February 1, 2015
Is it really February?? January used to be such a long month, but it just zoomed by!
Our replacements, the Busk’s, started in the MTC on Monday. They called later in the week to arrange when they get here and we meet them to show them their apartment. They first said they couldn’t arrive until Saturday sometime at the soonest, but we really didn’t want to give up a Saturday when we only will have 2 Saturdays left to do anything we want to do in this area before we leave. When we have met Seniors on Saturday before, we are left hanging, and can’t get much done because we don’t know for sure when they will arrive and call. Anyway, we found out they were heading back to Richfield, Utah first after the MTC, so actually Saturday was pushing it for them, so now they will arrive Monday morning. Which is sad too, because it cuts into their training time. Oh, well. We will do the best we can with the time we have to train them. And, they will realize before too long that Saturdays are precious time because we have so little free time to get stuff done.
For this week…..
On Monday, President Mella asked if we could change FHE for a week later, as it falls on transfer week, and that makes it tough for them. So, I sent out emails to everyone informing them of the change. The Michie’s have been training this week with Sister Wilks and Sister Nedreberg. Sister Michie is hard on herself, thinking she isn’t learning very fast, but she is doing well. She is lucky that she has over a month to train. I sure hope our people catch on fast, since we only have 2 weeks.
Wednesday morning, we took the 4 Vietnamese elders out to breakfast at Denny’s before we went to work. Kind of a farewell for all of us. Elder Hullinger is leaving this coming week, we just learned today that Elder Golightly is being transferred out of the Viet program for this transfer, and we leave in 3 weeks.
Friday was new leader training day, so the office was full of missionaries. Sister Michie learned that you can’t get much work done when they hang out in the halls or come in the office to talk. Friday evening after we ate dinner, we headed to the store to get some groceries. We don’t need much anymore, as we are trying to finish up what is in the apartment. But, we weren’t able to get any lunch meat because the deli counter was closed by then, and we like to have deli sliced meat for lunches.
Saturday, we went to the temple with our branch. We had 2 sisters, Sister Anh and Sister Dung, who went for their own endowments, so that was exciting! They wanted us to stay and eat with them afterwards (they just eat by the car), but we needed to get home and get stuff done. I had a cake to make for today, laundry to do, and Gary did cleaning. Also, we needed to run to the store and get the lunch meat, plus Gary had shoe laces that were about to break on his shoes, so we needed to get more. Checked at Walmart, but they didn’t have what he needed, so then we went to a Redwing Shoe store and they had the type, but we weren’t exactly sure of the length, just knew it was 5 pairs of eyelits. She gave us 1 set each of 2 different sizes, and said it was on the house! We went back to the apartment, pulled the old laces out, and found out we needed shorter than what she gave us, so we went back to the store, took back the 2 and got the size needed.
Today, Sunday, went to church. It was Elder Hullinger’s last Sunday. We had a baptism after church, an 11 year old boy from a family that was baptized about 10 years ago, but had been inactive. They recently started coming back to church, and the father performed the baptism. The boy’s name is Kent Le. Afterwards, we had the usual meal. We took some more pictures today, trying to get those we missed last week. Oh, and in church today, another man, Bruce Nguyen has a son named Aiden. Anyway, Aiden turned 12 and was ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood today. So it was a pretty significant weekend for Bayshore Branch….2 ladies going to the temple for the first time yesterday, a baptism and a priesthood ordination today.
I held little Tuan (I think I got the spelling right) today. That is Mien and Phuong’s baby. He is now 4 months old, and always smiling and happy! A very cute baby!!
I am squeezing in this entry, because in just a little bit we leave for the Outgoing Devotional…..our last one here!
Other info……We got asked to speak on February 15th in Bayshore Branch. And we got an email asking us to speak on March 15th in Arimo.
3 weeks to go! It will be bittersweet…..we look forward to going home and seeing family again, but it will be sad to leave these people of our branch, knowing we probably won’t be back here again. We have told several to come see us in Idaho, and we know that the Tam’s have a home in Utah, so we could see them again. But the majority of the people of the branch don’t have a lot of money, so wouldn’t travel our way. And for us, it is a matter of not wanting to drive in this crazy traffic ever again. We look forward to normal traffic back home.
Speaking of traffic…..saw another crazy thing as we left work the other day. Pulled out of the parking lot onto the road, one lane each direction, speed limit 35 mph. Next thing I know, a pickup is passing me on the right, in the bike lane/parking area of the street, he gets to the stop light, which is red, pulls into the left turn lane and just goes, zooming around the corner! And the thing is, there are 2 schools on this street that we go past, and a lot of times there is traffic backed up waiting to pick up kids, and people are along the street! No common sense whatsoever. We learned of a traffic fatality the other day too on this same street, Yerba Buena, in the other direction. This part of the road has 2 lanes in each direction, and the speed is 40 mph through that area. 2 cars were racing each other, and somehow they hit against each other, one jumped the curb and hit a jogger on the sidewalk, killing her. So senseless.
I will stop here for now, and add more probably tomorrow evening about the Outgoing Devotional, so I can end this on a positive note.
February 2, 2015
Okay, it is now Monday evening, and I want to add something about last nights Outgoing Devotional. It was our last one, and I was looking forward to it, especially since we didn’t have to talk at it. Seniors hadn’t been involved in the Outgoings for awhile unless they wanted to, and we had already said we didn’t want to. With 23 missionaries leaving, it would be long enough, and I don’t like to talk in front of people anyway. And, we had 6 seniors who are leaving before the next Outgoing, so that would have just made the meeting too long. We never had heard that any of the seniors were actually going to participate. Linda Crawford (the one who trained me) was there, thinking that we were going to speak, and was shocked when I told her it had changed, and seniors didn’t participate unless they wanted to. Also, Lamar and Jaimie Stuart were there, and Jaimie mentioned that soon it would be our outgoing. We said that this one was ours, but that we weren’t speaking.
