I last posted on December 23 - feels like forever ago!! So much has happened!!
On December 24, we had a Christmas Eve dinner here at the Institute for the missionaries and any investigators or members that needed a place to come. It was fun - several people dropped in, ate, and left for other things. We played Church Christmas videos and music. We had a great spirit and enjoy the people so much!
Just of few of the dinner attendees!
After we got home, Christmas Eve was quiet for us. We opened our new Christmas jammies, and watched Christmas Eve on Sesame Street on You Tube (family tradition!) The next morning, we were up early so that we could be at the Military Base (the Marine Bootcamp) for an 8:00 am program that the missionaries presented. That afternoon, we went to a Christmas Day dinner at Bishop Goff's house (they had several ward members over.) Very different, but very rewarding Christmas experience.
Christmas jammies!
Christmas Program
The next day, Saturday, Dec. 26, Ananth was baptized. He and his sister prepared a true India feast for us afterwards. As usual, the baptism was a wonderful experience, with a great outpouring of the Spirit. Ananth's sister is not a member, but supports him fully. (It may just be a matter of time for her - we hope!)
Elder and Sister McGuire, Siya, and Ananth
The next week we set aside to do some cleaning up at the Institute. On Monday we cleaned the storeroom, We continued to work that week on reorganizing and cleaning up shelves, etc. in the rooms and offices. We're trying to do a little purging and redecorating.
It wasn't all work that week though - we took time to visit the San Diego Zoo Lights, the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, and the San Diego Temple Lights. We had no classes scheduled, a lot of the YSA had gone home for Christmas, so it was very quiet at the Institute.
Elder McGuire on the tram at the San Diego Zoo Lights
San Diego Temple Lights
On the safari tram at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park
One thing that's interesting about the temple lights - they are put up entirely by the YSA Wards in the San Diego Area. It's one of only 12 temples that have a temple light display. So, our 2 YSA Wards spent a few Saturday mornings putting up and taking down lights. It was gorgeous!
Now the fun begins - our quiet, peaceful time came to a halt! El Nino hit! I have never seen rain quite like what hit us. It came down in buckets, flooding streets, drenching parking lots, etc. We drove through water on the streets that was up to the bottom of our car, running like a river. When it first hit, we were driving one of our ward members to the Bishop's Storehouse to fill a food order. By the time we got him back to his place, the missionaries helped us carry in his groceries, and they were drenched almost immediately! Suits and shoes were soaked. We offered to dry clean the missionary's suits for them - it was a small price to pay for their help!
Elder McGuire, Elder Kunz, and Elder McCloy
The missionaries are always helping us. The next day, they came over to the Institute, and for service hours they cleaned the kitchen for us. I don't know how many years it had been since the top of the cupboards and refrigerator had been cleaned!!
Hard working missionaries!
That week, we also had our monthly Senior Missionary FHE, a wedding reception for two of our YSA's, haircuts, etc. By Thursday, we were finally starting to see some sun break through. One thing San Diego has is beautiful sunsets!
San Diego Sunset
We had a fun experience on Friday, Jan. 8. Our Institute Director was out of town, so we went to the new student orientation on campus (SDSU) and represented our Institute at the Religious Council's booth. Four other religious organizations have representation on campus, and we spent time getting to know their ministers/leaders. I was very glad we were there and able to make that connection.
On Monday, Jan. 11, we flew out at 6:30 am to Utah. Kristina had the opportunity in October to adopt a baby that was due on Jan. 12. He's a little boy whose parents are from the Marshall Islands (although they live in Arkansas now.). He's a cousin to the two little kids that Jordan and Kallie Hunger adopted. So she flew to Arkansas, and we flew in to tend her children for a week. The baby was born on Monday, Jan. 11, and is absolutely beautiful! He's a little miracle for us all, one of the "tender mercies" of our missionary service! Kristina will be bringing him home on Jan. 22, after the court hearing. Arkansas does not have a waiting period, so the temple sealing is scheduled for Jan. 30.
