We are down to 4 weeks from today as our last day in San Jose. We have 2 weeks of regular office work, then 2 weeks of training our replacements. Our replacements are Elder and Sister Busk from Richfield, Utah. They enter the MTC tomorrow morning.
Today after church, the branch had a potluck meal as a farewell for Elder Hullinger, who will fly home Feb. 4th, and also for us. Next Sunday we have a baptism after church, with another potluck meal. Also, it is the Outgoing Devotional next Sunday, so a full day. Today was lots of picture taking after church. I think some of the members think we are leaving immediately, so they will be surprised to see us the next 4 Sundays. The branch just decided it was better to combine the farewell’s together rather than do another in a few weeks, which was fine with us. I hope Elder Hullinger didn’t feel slighted, though, with some of the attention on us. It was a nice socializing time.
Yesterday, we just decided to forget our usual Saturday chores. We left here at 8 a.m., drove to Fremont, got on BART, and rode the train into San Francisco. Then we walked about 1 1/4 miles to catch the boat to Alcatraz Island. We probably spent about 3-4 hours there, then came back to shore and walked to Fisherman’s Wharf and bought an overpriced clam chowder…..that’s what you get for eating in a tourism area! After that we walked around looking at some of the shops in the area, then walked back to the BART station, got on the train and headed back to Fremont and the drive back to San Jose. We still needed to get some groceries, and the food I was taking today (something already prepared since I didn’t have time to fix anything), and when we got home from that, it was 8 p.m. So, a long, but fun day! Fun, educational, and we got our exercise in too! We had talked about doing this a long time ago, then the earthquake happened in Napa, and I started getting spooked about taking the train, because it goes under the harbor and I kept thinking about what would happen if an earthquake happened. I’m glad I got brave enough, and that we did it. It will be something to remember.
Yesterday was Natalie’s 4 year hearing birthday….4 years ago she heard for the first time after having her cochlear implants. She had tried calling us to talk to us about it, but we missed the call since we were gone, and I never heard the phone ring. So, today we Face Timed with them so we could talk to Natalie, and we talked to the rest of them too. And, we got to see Dylan in his new glasses! Now he can see things he couldn’t before (and I didn’t know he had a problem, either!). And Sophie showed us that her 2 front teeth are growing in.
Oh, I forgot to write something last week. It was a “well this never happened before” kind of thing. We were leaving church, waiting to turn out of the church parking lot, and a car behind me honked for me to hurry up! I couldn’t go because cars were coming, which the car behind me couldn’t see. But, still, I thought….you know, we’ve been honked at a lot since coming to San Jose, but leaving the church parking lot???? Come on!
This past week of work was slower….the calm before the storm. Next week is the planning week for transfers, then we are into transfer week. We are losing 23 missionaries, and are gaining 8. Plus, we are going to be getting 3 Visa waiters if they don’t get their Visa’s before then. They are waiting to head to Mozambique. This coming week we may learn of more apartment closings because of the continuing decline in numbers of missionaries. The AP’s have said that these transfers are getting tougher to plan because they are having to combine so many areas now.
Well, I think that is about it for the week. I will post some pictures of our Alcatraz trip and some from our farewell social today.
It is unreal to think that the mission is actually just about over! It’s been fast but long, if that makes any sense. The weeks zoom by, but it seems so long since we have been home and spent time with family. We had those 3 long weekends for the baptisms, but not the quality time with the kids and grandkids that we look forward too. We are glad we have been able to serve. We are glad for the friendships we have made here. But we look forward to going home and seeing family again. We definitely see the need for senior missionaries….such as the difficulty in finding office replacements here (and in other places we have heard of). So we are glad we were able to help in our small way, and we would encourage any other seniors to think about the possibility of serving. There are so many types of senior missions, that they need a lot of seniors to fill them!
We are so grateful for our testimonies of the gospel, and glad we could do our part in the hastening of the work. The church is true. It is a neat thing hearing about the change that occurs in new members’ lives, and their gratefulness for the missionaries who found them.
Love,
Elder and Sister Yearsley
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| The boat we took to Alcatraz Island. |
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| The last people loading on our boat coming down the walkway to the left. |
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| Coit Tower in San Francisco. |
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| Approaching Alcatraz Island. |
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| A cell. |
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| Looking at San Francisco from Alcatraz. |
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| Probably why they called it "the rock". |
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| The lighthouse...which we learned was the first lighthouse built on the west coast. |
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| The boat we returned on. |
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| The Bay Bridge. |
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| A lot of sailboats were out in the bay today...it was a gorgeous day! |
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