It Is Solved By Walking

St Augustine once said "It is solved by walking".  I'm not sure what 'it' is, but I decided to put that theory to the test this transfer as I have been doing 'walk and talk with Sister Hymas' during our interviews.  Of course I couldn't show up to interviews without bringing cookies: (these chocolate chip cookies are from The Magnolia Cookbook, and are SOOOOO good)

You don't know how often we laugh at the end of an interview when we give the recently interviewed companionship their cookies, only to have them say "YES!!! This is the best part of interviews".  I always laugh and say, "yes, you have to just suffer through talking to President and me, and then you get the good stuff".  

But, my walk and talks might be my favorite way to go about interview days.  It came about on the first day of interviews this transfer.  We were heading to Sacramento, and it is our largest zone with 22 missionaries.  My head was feeling kind of achy, like I was beginning to get a head cold. The church is always cold, and the room I am in while I talk to the missionaries is small, cinderblock and doesn't have a window.  It has been a pretty cold and rainy winter/spring and as we got out of the car, the sun was peeking through the clouds and it was relatively warm.  I could hardly stand the thought of our first warmish day, being in that little windowless room all day.  So, after Scott met with the Zone Leaders, I took Elder Cummings and said "How about we go on a walk while we talk?" And 'walk and talk with Sister Hymas' was born.  He thought it was good, I thought it was good, and so I continued with the rest of the zone.  It was so refreshing to be outside and to be moving instead of sitting for 5 hours. I just set my timer for half of our time and we would walk until the timer rang and then turn back.  There was only one time I forgot to set my timer and Elder Quinones and I walked a lot farther than I had planned.  President was waiting for us in the foyer when we got back.  Oops.  The only thing I didn't think through was how far I would be walking that day. Luckily I had on flat boots, but walking for 10 minutes with 22 missionaries is father than I had anticipated.  By about the 18th missionary my feet were starting to feel it, as were my hips, but the waiting missionaries would see us come back in from our walk and they all wanted to walk.  By the end of the day I was completely surprised to look at my step tracker and see how far I had gone. 

I've been able to walk with all but two zones because it was raining, and we have three to go in a week or so, but I think I have found my new interview activity.  I actually think it is more normal for the missionaries to open up to me when we are on a walk, and it has been a really fun thing to do.  I did go and buy some new walking shoes, and have logged about 35 miles this week (Sacramento is by far the biggest zone).  I love it.  There is something about being outside that is just good for the soul.  My daughter Stacie sent this quote that I wholeheartedly agree with.

I feel bad for Scott, after interviews I am all energized and he has had to sit in a church building all day long.  I told him he should start a 'walk and talk' as well.  We could just take different routes and meet up and exchange companions, like a relay.  We'll see if that one takes off.  

How could you not be happy with walking companions like these, (and all the others I didn't get pictures of), and a blue sky like this one.  The Elk Grove day was really windy, but a little wind wasn't going to keep us inside!

Other than walking, we've also had our New Leader Meeting with our newly called Zone and District Leaders and Sister Training Leaders

We had Family Home Evening and Dinner at our home with our Senior Missionaries. We were happy to welcome the Chenns and sad to say goodbye to the Marquardts as they finish their mission.  They have been living at the far end of the mission in a town called Copperopolis, working with the Murphys Ward.  When they first got their assignment they thought Copperopolis was a made up name.  It is really out in the middle of nowhere, but they have grown to love the people and the ward so much.  I don't know what we, or the Murphys ward is going to do without them.  We have loved serving with them. They are incredible, humble, consecrated, dedicated servants and we love and will miss them.

We had our Mission Leadership Council the Tuesday following transfers.  I always say how much I love MLC, but it really is a special and sacred meeting.  All of the leaders gather and we council together, then they take what they have learned and counseled on back to their zones.  My training this time was inspired by a lesson we attended that I wrote about in my last blog.  As we were with some sweet sisters teaching a man who had a very strong belief in the Bible, but literally no belief, and some very negative feelings about the Book of Mormon I had the impression that we need to know the Bible better than we do.  We need to carry a Bible with us as we are out and about.  We were trying to teach him through Book of Mormon scriptures but they meant nothing to him.  He needed the familiar voice of the Bible to help bridge the gap.  

I talked about how when Samuel was called by the Lord, at first he didn't understand who was calling him.  He went to Eli three times, thinking it was Eli who called.  It was Eli who bridged the gap between Samuel and the voice of the Lord and gave him the ability to hear the voice of the Lord. 

