February 9, 2014
What a week! To back
up. California is in a drought. Several years of droughts. So it was decided that for Fast Sunday, Feb.
2nd, we would all fast for rain.
Well the week before that day, we had a little bit of rain, and since
that day I think we have had some rain every day! The power of fasting and prayer!
On the 4th, Elder Layton had his surgery to
remove his kidney. All went well. The first miracle of the surgery is that from
the time he came out of surgery, his cough was gone. He has had that cough for
months now. The second miracle is that
the test results came back, he is cancer free!
I’m not sure if that means that it hadn’t spread, or that the tumor
wasn’t cancerous…..I will have to find out for sure, but just glad this means
he can recover from this surgery and be just fine.
Strange things of the week.
First off, we have had some thefts at the building we meet in. We are in a wing of the church here. When the missionaries have meetings, they use
rooms in the ward building. One time a
month or so ago, the missionaries were meeting in the Relief Society room, and
left backpacks etc . in the Cultural Hall on the stage. When they gathered their things later, one
missionary had had a camera stolen out of his backpack. They leave doors open, and apparently people
watch and know our schedule and just walked in while meetings were going on and
no one watching the stuff and stole it.
We have had other items stolen from the building before too. We had cars broken into here, and even one of
the President’s cars had I think it
was the battery stolen out of the car.
He had also bought a barbecue grill for the mission, so they could grill
burgers for some of their luncheons when they have meetings.
It was locked with a cable around it, and stored in a patio type area
off the kitchen that has a wall around it and the gate is locked. Well, the lock was gone, no one knows when it
came up missing, and the grill was stolen.
It was discovered when Elder Clayton had gone to check the propane to
see if it needed to be filled before the next time of barbecuing burgers. The cable was still there. Okay, now zoom back to this week. On Monday, a homeless guy came into the
building and said, I think I have something that belongs to you. He said he had purchased a grill from
someone, and after getting it thought, I’ve seen that before. …it belongs to
the church. Elder Clayton asked him how
he recognized it. Had he been back where it was stored. He said, yes, he had
been back there before to charge up his phone until he had been asked by
someone not to do that any more (right!!), and knew what the grill looked
like. Elder Clayton asked what he wanted
for it, the homeless guy says, just what I paid for it, $50. Elder Clayton said, I will ask the President
what he wants to do, is there a way to contact you? The guy gives his email address. We talked about it after he left. I said, if we buy it back, he will just steal
something else to sell to us (because we all are sure he is the thief). When the President was informed, he felt the
same way, said he wouldn’t buy it back for even a dollar!
Other strange things.
About 2-3 weeks to a month ago, I got a call from Salt Lake about Elder Faux’s
MSF card, that it was stopped because the bank had seen fraudulent activity on
it. It was being used in Georgia. Well,
not the actual card, the numbers, because the elder still had his card. So I called the elder and told him a new card
was being order, but it takes about 3 weeks to come, so he has to share with
his companion and get by until his card comes and he can pay the companion
back. Then this week, Sister Weeks calls
me. Her card is out of money, and it
shouldn’t be. I look it up online at the bank site, and see immediately that
her card has been hacked…..multiple purchases at McDonalds in South
Africa!!!! Approximately $90 spent. I call the bank to get her card stopped and
another ordered. The next day, Sister
Raney is in the office, and just mentions in passing that her card isn’t
working. She has been trying for awhile, several different places, and it never
works. We are thinking she just needs a new card, but I double check
by looking online to see if she really has money on it, and lo and behold, her
card has been hacked! Used in North
Carolina! So, again, call to the bank to
stop the card and get another reissued.
So, we have had 3 cards in a month get hacked, and in different areas of
the mission and used in different parts of the world. There is sure a lot of
crime going on here. We can’t figure out
how. They never let the card out of
their possession. I sure hope we don’t
have any more of these. It is a hardship
on the missionaries and their companions.
They have to bum off of them for money until the new card comes to pay
them back.
This morning, as I was leaving for church, I saw a guy who
had ridden his bike into the parking lot, and he was going through the
trash. Makes me want to be extra careful
what we are throwing away!
I think it was on January 25th that we first
noticed the tree by the parking lot where we park had blossoms on it. This week, I noticed the green leaves along
with the blossoms now. Also noticed some
trees with pink blossoms on them. The
temperatures have been in the 50’s this week, and like I said, rainy.
