Getting Ready for a New Semester - Where Did the Summer Go?

Wow! So much time has passed and I just simply didn't get anything posted! So, here I am, trying to remember everything we did in July and August.

I think I last posted after the 4th of July.  Summer Institute continued through July.  It turned out very successful, and we were able to get to know a lot of different students in the area.  In total, we had about 150 different students attend at one or more of the classes.  On July 8, Elder McGuire and I decided to take a break and go to the zoo.  San Diego Zoo is amazing, and since we have season passes, it's great to go for just a short time, knowing you can go back anytime.

At the zoo

In addition to taking care of Summer Institute, we spent time this summer teaching Temple Prep to various students.  We teach during Sunday School time in both of the wards, and then we would meet with students here at the Institute if they had missed lessons. So far, 15 of the students we taught have received their endowments, and we have others who are ready.  Many of them invited us to go to the temple with them, which has been such a joy.

I've been asked to play the piano for several baptisms in our Stake or Zone.  We're always happy to attend those, they are such wonderful occasions.  One of them was for Alexandra, an investigator from "The District" videos.  The church missionary department came and videoed the entire program.

Many of the missionaries we have worked with are completed with their missions and returning home.  When possible, we've tried to take them to lunch for a last goodbye. On July 14, we were able to meet up with Elder Hansen (from Kaysville), and we went to Tacos El Gordo.  We worked with him for a long time in the 1st Ward and really learned to love him.  Can't wait to see him again.

Us with Elder Hansen

Julianne, Natalie, and Kristina came to visit July 15-18.  It was so much fun!  Julianne brought Livy and Kristina brought Henry.  I was able to spend 4 days just doing "girl stuff" - went shopping, to lunch, to church, etc.  It was relaxing and just so much fun.  I love my girls!

Kristina, Julianne, Natalie, and Me - Lunch

Henry and Olivia

Natalie, Me, Kristina, and Julianne

On July 17, while the girls were here, we attended a Fireside by Alex Boye.  It was a great experience for all of the YSA's - they loved him!  Beginning July 18 through August 11, we spent just about every noontime on campus at a booth for campus orientation times. Because we have had so much trouble with getting LDSSA approved on campus, we have turned instead to working with the Campus Religious Council.  Brother Mackay has been very instrumental in organizing this, and it allows us to participate in campus activities as a "group".  It's been very interesting to get to know people who work with other religious groups - Catholics, Jewish, Methodists, Lutherans and Episcopalians. Hopefully, it gives us a little more "presence" on campus.

We did apartment checks for the Elders on July 21, then attended the temple with another of our Temple Prep students, Joel James.  He left on his mission to Houston the second week of August. On July 23, we helped with a Stake Primary Activity in the morning, a YSA Regional Conference in the afternoon, and had dinner with Elder McNaughton that evening.  (He requested Cafe Rio Salads.)  We worked with Elder McNaughton for a long time in the 1st Ward.

Working at the Pioneer Photo Booth for the Stake Primary Activity

The San Diego YSA 1st Ward had 2 wonderful baptisms - Jesse (July 29), and Tyler (Aug. 6).  On July 30, we attended the Temple with Carmen Rodriguez, who had attended our Summer Institute class and invited us.  She was a single mom who had overcome some really hard times to reach the point of temple worthiness, so it was really rewarding to be there.

On August 1, we had a Senior FHE at the Chula Vista Institute. They have an Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, so the speaker was a young LDS woman who goes there.  She is the Alternate for the Olympics in Archery.  It was so interesting to see what is involved in the training to become an Olympic Athlete.  

Sisters Harris, Moore, Johnson, Parkin, McGuire, Perry, Butterworth, and Richardson

Elders Butterworth, Perry, Moore, Parkin, McGuire, Johnson, Harris, and Richardson

On August 2, we worked at the Temple Information Booth. August 8, we had lunch with Elder McCloy at SoupPlantation.  He was the first missionary we really worked with.  When we arrived, he had been in the YSA 2nd Ward for one week and stayed for about 6 months.  We interacted a lot with him, he sang on several occasions and I accompanied him.  We worked very closely with him with the ward members and investigators and really learned to love him.  He lives in Farmington, so we'll be anxious to see him again.

On Aug. 13, we were in charge of the luncheon for the Regional Seminary Training Meeting (about 80 people).  We started out with yogurt, granola, and parfait sundaes.  Lunch was Ham and Cheese Sliders, Spinach and Strawberry Salad, and Lemon Bars.  We had help from the Perry's, so that was fun.  The following day, we hosted a Regional Fireside on "Self-Reliance".  Brother Price from the Grossmont Institute was our guest speaker.  We had about 45 in attendance. For refreshments, I baked Monster Cookies.