When Christ came to the Nephites, they heard and understood the voice of the Savior, but they couldn't understand the voice of the Father when he spoke to them.  It took them a while to recognize His voice.  The Bible is the familiar voice many people understand, and so we need to use that voice and help point them to a voice that they can't yet understand: The Book of Mormon.  We did a really fun activity.  In Preach My Gospel there is a list of questions of the soul that people need answers to.  We know them and we are good at using the Book of Mormon to answer questions of the soul.  I asked the missionaries to be prepared to come and answer the questions of the soul using the Bible.  The spirit was very strong as they answered these important questions using the Bible.  For some people, as we bridge the gap with the Bible, it might then help them understand that answers are found in the Bible (the familiar voice) and in the Book of Mormon. 

Scott led a lengthy discussion about phone call procedures and other things that needed to be decided upon, and he finished up with a great training on recognizing the things you can control, the things you can influence, and the things you have no control over, and shouldn't spend your time worrying about.  All you can control are the things you can control, for instance, your obedience.  Often we spend too much time worrying about the things we can't control, like someone's agency, or God's timing.  

For the past several months, when Elder and Sister Gunnell were alone in the office, some lovely ladies from my ward stepped in and provided the MLC lunch.  Now that Sister Doig is here to cover the office, and Elder and Sister Mair are here, Elder and Sister Gunnell and Sister Mair are back to doing MLC lunches.  They prepared a delicious brunch this time. It was good to have them back.

This was Sister Gilbert and Sister Searle's last MLC. ):

I love this picture from a baptism we attended last Saturday.  The man getting baptized had first reached out online and been connected with these cute sisters serving in New Zealand. They taught him a lot of the lessons and then passed them on to the missionaries here.  Thanks to the wonders of technology, we were able to skype them in to be able to witness his baptism.  This was a great example of what we always say "we are all in this together."

For the past many, many years, missionaries who are closest to going home have been invited to attend a p day at Coloma, which is rich in history, both California, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  I have posted numerous pictures of those fun days on this blog and it has been wonderful.  As the size of our mission tripled in size last summer we wondered what to do about that p day.  We have started at 8:30 a.m and it goes most of the day.  We now have missionaries that are close to 2 1/2 hours away from Coloma, as it is on the very far edge of our mission.  Now with them calling home on p days, that adds another dimension to the many things they need to get done on that one day they have to prepare, shop, write letters, call home, do laundry, etc. A 1 1/2 -2 1/2 hour drive, both ways didn't seem like the wisest thing to do.  After counseling with our assistants and other missionaries we determined we needed to make a change in order to accommodate all of our missionaries in all parts of the mission.  In our counsel, it was decided that many missionaries come to the Capitol of California and never even see the Capitol City or downtown if they don't serve in the zone that encompasses downtown. We decided we are going to do a "Discover Downtown Sacramento" day with them this year.  I think it will be fun, but it is also a lot more work to get it going.  Scott and I spent an entire day last week figuring out logistics, what to do and where to go.  Our first group at the end of March are going to be our guinea pigs.  I hope it works as well as we are hoping it will.  

There is an exhibit of statues all over downtown right now of angels, and angel wings.  I couldn't resist this picture.

At the first of our mission, before our transfer schedule changed, we used to go to Jimmy John's for lunch every Friday before transfers, with our assistants.  We had some time between interviews and more meetings yesterday and so we went to Jimmy John's for lunch.  It brought back a lot of really good memories and made us miss some really wonderful missionaries that we had some wonderful times with at that little eating spot. 

 Last night we were able to go to a lesson with Elder Fischetti and Elder Larsen.  We went to a woman who they met in the parking lot of her apartment building.  They call her their parking lot miracle.  She was indeed a miracle.  She has been being led to the church for years, with a lot of association with members and missionaries over the years.  It was so touching to see her gain an understanding of principles that in the past have held her up.  It was also a sacred experience to listen to her heartfelt prayer.  One of my favorite things here is listening to the earnest prayers of those who are humbly seeking answers.  It was a privilege to be there and be part of that amazing lesson. 

