Lessons Learned

                                         Lessons Learned

                                             Lesson 1

I always say there are lots of homeless people, squirrels and skunks here. 

The latter is not the case. 

We have learned that high grade Marjana has a lite skunk smell. 

The walks and trips through town when we thought a skunk must have passed by, we were wrong! 

If anyone says different then tell them they are NOT smoking the good stuff.

                                             

                                               Lesson 2 

The American Indians here in the valley may still hold a grudge against Brigham Young. 

We helped in another service project sponsored by the YMCA. It was to clean up and plant plants in a park owned by the American Indians.

The man in charge saw our name tags and began talking about Brigham sending the saints that came here and chased the Indians off their land. He soon settled down and mentioned others who came and the injustice that his people had suffered. 

He then put us to work. 

Look they grow their own stash of mushrooms!

                               

                                        Lesson 3

                        The homeless will drop anywhere!

It was a challenge getting our sign out and our people in because this man decided to camp out in the middle of the pathway.

A couple of times we saw him rinsing his mouth with peroxide to clean his teeth but then he would drink it!

                                                Lesson 4

                               They still come out in the rain.

     We were surprised that so many still came out with all the rain.

                       Avi our fearless YMCA leader is in this picture.

Another group came out and passed out slippers and sweaters. 
To the children they gave a basketball.

                                        Lesson 5

     You can decorate for Ward Parties and not go, but have fun anyway.

Amy West was trying to make the ward party special and something the Spanish members would love. She wasn't getting much help with all her work, so we made a couple of trips out to help.

Our second visit out we found Bart there helping her put up the lights and the colorful Christmas chain.

And in the "Bart Style" he had brought his blowup Manger scene as well.

              He brought this blow up for the last day of Seminary. 
                      Who buys a blowup for the last day of Seminary? 

                                     Yes, you're right; our Bart does!

Bart let me know that he felt robbed because the school year ended, and he hadn't got through Revelation in Seminary as he had planned. He came to my class, and we were able to team teach our class. It was a great experience even though he likes to call me the anti-Christ!

                                     Gotta love that man.

We didn't make the Ward Christmas party because we were in charge of the food for the Senior Missionaries Christmas party that same night.

                                              Lesson 6

                            Serving a mission and service can be hard work.

The Saturday before Christmas, we took all of the Christmas 

gifts out to the missionaries. Here is our schedule:

As you can see there are NO potty breaks. It was a very tight schedule. 

We did beg for a break and got to squeeze one in.

Missionaries of the Zones would meet at their Stake Centers, and we would meet them all there. We then served them hot chocolate and donuts. 

                     Then we brought out all the Christmas gifts!

Then came the best part! 

Some of our missionaries did not get their "Preach My Gospel Books" in the MTC. The new books came in this week, and they kept them to pass them out today. There were some very happy missionaries today.

                 

                                   Lesson 7

     Christmastime makes people perk up!

Our Johnny Mask got a haircut and put on his best suit to come to church on Sunday. We just had to take his picture because he was so proud. 

He has only worked on a few movies this year. Mostly he plays the town drunk. Once this year he was a judge, but he says in a lot of movies they just kill him off. The trouble is him falling down! At his age, which he refuses to tell us what it is, falling down can break a bone.

                                   Lesson 8

       Safety can be an issue as you serve a mission. 

When the landlord checked our balcony, they found a lot of termite damage. They worked hard to get it repaired but then the rain hit, and we have been a couple of weeks with this ledge. 

One worker came to check something in our apartment and said he had to go out on the balcony. I told him this was a lawsuit waiting to happen. 

It's a good thing Sister Snyder doesn't sleepwalk in her sleep.

                                   Lesson 9 

                                     Being "Despicable" is kind of cool.

                                                  Meet Cinco Paul 

(named Cinco because he was born on Cinco de Mayo Day)

Brother Paul spends half of the year in our ward and the other half of the year back East. He is a talented man who can really play the piano. If you look him up you will see that he wrote, "Despicable Me", as well as "Secret life of Pets" and "Horton Hears a Who" plus, many more.

He spoke a couple of weeks ago in Sacrament meeting and it was so good and down to earth.  He told how at one time he sought after things of the world and the Savior. As he is older and wiser now, he now only wants the things the Savior offers. He really was good and gave some wise counsel. 

                                                  Lesson 11

                                                   The past is sweet!

Today we received a phone call from Elder Powell. (as we know him) At one time he served in the office with us while we were in the Philippines. 

He made the most wonderful cinnamon rolls.

He called and let us know that he came from Arizona to attend a friend's wedding. He was now paying a visit to his aunt and uncle who just happened to be our Mission President the Egberts! Apparently, they asked if he knew us and so finding that we live just down the street we were able to meet up at the Visitors Center for a few minutes.  

It was a SWEET few minutes even without his cinnamon rolls.

                

  Lesson 12

    In July, "The Spoken Word" will come to us

Some of you may have already seen where Lloyd Newell will be leaving the Spoken Word. He has served there for 30 years and now is going to be a mission president! 

YES!   He will be OUR mission President staring in July!

                                    

                                 And Yes, we are very excited!

Take care.  

