Week of June 12 - 18 (Father's Day)

We worked at the mission office all week as usual and had things going on almost every night.

Monday night was a going away party at the Bishop Butler's back yard and pool for the Farleys who are moving to Idaho. We stayed for awhile and then went to Family Home Evening at the church. There we watched a video on "The Plan of Salvation" and discussed it. Then we played "Signs".

Tuesday after work we met the four Spanish speaking Elders from our ward at Hodel's Country Dining to treat them to dinner. It was Elders Thomason, Stewart, Solis, and Atkinson.

We attended the Bakersfield Zone Conference on Wednesday. All four Bakersfield zones were in attendance, so it was a pretty big group. President and Sister Layton focused their teaching on "Faith to Find". It is important to focus on faith instead of fear. When we obey and are all in, our faith grows. Obedience brings blessings, which increases faith. God provided miracles in the Old Testament days to the help the people of Israel gather to a promised land. The gathering of Israel in these the latter days is the culminating event of the world, so we should expect guidance and miracles from God. Several missionaries shared their favorite story from the Book of Mormon that is an example of faith and miracles. We learned that faith involves action, doing, and work. 

Wednesday evening we ate dinner with Elder Solis (Chile) and Elder Atkinson (Hyrum, UT) at Melva's house. She and her mother fixed foods popular in their home country of Panama. We had empanadas filled with ground beef, yucca, potato salad with peas and beets, rice and chicken, cantaloupe and papaya. It was all very delicious. After dinner, we took Melva and her mother to the hospital to visit Nilka, Melva's sister. She had been in the hospital since Monday afternoon with a bad infection in her intestines. She has to be really careful with health issues since she had a liver and kidney transplant eleven years ago.

Thursday afternoon, Nilka was released from the hospital and I picked her up and took her home. They do not have a car. On my way back to the office, I had an accident! I was making a U-turn in the middle of the street and a car came out of nowhere and hit our car on the passenger door on the driver's side. It was scary and left me shaking. I don't really know whose fault it was, but we think it was the guy in the other car. Thank heavens, he was very nice. We exchanged information, but did not call the police. The side of our car has some pretty good dents, but since VW is buying our car back in less than a month we won't be getting it fixed.  His car did not have much damage. We'll see if his insurance company contacts us.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Friday night was date night! We double dated with Tim and Nancy Layton to Outback Steak House where we had a good dinner and conversation. All of us except President Layton had changed to our casual clothes. He said he only likes to get dressed once a day.

The first heat wave of the summer started on Saturday with a temperature of 103 degrees. Bakersfield will be in the 100's (up to 113) for at least the next nine or ten days. That is all the further my phone shows. We beat the afternoon heat by watching two movies in the nice air conditioned movie theatre. We saw "My Cousin Rachel" and "Megan Leavey". Then we drove the thirty minutes to Weedpatch to see what is left of Weedpatch Camp. It was built in l936 to house migrant workers during the Great Depression and later farmers who came during the Dust Bowl looking for work. These migrants were known as Okies and were discriminated by the locals. The plight of the Okies and a description of Weedpatch Camp were written about in John Steinbeck's book The Grapes of Wrath. There are only three buildings remaining from the original camp; the community hall, the post office, and the library. The Weedpatch Camp continues to assist and house migrant workers.

Sunday was Father's Day. James enjoyed all the calls from his kids and grandkids and being spoiled more than usual!

The Staheli's from our home ward were in Bakersfield yesterday and were hoping to see us. They left  a message on James's phone, but he didn't see the message until today when we got home from church and they were already in Los Angeles. Darn it! Their son, Jonathan, served in this mission a couple years ago and he was showing them around Bakersfield and the other areas where he served.

THE LORD LOVES YOU AND SO DO WE!

Week of June 5 - 11

Family Home Evening this week was about the price our Savior paid for us. He went thru pain and agony to pay the price of atonement for each one of us, and it is up to us whether or not we accept his offering and sacrifice. It was an object lesson that made an impression on everyone. The price of having a donut was 5-10 pushups. Elder Solis agreed to do the pushups for each person who wanted a donut. Even if you did not accept the donut, he still did the pushups. It was a fun activity to make a great point! We also had birthday cake to celebrate Hillary's 22nd birthday.

Ingrid Ball and I started Boot Camp again this week at the park. It is on Tuesday and Friday morning for four weeks. Everyone is young mothers except for us, but we are holding our own. On our walk back home the other morning my foot kicked something on the sidewalk. I looked down and saw a metal object. I picked it up to see what it was, and of all things it could have been, it was a kids CTR ring!