On Monday, Aug. 15, we had our Zone Meeting.  We are really fortunate because most of the zones don't invite their Senior Couples to attend, but the Richardsons, Harris's, and us go to ours.  It's just so delightful to see the hard work of these Elders and Sisters.

Zone 2

On Friday night, Aug. 19, we attended a Barbecue at the Butterworth's for the Parkin's (who left Aug. 23).

Butterworth's, Parkins, Us, Richardson, and Iverson's

Sunday, Aug. 21, we took care of Linger Longer for the 1st Ward since the Bishop was out of town. We plan on 60 in attendance, so I made 4 big crockpots of potato soup.  On Saturday, Aug. 20, to do something different, we had lunch at Lucha Libre.  It's a Mexican Wrestling themed restaurant.  Fun!

Elder McGuire at Lucha Libre

Currently, we're busy preparing for school to start next week.  We attended the temple with Lei on Tuesday.  She was the first baptism we were here for, and she went through the temple on her one year anniversary of her baptism date.  So wonderful to be there for that.  Wednesday, we took a little time to go to the Safari Park.  

What a blessing to be here.  We now see some of the results of our work with these kids.  To see people progress from baptism to going to the temple is amazing.  This is truly the work of the Lord in the last days.  His work is hastening, and we are all called to be a part of it.  The church is true, Joseph Smith is a prophet and we have a prophet now.  Our Savior lives, and has provided a path for all of us to return to live with him.  Of these things I testify, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Summer is going, going ....

Well here we are another month gone and another time for posting.  The time seems to move along quickly, even if we should seem to be not as busy.  Those two sentences were written last week - just goes to show how difficult it is sometimes to get back to posting.  Although it shouldn't be as difficult as I make it.  As of today we only have 18 weeks left in the mission field.  It seems that is such a short time left.  It makes us think that we must step up our efforts to work with these YSAs.  Of course with the semester beginning at the end of this month, we will be much more busy and the time will probably fly by.
I will try to recap the past few weeks as succinctly as I can.  We were blessed to have Kris, Natalie and Julianne come here along with Henry and Olivia.  They stayed from July 15 until July 18.  It was fun to have them here.  Diana enjoyed doing their girl things (I have no idea what those were)!

The field from our seats - pretty nice!

It was an interesting game ending in a balk by the Giants' pitcher in extra innings.  Of course I left before that and watched it while riding home on the trolley.  It was a 50 minute ride each way and I didn't relish getting to bed after midnight.  The next day we were able to go to the San Diego Zoo where we had a nice leisurely visit with the animals.  The Zoo is always a fun place to go and we had a great time.  Sunday they all went with us to the YSA 2nd Ward meetings and the YSAs enjoyed seeing the babies.  Monday we had to say goodbye to them which is always hard - but the visit was great!

The girls outside our front door

We spent time during that week going over to the campus and doing "tabling" with the other religious organizations to welcome incoming freshmen.  It really amounted to watching the Catholics get most of the action while the other religions got a few.  Not only were we limited in the numbers that stopped by to speak with us, but it was hot!!!  Although the walk over to campus was only about 10 minutes, you really felt it.  We aren't used to this heat and humidity even after being here for over a year.  I think Sister McGuire and her hair will appreciate a return to a less humid climate.

On Thursday, July 21 we were privileged to attend the temple with Joel James, a YSA who went through our temple preparation course and was going for his first time.  It is always a blessing to be in the temple, but especially so when you accompany someone for the first time.  Since we began teaching the temple preparation classes we have tried to view the endowment session from the eyes of someone going through for the first time.  It has been very interesting to look for the nuances and the experience it as if it was new to us.  Joel left for the Mexico City MTC recently and will be serving in the San Antonio Texas Mission.

Saturday, July 23 was a busy day.  We started by going to a Pioneer Day celebration sponsored by the San Diego Stake Primary.  They had a bunch of activities for the kids along with a spaghetti lunch.  It was interesting to find out that there were only about 70 children in the entire stake.  That is fewer than in most wards.  It just shows how the stake is populated by an aging general population.  But the kids that came had fun and we manned the photo booth where they could dress up and sit in a cover that looked like a covered wagon.  It was a lot of fun.

The inner courtyard of the chapel for the Primary activity

After that we headed up to a YSA Regional activity that we agreed to help with.  We had planned on only being there for about an hour to sign YSAs in as they came, but it turned into about 3 hours.  It was fun to see many of the students that had participated in Summer Institute and made us realize how much that had helped us to get to know YSAs that were outside of the two wards we deal with.  Summer Institute was really a great success.  We had around 125 YSAs show up during the summer and averaged 55-60 each night.  It was also great to see that they came for the class portion more than for the activity that followed or the small treats that were served.  We had only about 1/3 stay for the activity and that was satisfying because we wanted the class to be the draw.