Henry Owen Swenson!! Grandchild # 17
We did not tell any of the other grandchildren we were flying into Utah. So, when we picked up Kristina's car at the airport, we drove to the kids school and surprised them. Then went to McDonald's to eat. I've almost forgotten how crazy it can be to have a zillion grandchildren all talking and running around at once!
A few of the grandchildren at McDonald's
A few more
We headed to Mapleton that afternoon to take over tending Kristina's kids for the week. Tuesday was Emma's birthday (it was also Kenslee's birthday), so I took her shopping, made a special birthday dinner that she invited friends to, and let them watch a video together. We continued to help at Kris's house, trying to help her catch up on laundry, getting kids where they needed to go, etc. On Thursday, after school, we loaded up the kids and headed back to our place in Kaysville (they didn't have school on Friday). We stayed at our house until Saturday night, then drove the kids back to Mapleton so they could attend to their church duties. All 3 of them had to see the Bishop and the Stake President to get temple recommends to attend the sealing next week. Sunday night, Natalie came and picked us up to take us back to Kaysville. Nate's parents were coming that night to stay, and his brother and wife were coming over to stay until they got there.
So, Monday, I planned too much to do (as usual). We (Julianne, Natalie, and I) planned to make crockpot freezer meals that day. We bit off a little too much - only got 30 of our planned 50 made. Our flight back to San Diego was at 9:50 that night, so we arrived back at our place pretty late.
So yesterday, we came into the Institute to see if we could catch up on things a bit. Plus, we are flying home again on Jan. 27-Feb. 7 for Julianne's baby's birth, Jacee's baby's birth, and Kristina's baby's temple sealing and blessing. I keep telling my husband "happy is the man that hath his quiver full" (Psalms 127:3-5)!
We missed our missionary work here. There were baptisms, stake conference that one of our YSA's spoke at, etc. Today we attended a Worldwide Missionary Broadcast for the morning. Classes start next week and we are teaching every day, plus a Tuesday evening class. We are doing the luncheon for the Seminary Training on Saturday (90 people), the Linger Longer on Sunday, plus planning 2 Forum meals that we can prep and have ready to serve while we're gone.
Fortunately, one of the other Senior Missionaries will teach our classes for us while we're gone. He's a former Seminary Teacher and loves to teach!
We are so blessed! The blessings that have come to our family while we are on our mission are incredible. And we are having experiences that we will never forget. We love the Savior and want to teach/preach about him all of the time. As it says on our plaque at the church, "And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins. (2 Nephi 25:26)
Well here it is a new year and still almost a month since I last wrote. For anyone who knows me this isn't a surprise. Writing in journals/blogs or whatever has always been on the end of a long list of things to do. It shouldn't be so hard, but that is the nature of my mind, a mind that forgets things easily anyway.
We had a great Christmas here in San Diego. We had dinner at the Institute with several missionaries and YSAs. It was fun to be with them and enjoy the spirit of the season with them. We got up early the next morning (didn't even check what Santa had brought!) and headed to the Mormon Battalion where we met other missionaries who were going to the Marine base to perform for the recruits. It was a wonderful thing to spend that morning enjoying the music of Christmas with the troops. Following the performance it was interesting to see several of the young men being given blessings by the brethren who served there. It's not easy being a marine, and Christmas I'm sure made it even more difficult for them. We then went home and opened our few presents. In some ways it was nice not to have a ton of gifts to open. Our minds and hearts were more focused on the Savior and it was just nice. After calling the kids to see what everyone got for Christmas and chatting with them we went over to Bishop Goff's house and had a nice dinner with his family, a few YSAs and Elders McCloy and Kunz. A fitting end to a wonderful mission Christmas. I know that we missed the fun of the whole family being together, but there is something to be said to enjoy a mission Christmas.
