It's hard to say goodbye

We had to say goodbye to 14 of The California Sacramento Mission's finest on Saturday.  Transfers seem to come around quickly and the past six weeks have flown by.  We had a wonderful time with these elders, and the one sister going home.  We were able to meet with them on Friday afternoon and talk about the temple, and then had the opportunity to go to the temple with them.  We are very blessed to have a temple in our mission and the Sacramento temple is quickly becoming a favorite, not only because it is beautiful, and because of the ordinances that are performed there, but because of the special experiences we have had there with so many of our missionaries that we love so much. Being able to greet all of these soon to go home missionaries as they enter the celestial room and watching them as they prepare to go home is a blessing I really wasn't prepared for.  It is a powerful and sacred moment. 

After the temple we came back to our home for dinner and a departing testimony meeting.  It is one of my favorite things that we do.  It is like a 'parent payday' seeing the growth and testimonies that have developed over the course of their missions.  And it is also a lot of fun, being able to let our hair down just a little bit. 

If the departing dinner is one of my favorite nights, one of my lease favorite things is taking the departing missionaries to the airport.  The only thing that makes it happy for me is knowing how happy their families are on the other end.  

                         Elder Richins                                                           Elder Seamons

                                Elder Hoskison                                                     Elder Fletcher

                         Elder Bitner                                                               Elder Miller

                         
                         Elder Haywood                                                       Elder Pearson                                            

                     Elder Lusk                                                                 Elder Kenning

                  Elder Christensen                                                               Elder Toki

                     Sister Brown                                                                    Elder Watts

Elder Watts, along with Elder Pennington (who we have to say goodbye to next transfer) were our first assistants. We could not have done this without them.  We have talked to or seen him nearly every day for the past three months.  This was a hard goodbye.  All of them were hard goodbye's but we just had so much contact with Elder Watts on a daily basis.  

Our nephew Greg lives about 3 hours away and came to stay with us for the weekend.  We were able to sneak away for a few hours to play tennis Saturday afternoon.  We won, but probably only because Greg's strings broke in about the first game.  We told them his broken strings made up for the fact that we have 30 years on them.  It was a fun afternoon, and good to pick up a racquet again after a long time.  

Saturday and Sunday we had the Folsom Stake Conference.  It was so fun for us because they had a visiting authority and it happened to be Elder and Sister Martinez who were here in August with us for our mission tour.  They are amazing people and have become good friends and it was fun to see them again.  We are hoping they get assigned here again while we are here.  We spoke during the Saturday night session, and we were delighted to see our old friend and neighbor Trent Hooper walk into the meeting.  Trent and his family lived in our ward in Centerville many years ago, he went on his mission from our ward, and after his family moved we had kind of lost track of them.  We knew he lived in Folsom and had heard great things about him from our missionaries, as he is the ward mission leader, but we hadn't seen him.  What a joy it was to reconnect and to meet his beautiful wife and family. He is such a great example to us and we look forward to spending more time with him while we are here.  

We are looking forward to welcoming 18 new missionaries to the mission tomorrow.  We actually already have one of them.  Elder Tayler, a new Hmong missionary arrived here last week, but we are training him with the new ones arriving tomorrow.  He just got a little head start.  

The church is true and the work is moving forward.  "Shall we not go on in so great a cause? Go forward and not backward.  Courage Brethren and on, on to the victory.  Let your hearts rejoice and be exceedingly glad."  D&C 128:22