Following the YSA Conference we headed over to a baptism that Sister McGuire had been asked to play the piano for by Elder McNaughtan.  We always enjoy the opportunity to see baptisms even if we haven't worked with the new member.  It is just a joy of our mission.

Elder McNaughtan on the left

After the baptism we had arranged to have Elder McNaughtan and his companions over for dinner at the Institute as he was leaving the mission field for home on the 26th.  He is a great young man and will continue his education at SUU when he returns.  We definitely miss those missionaries who leave, but hope to continue to have some relationships with them after we leave the mission field.  

Well here I added a whole bunch during the last two days and suddenly it has disappeared!  How I love computers sometimes.  So I will try to recreate it and post this today so that I don't get further behind.  On the 29th we were able to attend the baptism of Yessie Teposte, a very exuberant young lady who accepted readily what she was taught.  She told us her life has changed dramatically since accepting the gospel and is so happy now.

Yessie at the time of her baptism

The next day we were able to go the temple with Carmen Rodriguez for her first time.  Carmen has regularly attended Institute and was so excited to go to the temple.  It really is a blessing to these young people to go to the temple and fortify their testimonies.  She came out of the session with a kind of shocked expression that is so common after the first time.  But she was so grateful to be able to go.

On Monday August 1, we were able to attend the Senior missionary FHE in Chula Vista.  LaNola Pritchard, an alternate US Olympic archer spoke to us.  She has been at the Chula Vista Olympic Training center since she was 17, and now four years later she just missed making the team due to sickness.  It was unfortunate for her, but she told us some faith building experiences that she had during her time in Olympic training.  

LaNola with President Schmitt's youngest child

 

 

 

 

On Tuesday we were able for the first time to spend some time at the Information Booth by the temple.  It was fun to speak with visitors, both members and non-members.  We had several Chinese stop by and were lucky enough to have one of our Chinese converts, Lei Ma, there to speak with some of them.  

On August 6 we attended Tyler Williams baptism.  His is another interesting story as the missionaries say that he was a golden investigator.  He asked a girl he was dating why she was so happy and she introduced him to the missionaries.  He accepted everything and did everything the missionaries asked.  When Elder Schroader baptized him, Tyler hugged him for a couple of minutes and just cried.  He was so overcome with the opportunity to be baptized.  Following the baptism, he bore a strong testimony of the gospel and expressed how much it had changed his life.  The next day he was confirmed a member of the Church by Elder Raleigh and then during testimony meeting again bore his testimony for about 10 minutes.  Very unusual for a new convert.  Without being here in the mission field, we wouldn't be able to have these faith building experiences.  We are so blessed to be here and participate with these fine young missionaries and the YSAs we work with here.  

On August 8 we were able to have lunch with Elder McCloy and his companions since he was due to leave the mission on the 20th.  He is a great young man and has been an excellent missionary.  It is nice that he will return to Farmington close to where we live.  In addition he has agreed to sing at our homecoming which will be wonderful as he has a beautiful voice.  

Elder McCloy next to us with Elder Kunz before he was transferred

 On August 10 we had a mission visit by Elder Mervyn Arnold.  It was an interesting visit for the young missionaries as he focused his presentations directly toward them and preaching the gospel effectively.  Although it didn't have as much for us a senior missionaries, it was great for the young missionaries.  Here's just a small portion of his teaching that really pertained to all of us:  After 30 years your legacy as a missionary lives on.  They know who gave it their best and who didn't.  Obedience is the first law of the gospel.  We ought to be happy about this work and excited.  It should be a happy, joyous time.  Why did the Lord say that obedience is greater than sacrifice?  If you are obedient your spirit is being guided by Christ and the body is being led by the spirit.  When you get rejected it is not you, it is the Savior they are rejecting.  Obedience - then - Sacrifice - then Consecration.

On August 13 we had the opportunity to fix lunch for the Seminary teachers in the area.  Ham and cheese sliders worked wonders - it was easy and tasty.  We spent about 6 hours of that day just getting everything up to the Pegasus building, preparing the meal and cleaning up.  As usual it seems to take it out of us, but then it was a lunch for 80 people!

The 14th brought another activity which we sponsored: a fireside with Brother Price.  He spoke about self-reliance which was an important topic for this age group.  The turnout was good, about 40 people, but the sponsoring ward YSA 2nd only had 2 people there because the youth decided to have a going away party for one of their own around the same time as the fireside.  Needless to say the Bishop was not especially happy.  

Well that is enough for now.  I need to get this posted and I'm sure there will be more for later.  As we look now at less than 4 months left in our mission, we are coming to realize the time is short and we need to make every day a day to do all that we can to support the Institute and the YSAs here.