeting scheduled with President and Sister Golden at 3:00 pm so I plated up some of the dipped strawberries and grapes.  When I handed the plate to Sister Golden she saw the grapes and said she didn’t know you could dip grapes.  She popped one into her mouth, then a, “Ymmm”, and said, ,”I’ll just take these into the kitchen.”  With a look of surprise on his face President objected, and wanted to try one also.  I think they enjoyed them all later.  We also gave them Del’s print of Christ stepping out of the Tomb.  They were delighted.  I think we have gotten a good start with our new President and wife.  We had already left when we got a text from the Westergards asking if we could bring his suit coat with us when we were done, so we turned around and retrieved it. 

We got a couple of phone calls requesting for blessings which took us to the Lampson Building for one and to a single sister’s apartment for the other.  Originally the sister tried to locate the young elders but sometimes on P-Day they are had to locate so Elder Macbeth called the 2^nd Counselor in the Bishopric and he came to assist.  They had just finished giving the blessing when the young elders came rushing in.  It would have been nice if they had let us know they were able to come.  Oh well, she got a bonus with two sets of visitors.

On Tuesday Elder Macbeth was finishing the rest of the letters requested by the Bishop when the Zone Leaders called to ask us if we could do Mary’s Kitchen for a different zone who was marching in the parade, and if we could pick up the bike elders also.  Since we hadn’t really formed any plans that was a nice way to spend part of the 4^th of July.  Afterwards we took the long way back so we could stop at Joe’s Italian Ice.  I am a real fan of that place.  Then we took more letters to the Bishop to be signed.  He invited us to stay for turkey, veggie, or bean burgers.  We thanked him for his offer but said we had some other errands to run.  Besides we had real hamburger back at our apartment. On the way home I convinced Elder Macbeth that we needed to take advantage of JoAnn’s 60 % off sale to replace one of my punches that is no longer working properly.  We also stopped at Sprouts to pick up cherries for $1.49 lb. and some ears of corn 6 for $1.00.  Score.  Those made quite a tasty treat to have with our hamburgers.  As soon as it was dark it sounded like a war zone outside, but since we have so many tall buildings around us even when we went outside to the sidewalk we couldn’t see much.  I guess we should have gone up onto the roof.  The Westergards told us later that you could see lots of fireworks but they were all far away and there was a lot of people on the roof, some of them that had been celebrating for some time.

Wednesday is our normal day to serve at Mary’s Kitchen so Elder Macbeth did a report and printed more letters, and we also delivered some of the signed ones to the young elders to help deliver before

going there.  It turns out that we were the only missionaries that showed up…a serious miscommunication somewhere because there are usually at least 4 other sets of missionaries there to help serve and wash pots and pans.  That meant that some of the volunteers that had helped fix the food stayed to help us serve the food.  Then when we were finished with that we went into the kitchen to wash and dry the empty pots and pans.  Thank goodness I had already figured out the best system for that chore.  If you scrape and rinse them well before giving them to the person with the soapy water to finish it goes two or three times as fast.  Z came into the kitchen and saw that we were the only two in there so I turned over the rinse job to her and I started drying.   With the tree of us we were finished within the hour so we were out of there by 2:30 pm.  Z says she has been teaching everyone to do the dishes the “Sister Macbeth” way which means that nobody is there 3 hours later still doing dishes.  The only downside of the day was that Elder Macbeth got so wet from the sprayer while rinsing off the huge pans that it soaked through his apron, through his tie, and the color of his tie transferred to his white shirt.  Tie trauma.  With a lot of elbow grease I was able to rescue the shirt. 

For the rest of the day we delivered letters after we got gas and a few groceries at Costco.  Oh, and of course I had cookies to make for Thursday.   I made Eve’s recipe in the Macbeth Family Cookbook for chocolate chip cookies.  Her note at the bottom of the recipe says, “It makes a lot.”  Well, I made 99 cookies.  I could have made more except one of the pans had extra-large scoops of cookie dough.

Thursday was district meeting.  Our District Leader focused on the importance of church attendance.  The biggest challenge we have is rides.  So few can provide that service that it is a near impossible feat.  Don’t know what the answer is. 

Tried to make more visits.  We took some Vicks to Maria in the care center.  She was sound asleep so we didn’t wake her.  We were told in no uncertain terms later that it didn’t matter when we came, we were to wake her up.  The lady in the bed next to her agreed that that was “very important!”  We then went to the Mission Office so Elder Macbeth could go with Elder Westergard and the other Elders in the Office to get some new cars.  That took a couple of hours because they have to fill out paperwork and inspect the cars, but mostly because of the time of day..RUSH HOUR!  That evening, since they are not supposed to give rides, the Elders asked up to pick up one of their investigators and bring him to Book of Mormon Class.  We had 3 investigators in attendance and a good number of members in addition to the missionaries.  Bishop requested that I bring my chocolate torte to WMCM on Friday to have after we ate his spaghetti, so I made the crust when we got home before scriptures and prayers.  In the morning I finished the next two layers.  We took the Samoan Sisters their cookies because we had a few things to do before we needed to go back to the Mission Office so Elder Macbeth could pick up more new cars

I needed another carton of cool whip to finish the torte so we stopped on our way home. We had appointments to deliver letters, one before WMCM and one after which made the schedule a little tight.  Bishop’s spaghetti was delicious even if it had a little kick to it but we didn’t have time to eat desert before we had to leave.  But at least we were able to visit our people.

Saturday I prepared my R.S. lesson, but we spent most of the day helping with a funeral. However, that is a story for another time since I am out of space and time.  The most delightful thing we did that day was visit with Jayann, Tall Paul, and Bridger on the phone.  They were on their way home from a family reunion.

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