The next day was spent with Ananth, a Indian covert who was baptized that day. We had him over earlier with the missionaries and had heard his conversion story. He had been looking for a church to go to since coming to the US and met some missionaries. He decided to listen and learned that it was true. He told us he had come to the US because his brother-in-law had threatened to kill him to allow his sister to inherit the estate from his father. And we think we have problems! Following the baptism they always give the new member an opportunity to bear their testimony and it is always a sweet experience. So it was with Ananth as he bore testimony of the truthfulness of the things he had been taught. Simple, loving testimonies are wonderful to hear. He and his sister had cooked some Indian food after the baptism, so we enjoyed that, but boy was it spicy.
Sister McGuire, Ananth and myself after the baptism
We touched base with both YSA wards on Sunday as usual and then spent the next few days cleaning up at the Institute. We organized the storage room; cleaned out closets and stocked the treat shelves. We had to make sure all the Christmas decorations were taken down just as if we had been at home (which we also had to do at our apartment - luckily there were a lot fewer decorations in our small apartment).
During this period of time we heard that Kristina was concerned about having to leave her children for two weeks while she and Nate went to Arkansas to pick up their adopted son. We were in between semesters and had some free time along with a companion ticket on Delta so we arranged to take care of her kids for a week from January 11-18. We had to move up the cleaning of the kitchen here at the Institute to January 6th.
We did take some time to enjoy some of the San Diego attractions during the time between Christmas and New Years. We enjoyed the Zoolights at the San Diego Zoo on one evening and then later took in the San Diego Zoo Safari Park on New Years day. On the way home we decided to stop at the San Diego Temple since we had not been able to see the lights earlier. The grounds were wonderful as you can see in the photos.
The beauty of the temple at Christmas
The week following New Year's was spent enjoying some time at the Institute with additional organizing, cleaning the kitchen, etc. It was nice to have two of our missionaries help us with the kitchen for a few hours. Elders McCloy and Kunz did yeoman service that day! Friday the 8th was an opportunity to meet with other religious groups on campus to welcome incoming students. The Catholics, Jews, Methodists, Lutherans and Protestants were all represented as filled a table and watched all the students pass right by. There is a dearth of spirituality in the youth of the world today. They seem to see little need for religion in their lives. SDSU is known as a party school and there is too much partyin' to let a little church interfere, except for our little band of YSAs who really do try to live the gospel. Still there are some who are looking and missionaries gleaning comes into play on a regular basis. That night we went over to a member's house to join in the festivities of the reception for Eilisha Goff (the Bishop's daughter) and Mitch Johnson, who had followed her out from Utah to win her hand. It was packed and fun to see all the YSAs enjoying it. Now if they could just take note and follow suit with their own marriages.
On Monday January 11 we boarded a flight to SLC early to spend the week with Kristina's kids. Diana will tell more about that; just know that throwing ourselves back into the world of family and grandchildren was certainly different for us. Our quiet missionary life doesn't have all that excitement and, yes, noise. After all, how would it be to have this on a daily basis?
Our eldest grandchild, Jacob, being himself
We enjoyed hearing of Kristina and Nate's receiving their new son even from afar. And it was rewarding to be with her children in that time of need. The only really bad part were the colds that each of us suffered through while we were there. We unfortunately missed the baptism of Melissa Pacheco, Hashem Murad's girlfriend, that was scheduled quickly while we were in Utah. It is hard to miss those wonderful experiences.
Well now we are back in the mission field. And it feels great! Lots to do to prepare for a lunch for ninety Seminary teachers this Saturday, and get ready for classes. But we are seeing the students come back and it is wonderful to see them again. It is easy to see how it will be hard to leave and not have those experiences on a regular basis. But life races ahead for us all and change is a part of life. It was wonderful to attend a broadcast from SLC about missionary work this morning and we were invigorated from the messages given including those from Elders Oaks, Bednar and Andersen. All of us who are called to be missionaries have some real opportunities to teach others of our Savior and allow them the opportunity to be saved in the Kingdom of God. And because we are here we will serve as best we can. May the Lord bless all of you, our family and friends and know that we know that God and Jesus Christ live, and this gospel is His gospel. The ordinances of salvation are only available in this church and we are blessed to have the leadership of prophets and apostles.
