Time Flies

I can't believe it is June already.  I have let a lot of time lapse in between this post and my last one.  I can't begin to catch it all up, but here are a few highlights.

Two weeks ago, and again this coming week are full of interviews.  This picture was taken when we were in North Sac, where three of our tallest elders all serve.  We could field quite a basketball team with Elder Henrie, Elder Miller, and Elder Gove, they are giants, and Elder Shaffer is a giant of a man in spirit.  

Sister Leavitt and Sister Roberts serve in our Silva Valley Ward and we have been trying to have them for dinner for a long time, and they finally had an opening in their dinner calendar.  (These wards here treat our missionaries so well.) They left us with a message and a challenge to write in our journals more consistently.  I use this as my journal, as I'm not very good at writing nightly, but I was happy for the reminder and the encouragement to do this more often.  They also left us cards to fill out that asked the question: 'Why are you here?"  It has given us pause to think about why we really are here and it is because we love the Savior and want to serve Him in any way He asks us to.  We have made covenants to consecrate all we have to the gospel and this is our way of doing that.  It was a good reminder on those difficult days of why we are here.  We love having the missionaries in our home, and these two are terrific!

This is the worst picture of me, I am not good at selfies, but I had to document the Friday afternoon I spent with Sister Richins and Sister Gilbert at the River City Food Bank.  And can I tell you first about these two...  Every week the missionaries all have to write a letter to the President.  At the first of their transfer together, I got a card in the mail from these cute sisters telling me that they didn't think it was right that President got letters from them, but I didn't and so they have been sending me weekly cards, post cards, letters, etc. for the past two months.  At Zone Conference they gave me a thick envelope that had a notebook that said 'madam president' on the front.  They are adorable and I look forward to their weekly cards.  Anyway, I went to serve at the food bank with them, they go every Friday.  At the time we were studying the Christlike Attribute of Humility and it was a lesson in humility for me.  We were able to fill food orders for about 3 hours and it took me the first half hour before I could do my job without nearly bursting into tears.  The humble people that came through there tugged at my heart.  Each one was so polite and grateful and I hope I brightened their day a bit with some words of kindness for each of them.  I was also humbled by the people who run the food bank and those who volunteer.  I worked with two ladies who volunteer every week, one of them several times a week.  She told me she is a cancer survivor and volunteers at the food bank and a couple of other places several times a week just because she is grateful to be alive and wants to give back.  Oftentimes we only hear about the bad things going on in our societies and this day showed me that although there are people going through things I can't even imagine, there is so much goodness in people and in the world.

Sister Koller and Sister Brown are going home this transfer and this is at their last Zone Conference.  (insert sad/crying emoji).  They are remarkable, we usually don't keep two missionaries together who are both going home because that means we have to shotgun their area when they leave and we try to do that as little as possible.  But we just couldn't break these two up, they are working so hard and seeing miracles every single day.  And they make us laugh.  During their last transfer they are supposed to do a program called My Plan which is supposed to help them figure out their lives at home before they get home.  Some missionaries love it and for some it stresses them out.  I didn't realize how hard going home is when my kids were on missions.  But it is hard.  The other day Scott got a text from them that said "President, we just have one more question about My Plan"  and then immediately the next text came through saying "CAN WE STAY HERE FOREVER".  If the church would let us keep them our answer would be a resounding YES, PLEASE!!!

We had the opportunity to speak at a missionary fireside in the Fijian ward. We loved being with these wonderful people.  The Bishop spoke with a lot of power about how the ward members need to help the missionaries get more people to teach and to get more people baptized into the church.  It was awesome.  Our son Alex and his family were here with us for that and it was fun to introduce Hannah to another culture.  We told her that the people were from an island, kind of like the one in Moana, and she was excited to look for Moana and Maui.  It was so fun to see her make friends with cute kids who didn't look at all like her and were from a different culture, and to see that it didn't phase her in the least.  I loved that so much.  Later in the week we were talking about what she liked best about her visit here and the Fijian fireside was right at the top of her list.  It was wonderful. And these are the wonderful women who made the best banana bread I have ever had, and I think I make a pretty good banana bread!