We had a sad and humbling experience this past week.  The mother of one of our dear sisters passed away.  She had been battling cancer for the past 7 months.  This is the second missionary who has had a parent pass away since we have been here and it completely breaks our hearts.  That is the sad and tragic part of it. The humbling part came when we went to talk to her, she had spoken to her sister a few hours earlier and knew her mom's death was imminent.  This sister and her sister at home are the only members of the church in her family, and they are actually the only family they have.  These two young girls, are basically doing this alone.  She finishes her mission at the end of this transfer and as we called the church they said it was completely fine to give her an honorable release, since it was only about 4 weeks earlier than she would have gone home.  As we talked with her, she was determined to come back and finish her mission.  She had it all planned out.  She went home for about 4 days and came back on Monday, ready to get back to work and finish strong.  We had interviews with her today and she is amazingly strong.  She brought us gifts, one of which was a tea towel her mom had embroidered.  I couldn't hold back the tears, and that tea towel is something I will treasure forever.  She is an example to all of us. 

We were also saddened to hear of the death of our friend Kevin Moon.  We have lived in the same ward with Kevin and Mary Ann for nearly 30 years.  We are heartbroken for Mary Ann and her sweet family.  

We had a few visitors that were fun to see.  Our former Hermana Peterson was in town with her sister for Spring Break and we were able to meet up with her for a few minutes. It was great to see her again. She was such an incredible missionary.

We were also able to have dinner with Isaac and Morgan Ford and their darling baby Max.  Isaac is like a second son to us. He and our son Ethan have been the best of friends for a very long time, and they were tennis doubles partners through high school.  Now they are going through the accounting program at BYU together. Morgan was a good friend of all of theirs in high school.  We love them so much. Morgan's aunt, Carrie Crockett,  just happens to be in our ward and is a good friend of mine.  It's such a small world.  Isaac and Morgan have been in Portland for an accounting internship and stopped by to visit Carrie and her family for a few days as they made their way back home.  We were invited to have dinner at the Crockett's home the Sunday that they were here.  I actually got to see them first at our Sacrament meeting.  As I hugged Isaac I almost started crying.  It was almost like having Ethan here.  We had such a fun time seeing them and getting to know little Max.  

Lately...

I was going to say that the past few weeks, compared to the previous two weeks, were relatively easy going, until I started to look at my calendar, and realized we really did have quite a few things going on.  Maybe just not at the breakneck pace of the week or two before. 

Things I didn't get pictures of: 
On Valentine's day we had a Spanish culture meeting with all of our Spanish speaking Elders and Sisters.  We do this about twice a year and Brother Martinez, who used to be in the mission presidency, helps them understand the cultural differences of teaching Latinos.  What I love the most though is that he teaches them the promises that are specifically for the Latinos that are found in The Book of Mormon.  It's a great meeting.  We have some wonderful Spanish speaking missionaries, we have 14 Spanish Speaking Hermanas and as of today, they have all been here for 6 months or less.  We tell them they are young and mighty.  I took Valentine Cookies to at least celebrate the holiday a little bit.  We also did a surprise stop in at one of the Zone's District Council Meetings to drop off some Valentine Cookies, after we were able to sneak in a very nice Valentine lunch.  

We had a great 4 week meeting, which is when we meet with our missionaries who have been here for 4 weeks and their trainers.  I love this meeting and seeing the growth in the new missionaries in just a few short weeks, but this one was a little unique.  As we were walking out the door to head to the meeting our phones started blowing up.  We were getting texts from family and former missionaries asking us if it was really true that missionaries could call home every p-day.  We hadn't heard a word about it.  So we were frantically reading the news bulletin as we were driving to the meeting, and trying to figure out what the missionaries knew and what we were going to be walking in to.  We got to the meeting and you could tell they all knew about the new news.  Scott hit it straight on and just said, let's talk about the elephant in the room, and talk about the new directive on communication.  It was interesting to see the different reactions in the room.  The new missionaries looked like it was Christmas morning and  honestly, most of the trainers were a bit skeptical.  I had several of them tell me they didn't really know if they wanted to call home every week.  We told them it was completely in their control and they could call if they wanted to, or they wouldn't have to call if they didn't want to call.  It will be interesting to see how it all settles in.  I think most of the missionaries called that first week.  I know some will feel like they want/need to call every week and some may not call that often. We are still getting a few directives from our leaders to help us figure this whole thing out.  It was an interesting week of learning for us.  We were on the phone or texting lots of mission presidents, who are all trying to figure out exactly what it means and how to move forward with it all.  I told a few of my friends who are serving that we are starting to feel like pioneers. We have pioneered sisters wearing pants, and now missionary calls home every week.  We are just buckling our seatbelts for whatever may be next. President Nelson wasn't kidding when he said to take our vitamins, the only problem is we haven't figured out how to apply the second part of his statement, which was to get some rest!