And until next time, 

Love the Sister Sisters

Falling into the Work

 

                               Easy restful week ahead!... NOT

 After a couple of busy weeks, we looked forward to slowing down and an easy week ahead. Overnight we watched as that week filled up tight.

                                             See we DO have fall!   

                      

Last Saturday… we were able to attend the temple and saw a friend. She invited us to the LA, “Once a year Temple Workers Devotional” held at the temple on Sunday afternoon.

Sunday… we attended the Devotional where Our new temple president, his councilors and their wives spoke.

As soon as our new temple President, Pres. Wirthlin got here he found he has cancer of the back. This is the first time many of us have seen him.

Also, this weekend we found our Visitors Centers Coordinator, Brother Harmon, from Utah, has pancreatic cancer and went.

Monday… was Senior Sister Missionaries monthly outing and we went to see the movie, “Journey to Bethlehem”, and just loved it.

Sorry we usually look better but we are all so relaxed and love just chilling together!

Our Senior Missionaries got together and were taught how make balloon art.

                            

                          Some of our missionaries really got into it! 

                              Calm down Sister Clay!!!

These are the Clays. They just left the mission to go home. We cried a lot of tears when they left. They are the best people in the world! They have invited us to come back to Missouri and visit them and the church historical sites. They said we can drive back now or walk back later!

Tuesday… our day to visit the members in the care center. We were also asked to check out the new care center. One of our sisters is being sent to. The place has been in existence for 100 years. Some of the staff have worked there for over 30 years because they love it so much. The place sits on 4 acres, and it is just beautiful.

                                             This was inside their chapel.

It was a joy to go back and reassure the sister that this place is the best LA has to offer. I have never seen anything so nice. There are couples that live there, and their dining room looked so elegant. I was so pleased that I almost left Sister Snyder there to live.

Wednesday…Eight of us drove out to Covina to help pick up new cars.

We have Toyotas, then we got Nissans and now we have Volkswagen’s.

Our cars had 10 miles on them and by the time we got home they were up to about 40 miles. We will now turn these cars over to young men and women that have only been out of Primary for 6 years.

                                       AHUG!    Trust in the Lord!

Thursday… is our YMCA with working all morning and then driving out that night to our ward to share the food with the families in need.

                                          Oh, look what we have! 

Our apartment and one other have a fireplace. We were glad we had it since they have been working on the heat in our apartment.

Friday…was transfer day with new missionaries coming in so we didn’t have to work on supplies. We did spend the evening feeding them upon their arrival.

Saturday…we were able to help feed breakfast to our new arrivals before they started their first day of proselyting.

We had hoped to go to the temple but got a call from our Chinese Elders asking us to give them and a “Friend” a ride to a baptism. We decided to do that service instead of the temple.

Saturday evening…We had a single sister who asked us to go with her to see the botanical gardens at night. Tired as we were, we drove down and attended the Nightly show called, “Astra Lumina”

Sunday…. We were asked to pick up a sister who is here from Peru. She is working here until Jan. 

She wanted to attend a Spanish branch and was referred to us. We were asked to take her out to our ward each Sunday. 

We gladly picked her up and let her feel the love and warmth that exists in this wonderful ward.

                                    More of the "Astra Lumina”

Miracle of Miracles- Nazarene came to church for the first time since August. She received the warmest welcome despite her very, very short mini skirt. We just love the warmth and love that is in this ward.

      We then taught our youth Sunday School class and thoroughly enjoyed them. 

               

If any of you wondered what we did for Thanksgiving, we want you to know we were fine!

We decide to ask the President about opening up one of our rooms in the Family History building for Thanksgiving dinner. He was thrilled and said that any missionaries that had nowhere to go for Thanksgiving he would send our way.

Many of us live in low-income wards and so there are quite a few of us Senior missionaries that had no plans for Thanksgiving and wanted to get-to-gather. 

We live way out from our ward, so we didn’t dare ask anyone to come out our way.

We were excited for this get-to-gather because some of our seniors will be leaving us soon.

Sunday night our Chinese missionaries, who asks for rides quite often, called. 

I was surprised because they were calling on a Sunday night. It seems they are inviting a few Chinese friends over to the institute building Thursday night for an "American Thanksgiving" dinner and we are invited. 

I laughed hard when I asked if we could bring something because everything, I offered to bring they were excited and agreed. 

                           Now we know why they called! 

With two Thanksgiving dinners we will have to pace ourselves. Those boys can’t cook, I’m sure. The Fosters just went home, and I think they did a lot of cooking for events at the institute since they taught institute. We are glad to help them in fellowshipping their friends.

This week was Zone Conference. Half of the Zone came on Tuesday and the other half came on Wednesday. We were asked to help inspect the missionaries' cars, which they do every Zone Conference. 

We checked the outside for cleanliness and scratches. Inside we checked for sports equipment, clean windows, dashes, liquids (A big no, no) and trash. We had to go through the glove compartment and check all the paperwork to see if it was there and up to date. 

Two days of checking about 30 cars each day wore us out!

                               Some of the crew ready to go to work...

Zone Conference is a beautiful site even if we only see the back of them!

                                         The Lords Army.....

Now with Zone Conference over it's time to start checking their apartments again!

Our "Morning Leprechaun" 

Yes this is what we met on our morning walk. Today as I walked past, he sang to me, 

"Stand by your Man"!

Love ya all :)