The other highlight of Hannah's trip was meeting the 'girl' missionaries.  She was so excited to meet them, she first met four sisters at a baptism in Folsom the night she got here. She was a little star struck, and then on Sunday we went to church and Sister Leavitt and Sister Roberts were there again.  Hannah wondered if she would see the girl missionaries she met at the baptism. She was thrilled to see them sitting behind us in Sacrament meeting and she waved at them several times during the meeting. She was really happy, when after Sacrament meeting they asked her if they could have a picture with them. It made her day!

Last week our missionaries worked on Memorial Day because it is a good day to find people at home, and so their p-day was on Tuesday.  The El Dorado Zone had their zone activity at President and Sister Bitnoff's beautiful home up in the mountains of Pollack Pines and we were invited to go up with them.  They had planned a hike to a lake, but I wasn't aware of that plan and my shoes weren't appropriate for hiking.  I stayed back with Jeni, her daughter and two kids, and Allie and Porter and Hannah.  The kids played and I helped Jeni prepare lunch.  She is such an amazing woman and has become a dear friend I am so thankful for.  We had a great afternoon and were happy for the time we were able to spend with the Bitnoffs and with our missionaries. This is the only picture we took the whole day.  

We had Zone Conference last week.  We had one on Wednesday with the Elk Grove, Sacramento, East Sacramento and Cordova Zones.  On Thursday we had Folsom, Carmichael, El Dorado and North Sacramento.  Zone Conferences take so much preparation, but they may be my favorite week of the transfer cycle because we get to see everyone in the span of two days and it is so much fun and so uplifting to be with these amazing servants of our Heavenly Father.  As President Nelson referred to the youth of the church joining the youth battalion to help with the Gathering of Israel, I couldn't help but think of each of these wonderful missionaries and what a blessing it is to be part of this work with them.  This fact is always just reemphasized to us on Zone Conference weeks.  I talked about finding balance in missionary work by being balanced in the five areas discussed in Adjusting to Missionary Life.  Scott talked about having a personal conviction of what we are teaching, and the assistants did trainings on urgency and wisely using the limited time we have to actually teach and find on a mission, and on extending invitations to members that count.  We have each missionary come to Zone Conference prepared to give a talk on the Christlike Attribute we are studying at the time and then Scott chooses two to give their talks. I love to hear those, and the insights they always have, they are always so prepared.  I also love (and hate just a little bit) hearing the departing testimonies of those who will be going home.  I hate to see each one of them go, but I also love seeing the growth that occurs in each missionary through the course of their mission.  It is such a miraculous transformation.  I was talking to a few of the departing missionaries and they were lamenting about the fact that they don't want to leave the mission.  I made the comment that I wish I could get what they are feeling sometimes into the young missionaries who haven't really decided that they want to be here for sure.  But then I corrected myself as I realized that each of us has to do our own stretching and growing, and if what these missionaries have now was just 'put into their heads' they wouldn't be the people they are now.  We each have to earn our own testimonies and personal conviction with the help of the Lord, and that may be the biggest miracle of a mission.  

Pictures from Day 1, May 30 at the Vintage Park Building in Elk Grove

 East Sacramento Zone

 Elk Grove Zone

Sacramento Zone

Rancho Cordova Zone

 Celebrating our March, April and May Birthdays

 All of these sweet sisters were there from the Elk Grove Stake to feed us lunch. We love our members so much! They are so good to us. 

Day 2, May 31 at the Deseret Building in Carmichael

 Carmichael Zone

 North Sacramento Zone

 El Dorado Zone

Folsom Zone

 March, April and May Birthdays

 Singing to more amazing sisters who fed us on Day 2

Nice Photo Bomb Elder Ricedorff

 After Zone Conference Hannah was entertaining our office missionaries with her conversational skills.  She and Elder Gunnell were having quite a riveting discussion

Alex grew up with Elder and Sister Gunnell and so it was fun for him to see them as missionaries and fun for them to spend some time with his kids, it made them feel like they had a little taste of their own grandkids for a few minutes.  And Porter found a picture of someone he knows in the office. 