We had the Sacramento Stake Conference the weekend of the 16th and 17th.  President Cassinat was released as the Stake President.  We have loved getting to know President and Sister Cassinat. They are incredible leaders and have become good friends.  It was wonderful to be there for both Saturday and Sunday.  Elder Steven Snow was the presiding authority that weekend and he was great.  We were invited to a dinner prior to the Saturday night session, which we spoke at.  We were looking around trying to figure out who looked nervous or uneasy and couldn't pinpoint anyone.  Imagine our surprise when they announced the new Stake President on Sunday and it was President Cocker.  We weren't surprised that he was called because he is incredible, he had been one of President Cassinat's counselors.  We were surprised because we had sat with he and his wife at dinner on Saturday night and they were cool as cucumbers.  We even commented on the fact that they were too composed to be in the mix.  We were thrilled with his call, though and will love working with he and his lovely wife.  

We had other various meetings, I was finally able to go to our ward's book club, and the ward auction they had for a fund raiser for youth activities this year.  We also were able to have a date night, Alex, Allie and Preston gave us tickets to Evita for Christmas and last Friday was the night of the play and we loved it. 

Things I did get pictures of:
The Saturday morning before the Sacramento Stake Conference we were able to go to Elk Grove for a wonderful and miraculous baptism.  We were happy that we had to stay down that way for the Sacramento Stake Conference later that day, and we had a few hours to kill.  So we went with the Elk Grove Zone for their seeking Saturday.  Their goal was to invite as many people to church as we could in the space of 2 hours.  I was teamed up with Sister Graham and Sister Bayless.  We had So. Much. Fun.  Sister Bayless is from Arkansas and Sister Graham is from England.  Sister Graham uses her darling accent to her advantage.  It's a great conversation starter.  (although I am still blaming her for our rainy weather that she brought with her 6 weeks ago.  She says it feels like home to her, so we think it's her fault. Ha Ha) We didn't have a lot of luck, but we did have a few interesting conversations.  We happened to knock on a former friend's door.  We had the names of the husband and wife.  The wife opened the door and thanks to the spirit we didn't ask for the husband.  We started a good conversation and found out her husband had passed away a year ago.  We didn't get a return appointment, and she didn't want to come to church, but we think we brightened her day and she was a lovely woman.  Then we went to a house where a man had been a potential friend, knocked on that door and asked for him.  The woman who answered told us he had passed away last fall. She wasn't his widow but was his long time live in significant other.  We couldn't believe we knocked in to two widows.  We were hoping we weren't bad luck.  It was a fun day working with these two darling sisters.

 Elk Grove Sisters

After a few hours of work, we just couldn't pass up an opportunity to stop at Leatherby's for an ice cream cone.  For the record, we shared this one!

Last year we those annoying people who completely brag about their weather, as if we had anything to do with it.  We were loving all the sunny warm days, and we are being slapped in the face this year.  We woke up and had this sleet-y/ snow on the car. We know we can't complain to our friends in Utah, but we are really ready for some of that sunny California weather we came to love so much last year.  We also got a fun visit from our former Elder Westra.  It was so great to see him and visit for a while.  I can't stop saying how much we love visits from our former missionaries and it is always so great to catch up with them.  We sure love him. 

Since the Mission President here is a former retailer, we work holidays in this mission.  So the missionaries were out to work on President's day and took their p day the next day.  As a side note, the missionaries love working holidays, especially Monday holidays.  They call them miracle Mondays because they always find so many people at home.  

Our new mission couple, Elder and Sister Chenn arrived in the afternoon on President's day.  We were so grateful they made it safely with the storms in the Sierra Nevadas.  The Chenn's are going to be working with the Chinese groups and we are so grateful to have them here.  There is much Chinese work to be done here and we know it is going to move forward with the Chenn's at the helm.  We had a lovely visit with them, and love them already.

On President's day, Scott got a lot of texts from missionaries wishing him a happy President's Day.  It was so cute, we have the best missionaries.  We got a text from Hermanas Melendez and Freeman, and Sisters Bustos and Richins asking what we were doing that afternoon around 4:00, which is dinner time.  I asked them what they had in mind and they said they wanted to meet us at Chick Fil A to take President to dinner for President's day.  We met them, but we obviously didn't make them pay for us.  It was on us.  But, after dinner they gave President this package.  A little backstory:  One of the first times I was having a talk with Hermana Freeman she told me that her brother plays football for the Denver Broncos.  I told her that President is a big Bronco's fan and he was going to be excited to hear that.  

