Missionary Memories: February 20, 2015--Last day working in the mission office

Today is the last day of working in the mission office. Tomorrow we clean the apartment, empty all the cupboards (because this apartment is being closed), and pack. Then on Sunday we will go to our church meetings at Bayshore Branch, and then after church come back to the apartment for one final time to change clothes and get the car loaded to travel home!

So, now for a recap of this past week.

Monday was President’s Day, and the office was closed. We had told the Busk’s that if they wanted to continue training that day, we would be happy to come in the office and do so. But they felt they needed that day to get some personal things done to get more settled in their apartment. We totally understand….it was hard at first to get things done we needed to do to be settled when we arrived….getting the groceries needed to stock the shelves in the apartment, getting Comcast started so we had internet, etc. So they took care of personal things, and we decided to take the BART train into San Francisco one more time. We got off the train by the start of the trolley’s this time, thinking we would take a trolley over the hills past the Lombard St. (crookedest street) again, and get off and take pictures of it again. Well, the trolley lines were extremely long, so we started walking since Gary didn’t want to stand in a long line. I knew that at the trolley stops farther on they still pick up passengers, so we figured we could try again a little farther on. Well, we just kept walking, never being at a stop when the trolley was coming and not wanting to stop, and we ended up walking all the way! We got to Lombard St., took some pictures, and then walked down the hill towards the water and Ghirardelli Square. We found a place to stop for lunch called Joanie’s Happy Days Diner….sounded fun, so we stopped. We started out sitting at an outside table…we were both so hot from walking, but as we sat waiting for our food, we cooled off and kind of got chilled, so we moved inside. After we ate, we walked to Ghirardelli Square and bought some chocolates. Then walked down along the water. We had talked of the possibility of taking the trolley back, but once again, lines were extremely long. So, we walked along Fisherman’s Wharf, along the water, took some pictures of a battle ship there, and got to a place where we could catch a pedi-cab (a bicycle with seats in the back for passengers) and took it to the ferry building which is near the BART stop that is closest to the water, the Embarcadero stop that we took when we went to Alcatraz. Took the BART back to Fremont where our car was parked, and headed home. The weather was perfect that day in San Francisco, but we were sure tired after all that walking! We had a fun time though, and it was definitely good exercise!

Tuesday, we were in the office training again. This day I had a special surprise from my daughters….flowers were delivered! I couldn’t even read the card out loud to Sister Busk, because it got me crying. Sister Busk read it and she started crying…..way to go, girls! Then, that evening, we had a dinner appointment with Alex and Janette Tam. It was so nice going to their home and being able to visit with them. Janette had been gone from the ward since before Christmas, as her daughter in Nebraska had a new baby and she went to help. We enjoy visiting with them, and we know that we can in the future too, as they have another home in Saratoga Springs, Utah.

Wednesday, training in the office again. Then at 12:30, we had a special luncheon that had been planned on the quiet (except we knew about it because Gary had been approached to make sure he would be in the office between those times, since he is gone so much they needed to talk to him). This luncheon was for us, Sister Wilks and Sister Nedreberg, because in the next couple of weeks they will be gone too. Sister Conner, our nurse, spearheaded it and it was nice for all of us in the office to be able to sit down and eat together, and something nice instead of the usual lunch fare that we all bring….sandwiches, etc. Wednesday evening, we took Bob and Linda Crawford out to dinner at Black Angus steakhouse. We wanted to thank them for all their kindnesses shown to us since we have been here. They were our trainers, and they also invited us to their home for holiday dinners. It was nice visiting with them there. Oh, and the funny thing was, as we were just getting settled, across from us another couple of people arrived, and it was Jimmy and Kim from the branch! So we chatted with them some too.

Thursday ended up being a pretty boring day for me. But, that’s good! Sister Busk was able to do most things with just a few questions. So I spent some time reading the Ensign. Then, I had another surprise. My daughters again sent me something that was delivered….a box of brownies from Fairytale Brownies. They were specialty flavors in individual packages. I shared some with the other sisters working in the office. Then they said I should just take the rest home to eat while we traveled, instead of them eating more. Thursday night, we took the Michie’s out to dinner at Sizzler. They have been good friends, and we just wanted to spend an evening with them.

Each of these days we have also spent some time packing up a few more things.

Now we are to today, Friday. I started this entry this morning, and now as I sit in the office as Sister Busk is working, I am typing while waiting to see if she has questions while she works. And there are the occasional questions, but on the whole, she has things down pretty well. Yesterday, someone asked her how she felt things were going, and she said she wasn’t scared about it anymore and thought she could handle things. That made me feel better. I had worried about having a short training period, but she is catching on fast.

Since yesterday was our actual end of mission date, we got to thinking that we were probably already taken out of the mission computer system. So we checked when we got here today, and we were! That was a weird feeling seeing that we were no longer listed as missionaries here.

Our internet will be turned off tomorrow, so I am going to get this blog submitted today. If anything else comes up today that needs to be added, I will do it a little later today. For now, I want to add some pictures to this blog.