January 19, 2014

Today is our 5 month mark!  Crazy how time flies!

I talked to Scott, Traci and the kids today.  Even the kids were surprised that it has been 5 months already, so the time is going fast to them too.

Tonight is another outgoing devotional…our 4^th of the 13 I said we would attend.  I look forward to them.  They are always spiritually uplifting meetings. 

This week will be busy again with all the transfer things.  Plus, I got asked to give a talk in Sacrament meeting next Sunday, on Families.  Also, Sister Hai Vu is heading to Vietnam for a few months, so I will be teaching her lessons for 3 months…..so 2 lessons a month to prepare for.  Plus, Kim asked me to turn in what parts of the lessons I will be using so she can translate just those parts, as the lessons aren’t translated into Vietnamese, and they have to translate each lesson individually.  Wow!!  What a job for the branch members!  It is supposed to be quite difficult, and very time consuming.  

The husband of one of the senior couples has been diagnosed with kidney cancer, and will have surgery on Feb. 2^nd.  The doctor feels that the surgery and removing the kidney will take care of the problem, and he will heal quickly and be okay.  We sure hope so.  Anyway, the Cattron’s will take over the food preparation at the institute on Wed. that the Layton’s usually do, and we have volunteered to help on Wed. evening serving. So have the Clayton’s, so we may end up helping one week, and the Clayton’s the next if they are only out 2 weeks like they expect.  So, this past week, on Wed., we went to the institute to see where it is first off, and to see what we will be doing.  Then, Thurs. night we had the apartment inspector meeting that is every 4 months.  So we had 2 evenings in a row that we were out later than usual.  Saturday, we went for a walk, did cleaning and laundry, shopping, prepared a dish to take to the baptism that evening.  It was Sister Ly Le who was baptized.   She seems like a really neat lady.

We have had record highs this week….low 70’s.  It has been nice, but is about 10 degrees higher than normal, plus they are so dry. In fact, the area seventy in coordination with the stake presidents, have called for an area wide fast this next fast Sunday for moisture.  They are having a drought around here.  Usually at this time of year, the hills are green, we have been told.  They are brown.

Speaking of weather, it is crazy how the seasons are here.  Fall started later than we are used to, and the leaves kept falling, and falling for some time.  They were falling when we had the brief "winter" weather....when we had frost in the mornings.  And, even while the leaves were still falling off, you could see new growth on the plants.  And the oranges and grapefruit still were growing.  The Cattron's brought us some grapefruit off of the tree in their back yard, and one of the young missionaries live in a home with orange trees in the front that are always producing more fruit, so we have gotten some oranges from them.  And now, we are noticing that some trees are starting to blossom.  Maybe this higher than usual winter weather is contributing to that, though.

Oh, that plane that went missing Dec. 1st over the Idaho mountains on its way from Oregon to Montana with 5 aboard, and was later found.  Well, the family is from San Jose, and are in the San Jose South Stake.  The bodies were recovered this past week, and the funeral for all 5 will be in a couple of weeks here.

Well, that is it for now.  We will soon be off to the outgoing devotional.