So, they gave him this package and you should have seen the look on his face when he pulled out this Bronco jersey.  They had 'coach' printed on the back of it, and had number 19 because it is 2019. It was so darling of them to do this for him.  I told them I don't think I have ever seen him so thrilled with a gift in the 35 years we have been married.  It was incredibly thoughtful of them.  

We worked our transfer board last Tuesday.  This is a picture of our assistants, who tape their ankles every time before we work the board.  Elder Ricedorff has been our assistant since June.  We have loved having him, he has done a magnificent job training and helping missionaries and helping us. He has three transfers left and so he is going back out to work for his last few transfers. We called Elder Fischetti to replace him.  We are blessed with great mission leaders. 

 Elder Ricedorff's last supper

That night we went out teaching with some sisters in El Dorado.  They wanted some back up with a difficult friend of theirs. We were so grateful we had gone with them.  It turned out to be a man who was trying to Bible bash and convince these sisters that they were wrong.  I was glad we were there to help, but also, surprised about some of the things they face out there.  We called our son Preston after that lesson and told him he was our hero for serving in the South where he ran in to people like this all of the time.  As we returned home, this is what we saw as we got out of our car. 

We had been 'heart attacked' with bananas by the sisters serving in our ward. A little back story:  Sister Shaw and Sister Weckesser have this running banana joke with President.  One week they wanted to know if he really read their weekly letters and so they both included some random sentence in their letter about bananas.  He picked up on it and commented back to them. So since then they have had this banana joke.  We knew immediately who had 'banana heart attacked' us.  At our front door, they had written on a heart "we really like banana bread". We laughed so hard, but knew we had to do something back.  I was either inspired, or it might have been that I had a bunch of brown bananas, but the week before I had made several loaves of banana bread and put them in the freezer.  I grabbed a loaf and wrapped it up all fancy and we took it to their apartment and left it on their front porch before they got home for the night, with a note that said "We love banana bread too".  They about died laughing when they came home and found a loaf of banana bread waiting for them an hour after they 'banana attacked' us.  We received this picture that night. We had a fun time with that one!

They both got transferred out of our ward this transfer so we can move Elder Geng, who is from China, up here to cover our ward and the Chinese group.  Luckily we had already signed up to have them for dinner the Sunday before transfers, rest assured, I had banana pudding for dessert. 

It was fun having them for dinner, it was a busy day.  We had to speak in the East Sacramento Stake Conference with Elder Steven Bangerter, ran home for dinner with the Sisters and then took off for a New Member Fireside in Stockton.  I love those New Member Firesides.  There is nothing like listening to new members tell how the gospel has completely changed their lives for the better.  If we ever get frustrated, we just need to listen to a few of these new members to help bring us back to center and remember why we are doing what we are doing.  

Sister Clifford and I at the East Sacramento Stake Conference, looking like we had coordinated our outfits!

This is the only picture I got from our amazing day last Saturday.  Not to minimize this picture, it was the centerpiece from a lunch we were able to eat with Elder Holland, which I'll talk about.  But this centerpiece was made, box and everything, by a lovely woman in the Folsom Stake.  It was above and beyond and represented the love and respect members have for Elder Holland and the apostles and leaders of the church.  I was very moved by the love that was put into every last beautiful detail.  Not to mention the gourmet lunch (complete with a printed menu) that members lovingly prepared. This alone was humbling to be a part of. 

So, to the meeting... We were blessed to be able to be in a meeting with Elder Holland on Saturday.  He was here for a regional Priesthood Leadership Meeting. There were 6 Stakes included and Elder Holland, Elder Bangerter and Elder Dorius were there to train the Priesthood and Women Auxiliary leaders.  It was a spirit packed meeting and we kind of kept pinching ourselves that we were able to be there to be taught by Elder Holland.  He taught so many amazing things, but mostly the spirit was incredibly strong.  I realized that he is exactly like he is in his conference talks.  I have thought that he spends hours crafting the language of his conference talks, and I'm sure he does. But he talks that way in real time as well.  He was answering questions and throwing out his Elder Holland-isms right and left.  One of my favorites was when he was testifying of the truthfulness of the gospel and he passionately said "I have not given my life for a Fairy Tale, I know a few things, I have been to a couple of pretty good schools, they even made me the president of a pretty good school.  I've read a few books, I am not a dumb person, and this gospel means everything to me.  I would not give my life for a Fairy Tale!!!"  He also left an apostolic blessing which made me finally understand a scripture that has always had me a little puzzled.  In 3 Nephi 17, when the Savior is with the Nephites, the record says that the Savior prayed for the people and 'the things which he prayed cannot be written...'  I have always wondered why they couldn't write what he said.  I knew they couldn't convey the spirit, but at least they could give us an idea of the words he used.  As I was listening to Elder Holland leave his apostolic blessing, I just put my pen down.  I had been taking furious notes, and I just stopped.  I had the thought about this scripture.  How there is no way I could convey to anyone who wasn't there the things he said because of the spirit that was there.  I finally understood why they didn't even try to write it down because that's how I felt with this meeting with Elder Holland, and I can't even begin to imagine how it would have felt to have the Savior there praying for us.  It was such an amazing blessing to be included in that meeting.  