So, the meeting began, and as usual, it was very enjoyable. Here are a few excerpts from the meeting that stood out to me, not in any particular order. Plus, there were some beautiful musical numbers too, and the new converts always add a special touch to the meeting.
Elder Tonga: The MTC prepared me for my mission, and my mission prepared me for the rest of my life.
Sister Salima: Sometimes we have to just stand up when standing isn’t easy. She also mentioned that for missionaries, CTR stands for Chosen To Represent.
Elder Green-Bey: (something he read in a fortune cookie once) If you want to add value to your life, value every moment. From the book of Alma: This life is the time to prepare to meet God.
Sister Neff: The atonement is a gift and gifts need to be accepted.
Sister Stegelmeier: The Holy Spirit is the way to feel God’s love for us. It doesn’t stay with us unless we act on it and choose it. Act in faith and trust in the Savior’s love.
Elder Hullinger: I can say many things, but the only thing that matters is what the spirit teaches us. We make covenants with Jesus Christ to come closer to him. One of those covenants is baptism. The gospel of Jesus Christ has changed my life and it can change yours.
Elder Oxley: 2 1/2 years ago I was a lost young man of (I think he said he was 22 years old at the time). My life was stagnant. I had lots of cool toys [meaning trucks, camper, guns, camping and hunting stuff] but I hadn’t progressed much. I asked my parents what I should do and they suggested I read the scriptures and pray to see what I should do with my life. I asked church leaders and they said the same thing, so for the 1st time I read the Book of Mormon on my own. I knew then that the gospel was true, and that the Book of Mormon was the word of God. Then he decided to serve a mission.
Marco, a recent convert, said he always felt something was missing in his life. Now he feels his life is worth something. He said, “we are safe as long as we listen to the missionaries”.
Part way through the night, we were surprised when Elder and Sister Layton got announced and went up to talk. They did great. Elder Layton talked about his ordeal with cancer, and the fasting and prayers in his behalf, and how he had been told he had only 9 months to live, how he really desired to finish this mission, and how he is now cancer free and has been the last couple of check-ups. He said he has learned that Heavenly Father is in charge.
After the Layton’s there were more missionaries, recent converts, and musical numbers. Then, it was time to announce the last missionaries to speak before the meeting ended. And, as Elder Fisher is announcing, he named the next 3 missionaries, then he said “and then we will have another one of our senior couples, the Yearsley’s will speak”, and then he said other things but I was frozen at that point! So, the 3 missionaries spoke, and I could hardly even comprehend what they were saying. Then it was our turn. I have no idea what I said. Gary was calm speaking, as usual. He said things about our loving our Vietnamese friends, and I thought, I’m glad he thought to mention them. I know one thing I said…..that I know this church is true. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have left my children and grandchildren to serve a mission, and that all the seniors there know what I mean. And that these last days are feeling a bit bittersweet….we are excited to go home and see family again, but I know that we will miss people who we may not see again. After we spoke, there were a couple other missionaries who spoke, then Sister Lemmon and President Lemmon (he is a counselor in the mission presidency). President Lemmon said that when he was 16, he had a great bishop…..his dad. After a meeting one day, his dad asked him to meet with him in his office. His dad then told him things that he wasn’t doing very well at and needed to improve on. He was being a typical teenager, not looking at his dad and trying to just ignore him. His dad could tell from his actions that he wasn’t happy with what was said. Then he said to him, if an angel asked you to do these things, what would you do? President Lemmon said he thought a minute, and thought of the angels that Laman and Lemuel had seen, and how they just ignored them, and thought to himself, I’m not going to be a Laman and a Lemuel. Then his dad said, I am your angel now, representing the Lord. So President Lemmon took the council from his dad to heart. He said that the Lord’s hand can be seen in all things. There are no coincidences in life. We are not God’s Saturday afternoon hobby when He is bored. We are His work and his glory.
There were many good things spoken at the meeting, but I just put some of the highlights here.
After the meeting, we had some of our Vietnamese friends come up to us. I know they will be sad to have us leave. They keep asking when we will come back. Even though we have a language barrier, we smile at each other, and we can share love that way.
Today in the office, one of the young sisters came up to me and said that she really enjoyed my testimony. I told her I have no idea what I even said, but thank you. She said that is why it was good, you spoke from the spirit. I don’t know, but I appreciated her kind words.
I am going to miss these outgoing’s. And the young missionaries and seniors we have made friends with. Hopefully, we can still keep in contact with some of them. We have been told that when we go home, in a few days it will seem like the mission was a far away dream, sort of unreal. And I can see how that is. While we are here, this is our life that we are living, and when we leave, it will be a different life that we live as we get back into the swing of things with our families and the world events.
We have already set out suitcases to start putting things in that we won’t need the next few weeks, and we have boxes set out for emptying out the apartment. We will box everything up for the new Housing Coordinator to store in the storage unit after we leave. Kind of like we were almost 2 years ago as we set out our suitcases to start putting things in for our mission, and getting our house ready to leave and putting things away.
Well, I hope this isn’t too long and boring, it is a lot of rambling of thoughts, maybe some jumbled up, but then, this is my journal too, so I write what comes out.
May you all have a great week, and remember to help the missionaries whenever you can!
In the busyness of life, try to find time to come closer to Christ.
Love,
Wanda and Gary
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