Sunday, March 23, 2014

March 23, 2014



March 23, 2014
This was a busy week for Gary, and a steady one for me.  Gary opened an apartment on Monday for the two new senior sisters that arrived the end of the week, then spent the week furnishing it.  The two sisters are named Sister Nedreberg, who will be replacing Elder Clayton as Vehicle coordinator, and Sister Wilks who will be replacing Sister Clayton as Mission Secretary.  Sister Nedreberg arrived by plane on Friday.  Gary and I picked her up at the airport.  She is just a few months younger than my mother!  Sister Wilks arrived on Saturday.  Her son drove her here from Utah, then flew home later that afternoon.   We met them at the mission office, then showed them the way to the apartment and helped unload the car and settle in.  The young sisters who live in that complex came each day with warm cookies to welcome in the new senior sisters…..so sweet of them!  They were:  Sister Arias, Sister Fischetti, Sister Bradshaw and Sister Monical.  We sure love those girls!!!

We have another senior sister arriving the end of this week, I believe, who is going to replace Sister Chambers in the Employment Center.  By the way, Sister Chambers is 2 years younger than Gary’s dad!  It is amazing that these sisters who are really getting up there in age are desirous to serve a mission.  What an example to all of us! 

Sister Chambers and Elder and Sister Hallman are all leaving by the 7th or 8th of April.  We have two other couples arriving in April…..the Wahlen’s and the Crockett’s.

Elder Michie has been a great help to Gary in setting up the apartment this past week. It was nice for him to have an extra pair of hands!

So, this coming week, we have the new senior sisters starting their training in the office.  After meeting them both, I think we will get along just fine!  It will be interesting to see how Sister Nedreberg fits in as vehicle coordinator.  She is willing to learn, which is great.  I hope the work isn’t too much for her.  She is a retired computer and math teacher, so the computer part, the paperwork part, should be easy.  Sister Wilks should do just fine in her assignment as Mission Secretary.

Today we face timed with Shelley, Hunter, Ayla and Emi.  It is always fun to chat with the kids and grandkids!

Oh, today in the Vietnamese Branch was fun in Sunday School!  During the lesson, the talk was on eternal families, and Brother Bui, who has 3 adult children who aren’t married and around 30 years old, got on one about the fact that they needed to get married!  Of course, it was all in Vietnamese, but was quite animated, and a lot of people got into the discussion.  One lady, Sister Nga, said she had a daughter, age 28, that she could match up with one of the boys!  The boys and their sister were pretty good natured about it……the pressure is mainly on the boys to find someone and ask them to marry them……the boys looked a little bit embarrassed, but they laughed at their dad along with everyone else.  I think they must hear it all the time at home.  They are both in school getting their Masters in Engineering.  Their sister is also in school working on her Masters, but I don’t remember what field.  They are all very dedicated to getting their education finished first, I think, before considering marriage.  The boys go to school around here, but their sister is farther away, so doesn’t live here but lives wherever her school is….not too far, because she comes home weekends sometimes.

The weather is beautiful here….it has been in the 70’s most of the week.  But allergy season is in full swing….so many people are showing some symptoms.  I have felt allergy symptoms since I arrived, and take allergy pills and decongestants daily.  I have heard of others who have been doing the same.

Next week, we have some chances of rain again.  It is definitely needed.

We had auditors one day this week, one evening the week before, and they said they need one more day to finish the audit of the records for 2013.  They found some errors in records from two or three years ago that I need to clean up, dealing with the security deposits on closed apartments not being recorded properly.  So, another job for me to get done in the next couple of weeks.

Oh, I forgot.  On Tuesday, Gary opened an apartment in King City, which is the southernmost city in our mission.  It is about 2 ½ hours south of here.  The President had told Gary that when he went to set up that apartment, he could take me, so I spent the day with him, loading up the truck with items to take south, then helping in getting the apartment set up.  We had Elder Alvarez and Elder Martin help us.  Two sisters will be living in this apartment……Sister Lindsay and Sister Quintana.  They had been living in the stake presidents house until this apartment could be secured, so for about 2 weeks.  It was a full day.  We ate dinner as we drove home, and arrived back at the office about 6:30, unloaded a few items, then headed home getting home about 7 p.m.  We learned the next morning that one of our new sister missionaries who arrived 2 weeks ago was in an accident Tuesday night.  She was crossing a street with her companion, and didn’t make it across before the light changed.  Her companion headed back to the center divider, but the new sister thought she could run across the last part.  Well, a car didn’t see her and hit her.  She is still in the hospital.  She ended up with a broken shoulder and a fractured skull.  They had to do surgery that night to relieve pressure in her skull.  Her parents flew up from Georgia to be with her.  As soon as she is able to leave the hospital, she will be going home with her parents to continue the healing process.   It could have been so much worse….we are so grateful that she is okay!

Another item:  we started a small container garden on March 10th.  We bought a cherry tomato plant, and lettuce, spinach, radish, and cucumber seeds.  It is amazing to see how fast they are growing!  All but the cucumbers.  So yesterday, we headed to a different nursery to see if we could find cucumber plants already growing.  We had been checking other places all the time, but hadn’t had any luck.  This time we found some, and brought them home to plant in the pot.  Well, as Gary was getting ready to plant them, he found that the seeds had finally sprouted that he had planted earlier, so we will have some farther along than others, as he planted these plants in that same big pot.

We hit our 7th month mark this week.

Sister Clayton had a birthday this week…turned 60.  I think I forgot to put on another post….on February 8th Sister Watkins turned 50.  That was the day of the big zone conference and the Tet festival.

Well, you can see my mind jumps from here to there as I try to remember things from the past week.  I hope you can follow it okay!

The evening is coming to a close, so time for this entry to also close!

We’d love to hear from some of you as to what you are doing too!  Just a quick email to fill us in would be nice occasionally.  Thank you to those who have kept us informed.   We love reading about your adventures too!   I hope this format of blogging our memories works okay for everyone.  I don’t email, just do this blog.  But, if someone emails us, we try to respond back!  If you need our email address, it is:  yearsleygw@yahoo.com

Hugs and kisses to our kids and grandkids             XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

Love to all!!

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