Yesterday, we had a special zone conference. Zone conferences are usually 3 zones at a
time, with 4 days being set for zone conferences. But, we had Elder Quentin L. Cook in town for
a stake conference in the area, and he said he had some time Saturday morning
to meet with the missionaries, so it was decided to cancel the zone conferences
which were to be this week, and just do one meeting on Saturday. We went to the first part of this conference,
to hear Elder Cook, then when he left and we had a 10 minute break, we left
also because we had a conflict this day…..it was the day of our Tet Festival
(the Vietnamese New Year), that had been planned for a year. We felt strongly that we needed to attend that and support our little branch that we are assigned to. We headed home and changed into our
Vietnamese outfits, then headed to the church.
It is the one big event that our little branch does, and this year was
even bigger than usual…..usually, they just do it as a branch activity. This year they had decided to make it a stake
activity, and we had about 200 people attend it. We were part of the fashion show they do….the
branch members had gone together and gotten us Vietnamese outfits, actually
made in Vietnam. One member had gone back after Christmas to visit, and got
them made then. Another thing we were
part of……we sang a song in Vietnamese about Spring. Now that was something! I will have to type up the translation of the
song on here, and put a link to where you can hear it online….not us singing,
but the song being sung in Vietnamese.
We left the Tet festival a little early, headed to the Mission Office,
left our car and picked up the mission truck.
Went home, changed again, and headed back to the zone conference. Spent the remainder of the time helping the
Clayton’s with the car inspections that they do at every zone conference. We never got them all inspected before the
meetings were over and the missionaries were coming out to leave. Gary had brought the truck because there were
supposed to be some shampooers brought to him.
We got 2 of the 5 that had been expected. We took them and the zone tubs that mail is sorted in, back to the
mission office. I had also been given 2
baptism records, a utility bill, and $20 on items another missionary needed to
pay for, so when I was back in the office, I paid the bill, and credited the
money for the missionary. On the way
home, we needed to stop and get milk and a few other items from the grocery
store. It is kind of hard having these
activities on Saturdays for us….it is our P day (preparation day....day to do the laundry and shop and prepare for the week, and the day we can use for siteseeing too.), and when these things come up,
we just have to catch up the best we can.
Next Saturday, Feb. 15th,
will be sort of the same, just not as long.
We have a branch temple day. So
hopefully we can still get our cleaning and shopping in there somewhere! We just bagged the cleaning this week….no
time. I kept laundry up during the week. The following Saturday, Feb. 22nd,
is Stake Conference meetings that evening, Stake Conference on Sunday. Hope and Kelley will be here the next Friday,
Feb. 28th, and spending the weekend with us, so we should have some fun
things planned for that Saturday! They will get to see what church is like for us as they attend our meetings on Sunday. That
Sunday evening that they are here is our Outgoing Devotional again, because it
will be transfers that week. They will
get to go with us and see what that part of our missionary life is like.
This week, we have Senior Family Home Evening tomorrow
night, because it needed to be rescheduled from last week. Wednesday night, we are working at the
Institute, helping the Cattron’s put on the meal for the Young Single adults
who attend there. The Cattron’s are
filling in for the Layton’s while Elder Layton is recovering from his
surgery. The Clayton’s helped this past
Wednesday. So, a full week ahead.
Today we had church, I taught a lesson in Relief Society. When we got home, Shelley had called and wanted to Face Time. Emilie had her 1st birthday on Friday, so we needed to talk to her. Had a good visit with them all.
Today we had church, I taught a lesson in Relief Society. When we got home, Shelley had called and wanted to Face Time. Emilie had her 1st birthday on Friday, so we needed to talk to her. Had a good visit with them all.
As the weather gets nicer, I have some ideas of things I
want to do on some Saturday’s for fun.
One is to go whale watching in Monterey Bay. One is to go hiking at Point Lobos, down past
Carmel…..I heard about it from some missionaries, that it is a beautiful and
fairly easy hike. I also want to head
over to a place by Concord, and by Martinez.
It is the John Muir historic site.
He was a famous naturalist. There
is a nature trail there by where he used to live, that he used to go on with
his daughters. He named the two
mountains in the area for his daughters…..Wanda and Helen. So I want to hike up Mt. Wanda!
Well, I think that is about it….that’s all I can think of
right now. I need to get the pictures of
Tet downloaded to the computer so I can post some on the blog too. Plus, I have 2 other posts to put on of notes of Elder Cook's visit, and notes I took from our last Outgoing Devotional.
No comments:
Post a Comment