First week with our new mission President. We (the office workers minus Gary) met President Mella on Monday. Gary was already gone moving missionaries from one apartment to a new apartment in Redwood City when President Mella came to the office. He had left about 10:30. I had gone with Sister Nedreberg to pick up a car from Maaco, then to drop it off at AJ’s detailing shop and brought her back to the office. By the time we got back, Pres. Mella had been there awhile visiting with Sis. Wilks. Then he visited with Sister Nedreberg and I. He seems very willing to listen to us, very personable and sharp. I think things could go very well!
On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, there were Meet and Greet’s scheduled at the office for all the zones to come in and meet President and Sister Mella. They were scheduled 2 zones at a time, 2 from 8 to 9:30 am, then 2 from 10:30 to noon. After they meet in the chapel for the hour and a half, then they went into the cultural hall for refreshments and to mingle and talk with them one on one. There was a picture taken of each group. We as office workers didn’t get in any of the pictures, as we were working in the office. I never even had a chance to listen to any of the chapel sessions….too busy in the office. The senior sisters that work in the employment center also didn’t make it to anything. We are the ones who are on a different schedule from everyone else.
Anyway, I met Sister Mella on Tuesday, and was very impressed with her. It will be great working with them both. Gary again was gone moving kids to a new apartment, so missed seeing the Mella’s until late on Tuesday.
For the Meet and Greet’s, we three sisters in the office helped set up the food for the refreshments and cleaning up after. Sister Wilks and I did one of the shopping trips for the food, and Sister Mella did another.
Thursday, July 3rd, Gary and I were so exhausted that we went to sleep shortly after 8. It was nice and quiet in the apartment complex for a change. In fact, I thought that most people must be gone camping or out of town or something. However, the next morning when I got up….7 am (slept in……boy, were we tired last night!!) and went walking, there were still most of the cars in the parking lot, so I knew they were still around. I mentioned this to Elder Crockett when I happened to see him as I was taking laundry to the laundromat here in the complex……he said, maybe they were resting up for tonight!! Turns out he was probably right! Anyway, we didn’t have to go in to the office in the morning, so I was busy getting the laundry done so we could enjoy our Saturday. I did most of it in the laundromat, and just a little in the apartment so that we got it done in a short amount of time. We went in to the office at noon, and worked until shortly after 4. I didn’t get much work done. It was new leader training going on, and those who weren’t being trained just hung out in our offices visiting.
So, now to the evening of July 4th. We went to the pool for a little bit…..first time in several months we have been out there. After a bit, some others came and we left. Then we started hearing all the fireworks going off….crazy loud! Crazy that they do them in such crowded quarters. I kept telling Gary that I hope they didn’t set them off in the parking lots near the cars and ruin ours somehow. Then, about 9:45, just as we were shutting windows and turning on the AC and fans so we could hopefully drown out all the noise outside so we could go to bed, the phone rang……the sisters who live in King City (way south on 101….the farthest point south in the mission….about 2 hours drive from here) called and said they locked themselves out of their apartment. They had called the manager, but no answer. Thinking that maybe the manager might be out of town, or at least out late for fireworks, we got to thinking that maybe we would have to make a trip down there to unlock the door for them. Gary keeps extra keys in the office for just those sort of reasons. However, this would be WAY out of the way to drive clear down there to let them in. So, we thought, well, let’s pack an overnight bag, drive down, spend the night somewhere, and then spend Saturday starting from there. As we were packing and getting ready to head out, the phone rang again, and the manager had finally called them back. Yes, she was out of town, and called her sub who was going over to let the girls in. We told them to call us back to make sure they were in safe. Not long after, we got the call, so we unpacked and went to bed.
This morning, Saturday July 5th, we got up and decided to take a drive to see Los Banos. Gary had been curious to see what it looked like since a friend of Grandpa Yearsley is from there….a guy known as Bonehead who has some land up Cottonwood next to Grandpa’s land. He comes up there a couple of times a year, and is from Los Banos. I was curious to see what a place like that looked like…..since the name means “the bathroom”! It was a town of about 37,000……a farming area. We ate lunch there at Dairy Queen, then headed home. When we went, we headed south on 101 to Gilroy, then cut over on a highway heading east to Los Banos from there. When we headed home, we decided to go north on I-5, then head west on I-580 to Livermore then back home. That drive seemed to go much faster. After we got home, we got ready to go grocery shopping, which didn’t take too long, then we went out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant off of Bernal and Santa Teresa called Golden House. It was pretty good! Gary had eaten there before and talked about how good his lunch was, so I had been wanting to try it out.
Tomorrow is the outgoing devotional…number 8 of 13 for us. And the beginning of the next transfer week. We are losing some really sharp missionaries this time who we have gotten close to…..we will miss them, but we know some of them we may get to see again when we get home, such as Sister Bradshaw. She is from Beaver, Utah and going to BYU-I, so we have told her how to find our house and to come and see us when we get home. Each time now we lose some missionaries we have become really attached to and hope we get a chance to see again. Some live farther away and we don’t know when we will see them again, but hope to keep in contact with on Facebook at least!
So, I decided to do my blog today because tomorrow will be busy. I will write my notes of the devotional later on. Monday night is senior FHE at the mission home. We will be doing a potluck dinner this night. I told the Mella’s we could skip it this month if they wanted, since they weren’t even settled in yet, but they said no, they wanted to keep things up as they had been done. Sister Mella had talked to me about it, because one of my jobs is sending out the emails to the seniors letting them know of the date and time of Senior FHE. I really thought we would skip it this month, or at least put it off a week or so. They are definitely jumping right in to the job! So this will be a long, busy week with the outgoing on Sunday, FHE on Monday, and transfer things going on all week.
Oh, we heard from Kori and family this week off and on…they are on vacation and went to Nauvoo, Illinois among other places. While in Nauvoo, they got to see our friends Dale and Ivalue Hatch who are serving their mission there! Fun! It was fun seeing the pictures they sent us.
We love hearing from you…..family and friends! Have a great week!!
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