The Sisters in the Folsom Zone, where we live, have been asking me to join them for a p day activity this whole transfer and it has never worked out.  Three of the six of them got transferred this transfer and so I had them over for breakfast on Monday morning before transfers.  It was so great to be with them and just sit around the table and have some fun conversations.  

                    Sisters Weckesser, Shaw, Ho Ching, Maldonado, Christensen and Searle.

Once the sisters left, it was time to prepare for transfers.  Yes, transfers are upon us again and we were able to pick up 8 amazing new missionaries that afternoon.  

Sister Saole brought us these beaded leis straight from Hawaii

Round One with our first group from the Provo MTC.  President and the Assistants took this group back to the office to get started on interviews, and I waited at the airport for round 2: our Hermanas from the Mexico City MTC

I was SO grateful to Sister Mair for preparing dinner for the incoming missionaries this time.  It was wonderful to just go and pick them up without worrying about cooking and delivering food to the office prior to going to the airport.  She had a wonderful dinner waiting for us, and since it was Sister Saole's birthday, Sister Doig had made this darling birthday cake for her. 

Since there were only 8 of them, they were done early in the office and so we had arranged for them to go out teaching with some missionaries for the night.  The sisters then went to sleep at Sister Beck's home.  Sister Beck is a gem, and loves housing the incoming and outgoing missionaries.  She makes my life so much easier, I am so grateful for her. She sent me this cute picture of the incoming sisters who stayed with her Monday night. 

We had another rainy transfer day.  This is the second one in a row, and only our second rainy transfer day since we arrived here 20 months ago.  It complicates transfers a bit, but the missionaries never complain and always have smiles on their faces.  

Another delicious transfer luncheon prepared by Sister Goodwin's darling daughter, Sarah. She was inspired to serve a buffet of warm soups on a cold, rainy day.

Sister Bustos training Sister Saole                            Hermana Freeman training Hermana Hall

Sister Stillwell training Sister Prettyman               Hermana Lewis training Hermana Bretzing

Hermana Miller training Hermana Williams            Sister Weckesser training Sister Fifita

Elder Hermansen training Elder Miskin                         Elder Erb training Elder Wall

 We got them off to work, and then it was the departing missionaries' turn for pictures and a temple session.

After the temple it was off to our home for dinner and a testimony meeting.  This is really one of my very favorite 24 hour periods of our 6 week transfer cycle.  It is so fun and energizing welcoming the new, fresh and excited missionaries, and it is incredibly humbling and inspiring spending time with seasoned, and consecrated missionaries. What a blessing it is for us to spend their last night in the mission with them.  My testimony is always strengthened by theirs. 

 Elder Fischetti was a good sport wearing one of my aprons for his first time serving dinner.

Our banner is filling right up!

Sister Beck's cute picture of our departing Sisters on their final night

 Elder Shafer placed a Book of Mormon with this airport worker and also let us know he got a referral for the Chicago Illinois missionaries from the man he sat by on the plane.  Love it!!

California Sacramento Missionaries #Behappy

Elder Shafer

 Elder Jackson

Sister Eliason

              Sister Mitchell       

Sister Roberts

Hermana Melendez

Sister Richins

 Hermana Sutherland

Sister Hansen

Hermana Keller

 Hermana Singer

Sister Simonsen

Sister Root

Getting final instructions from President, and they are off.  The only thing that makes it ok to send them home is knowing the excitement waiting on the other side.  I love getting pictures of their happy reunions with their families texted to us after they have arrived home.

We also had to say goodbye to Sister Oast last week, hopefully for a short time, as she went home to heal from an injury.  We hope to have her back soon. 

And that, in a very large nutshell, has been our past two weeks.  It's hard to believe March is upon us.  Time moves at a fast pace out here, and we are loving our time spent with missionaries and members here.  We feel very blessed.