In addition to the above and many other missionary responsibilities the past few weeks, we also had some special visitors. As I mentioned, Alex and Allie came to visit the Saturday before Memorial Day and were able to stay for a week.  We dragged them along with us to a baptism, the Fijian fireside, the El Dorado Zone Activity and Zone Conferences.  We were also able to sneak in some family activities

Hannah got to go swimming every day. She would have stayed in the water all day long, every single day. She is a fish.  Porter, however, liked walking the perimeter of the pool, swishing toys in the water, and getting his feet wet as long as it was his idea.

On Memorial day we went up to The Gold Bug Mine and exploring downtown Placerville. But we started the day with a breakfast of biscuits and gravy, straight out of the Magnolia Cookbook Alex and Allie gave me for Mother's Day.  Let me just say, Joanna Gains knows her stuff when it comes to biscuits and gravy!

 Hannah wanted to find a snow globe of Sacramento and I thought, where better to go than the Placerville Hardware Store, which has everything under the sun, if you can only find it.  But alas, no snow globe in a store that is like my grandma's old basement on steroids.  

That night we had such a treat!!!  Elder Watts, who now goes by Zach came for dinner on Monday night and brought his darling fiance, Jordyn with him for us to meet.  We had SO MUCH FUN.  He ate many a meal at our table.  He was our very first assistant and saved our lives our first few months.  We love him so much and it was SO great to have him back and to have him bring Jordyn with him.  (Don't they look like Prince Harry and Meghan Markell, except only cuter?)

Porter knows a cute girl when he sees one.  He was turning on the charms for Jordyn.
We also made it downtown to explore the State Capitol Building and to go to Cantina Alley for street tacos and Rick's Dessert Diner for the most heavenly desserts.  I'm glad it took me a year to get to this place, it is dangerous.

We also had to make the mandatory stop for breakfast at Bacon and Butter and then spent an afternoon at Fairy Tale Town.

My favorite thing is snuggling and reading to the kids, and my least favorite thing is seeing them pack up and drive away.  We sure loved having them here and are so grateful they got to come and spend a crazy week with us. 

This is a terrible picture, taken through the back window of the car, but it was an awesome moment.  We were walking to the car, and of course, Scott being the great missionary that he is, stops and talks to everyone.  He met this man, Kevin, who knew a lot about the church and had taken missionary lessons, read some of the Book of Mormon and even attended church in that past.  He said the gospel makes sense, but he just didn't feel it before.  He lives in Lodi, which will be part of our mission in just a few weeks.  Scott got his contact information and immediately sent a referral to the Elders in Lodi for them to go see Kevin.  He definitely practices what he preaches.  

When people ask us if we ever have p-days or what we do in our free time, we tell them that we usually only have p-hours, never a full p-day.  One afternoon we took a few p-hours and went to an afternoon baseball game to see the Sacramento Rivercats play.  It took us back to our old life, especially when this was the first sign that we saw inside the stadium.

We also like finding good places to eat, and Sacramento has a million of them.  It is called the Farm to Fork Capital and that is evident in the many amazing places to eat.  We recently went to dinner at Grange, a restaurant I have been wanting to go to for a long time.  It did not disappoint!

So, that's the last three weeks in a nutshell.  I didn't even write about the root canals we both had to get, in the same tooth, on the same day.  That was what we did on one of our p-days.  But more importantly, I didn't write about the many baptisms we were able to attend over the past few weeks, or the fact that Scott asked our missionaries to redouble their finding efforts and the first week after that request they found 280 new investigators in one week, double the 140 per week that we usually find.  They have kept up that enthusiasm for the past few weeks, not quite reaching 280 again, but very close.  We are so proud of their faith, their diligence, their humble obedience and their desire to do anything that is asked of them.  It is an honor to serve with such consecrated servants of the Lord.  How we love, respect and honor the Elders and Sisters of the California Sacramento Mission.