Veva and Rita's Mission in the Philippines: Fall in Los Angeles

A Couple of Weeks

After going home for doctors' appointments, we came back to a busy couple of weeks.

· Providing rides to Stake Conference for sisters and elder’s friends.

· Monday Morning up early to complete our Friday’s assignment of Missionaries requests that we missed.

· Preparing food for Zone Conference and house checks.

· Trips out to check on members in care centers.

(These people are old time members of the Hollywood Ward, and no one remembers or checks on them except for Sister Potter.

Sister Potter is house bound, so we check on her and watch over her old ward member friends in the care center.

Sister Potter moved out of the Hollywood Ward but because of being in the Hollywood Ward for so long she still feels connected to the ward.

Christmas Lights going up already.

We do our best to keep her connected and in return she tells us of people that are forgotten. Each of these people have no family left.

Mary Ann is one of these sisters. The part of the care center she is in is closing and she will be placed in a new one. Sister Potter has asked us to keep in touch with Mary Ann’s case worker and make sure the new center is nice.

We promised Sister Potter that we would make sure the new ward members are aware of Mary Ann. We promised to try to get permission to go out of the mission boundaries to meet with the Relief Society and make sure they have a person to be Mary Ann’s advocate.) (taking our place)

I’m sure Sister Potter will still have us check on Mary Ann somehow.

They were good friends.

Picket lines still going....

With the busy week we were still able to get a temple session in as well as our Thursday morning YMCA service project.

Friday morning, we were back to our routine with filling order of Missionaries request for books, cards, fliers as well as household items.

There has been a change of cleaning the church on Saturday morning.

(The Spanish folks ask to change to Friday night so they could go to the temple on Saturday mornings.)

We were grateful and let them take over. Our trip to the church on a Friday night, rush hour time, would be over an hour instead of our regular half hour drive to the church.

We have filled up our Thursdays with providing the food we pack up on Thursday to some of our ward members. After work on Thursday, we drive out, again in rush hour and many of our ward member sign up and receive the food we brought.

This week, (our trial run) our faithful redheaded-Spanish-speaking Cameron was there to assist us.

(I often call him "Brandon" and if any of you know the Abbotts in Mesquite, you’ll understand the confusion. I worked and loved Brandon Abbott as well as his dad and mom.)

Cameron said to us that night, “You just can’t imagine how many of these people are in need. He said it’s not like this in other places.”

We have a few people who are afraid to even sign their names to the paperwork so several of us have signed up and then give our food to them.

Cameron expressed his appreciation for all the Senior Missionaries.

The Single Sister Missionaries in our Mission

(before one of our outings)

We were asked to spend a couple of our days helping missionaries

get flu shots.

She was in tears before we even started....

She says it really wasn't that bad.

This is Pres. Egbert and his wife along with Chancy.

Chancy is a nurse that is a member of the stake and brings a lot of the service project to us. She works closely with the church in getting help for us down here and she is the one that has gotten awards for her work.

Our special person Chancy!

Our crew!

Last Saturday was a VERY special day.

Gudrun's younger brother passed away last month, and she wanted to do his temple work. The Hursts, Gudrun, Bart and George who works at the temple on Saturdays and us were all there to experience this event with Gudrun.

Gudrun brought two of her grandpa's names and her bothers name and we did the baptisms up to the endowments for each one of them. Gudrun went through for one of her grandmothers.

Sister Hurst told Gudrun, as we sat waiting for the baptism, that although her brother was never able to help her out in this life now that his work is being done, he has the rights to help her in ways she can't imagine.

We all (girls) just sat there and cried. Gudrun, what a faithful and beautiful member she is.

As for Bart everyone that knew him, and many do at the temple, just brag on him and his faithfulness! Two wonderful people.

Remember who Bart used to work for?

The comedian actor Leslie Jordan who died in a car crash about two years ago.

As we sat in the temple Bart told us that Leslie and Bart discussed religion often. Leslie who also liked men would ask Bart if he thought that baptism would take this time around for him. (He was baptized about 13 times).

When Bart came back into the church and was rebaptized he told Leslie that he was sure that for him (Bart) it did take!

Bart told us that he was going to still be an agent for Leslie and ask his sister if he could do Leslie's temple work. Bart kept saying, "I tell Leslie, it will take THIS time Leslie!"

Small World...

* One of Marcie Taylor's young ward members is serving her mission here in the Visitors Center.

* Our Mission President's wife is the aunt to one of our AP Philippine missionaries.

* The Hursts, a couple missionaries serving in the Family History Center, are in the stake back in Idaho of our previous mission president. They know them well.

Our Mission Pres. and his wife set up an evening where we were able to go to the Stake Center, (Wilshire Chapel) and learn more of its history.

In the past blog we have spoken of this building, but we were thrilled to learn more and revisit what we had learned.

* Award-winning architecture

* 13 stained glass windows.

* Considered the "finest cement building in America" by Architectural Concrete in 1933.

* Stained-glass window in front depiction of Christ knocking at the door

* Various auxiliary of ward designed 12 stained glass windows on North depicting LDS themes and doctrines. Such as...scriptures, star of Bethlehem, grapes, sheaf of grain, anchor, dove of peace, olives, holly wreath,

* The building cost $250.000. Half paid for by member and the church paid the other half.

* Completed 6 months before the stock market crashed and the Great Depression began.

* 1970 Church leaders recommended member stopped using the building. Local leaders fought to preserve and major structural changes were made in 2003.

* On June 8, 2003, President, Gordon B. Hinckley re-dedicated the building.

* From the book, More Faith than Fear...Working in the evenings was like a big family gathering. The women would serve food while the men worked. Blisters and aching backs would soon turn into muscles and callouses as we dug the basement, drove the tractor, held the scraper, shoveled sand and gravel into the cement mixer. They wore blisters on their shoulders and the disposal of plaster and scrap lumber seemed to be endless. When the work was done, they would eat then build a huge bonfire and sing.