Guillermo Alvarez from our ward and Spanish Group has taken an interest in helping James with his family history. He loves being a family history detective especially in Spanish records. He has spent hours looking thru baptismal and marriage records on line and has found a few of James's ancestors. He found Victor Porras's (great-great grandfather) baptismal record which has his parents names on it. That was exciting! We took him and his wife, Miriam, out for dinner. Miriam is from Guatemala. They have twin daughters and seven grandchildren. The one daughter's family lives in Texas and the other daughter's family is in Japan with the Navy. We are so lucky to have most of out family nearby! He showed us this five generation family group sheet he made on leather bought from the area of Mexico where he is from. It is about 4 ft X 6 ft. Pretty impressive!

Saturday morning we attended Bakersfield Stake 4th Annual Pioneer Picnic at Pyles Boy's Camp next to Lake Ming. Thankfully, it was an unusually cooler day (75 degrees). They had all kinds of fun pioneer activities like; rope making, hatchet throwing, leg wrestling, stick pulling, marbles, stilt walking, and gunny sack races. There was a continuous program on the stage; pioneer ancestor stories, singing, skits, dancing, and cello playing (Jayline). We even went on the stage with a few other missionaries that were there and some young people soon to leave on their missions to sing "Called to Serve". There was also had lots of good food; scones, watermelon, beef (wrapped in foil and burlap bags in the ground on top of smoldering ashes and covered in dirt for about 15 hours), baked potatoes, and pies. We took Sister Hall and a couple of her six children home after. Someone else took the rest of the kids. Their "home" was a room in a rundown motel in a rough part of town. It made you want to cry and certainly count your own blessings.

Later in the afternoon we attended the baptism for 17 year old Max Walden. His twin brother, Matthew,  was there to support him. He is also taking lessons from the missionaries. After Max was baptized, he talked for a few minutes saying how he has been blessed since he first walked in the church and felt the spirit there. Max and his brother live with their grandmother who is blind and has many health problems and their two little cousins who they take care of. He said it was one of his little cousin's birthday and they didn't have any extra money to celebrate, but somehow they were blessed with some money to have a little party for him. They were so happy.

THE LORD LOVES YOU AND SO DO WE!

Week of May 29 - June 4 (Memorial Day)

We have passed by this house many times because it is across the street from Sound Waves where we have the Tiwi's installed in the new mission cars. We always noticed the memorial they had and wondered what it was all about, so on Monday we stopped to take a picture of it. It is quite an impressive, permanent memorial to the armed forces.

Monday, Memorial Day, we welcomed 7 new missionaries to the Bakersfield California Mission. Five of those missionaries flew into the airport from the Provo MTC at noon and the other two came from the Mexico City MTC and did not arrive until about 3:30. We fed them lunch (Chinese sundaes, rolls & fruit-watermelon stars & blueberries and strawberries) and gave them their orientation.

 That evening, after the other two missionaries had arrived we had dinner at the Mission Home with all of them.

President & Sister Layton, Elder Moon, Elder Pitcher, Elder Spunagle
Hermana Ruiz, Sister Reed, Sister Pankratz, Sister Willyerd

Monday later in the evening, we went to Family Home Evening at Hermana Medina's house. Monday was a big day!      

The next day we made lunch again for the new missionaries, their trainers, and the departing missionaries also. There were 32 of us. We had our standard baked potato bar, sweet potatoes, salad, and fruit.         

That evening we had dinner again at the Mission Home with the 6 departing missionaries who leave early Wednesday morning. We had Chinese food in honor of Sister Kuang. Actually, Sister Kuang is from Taiwan. She gave us a lesson on how to use chopsticks and the proper way to eat the food. The lone elder going home is Elder Markwalter from Missouri City, Texas. His grandmother is not a member of the church and was very opposed to him going on a mission. She tried to talk him out of it by saying he was making a bad mistake and he should focus on his schooling. He invited her to church to hear him give his talk before he left. After the meeting, she told him, she now understood why he was going. Well, about a year later he sent the missionaries to visit her. On Saturday she will be baptized by her grandson, Elder Markwalter!    

Wednesday evening we attended West High School graduation to see Grace and Jayline Martinez graduate. Grace is the valedictorian and Jayline is the salutatorian in a class of 393 students with only three hundredths of a point separating them! Grace gave the "welcome". We sat by Philip and Karla Lewis, my Logan High classmate, who were also there to support the girls. Karla is their cello and violin teacher. Both of the girls received some more scholarships, so now they have enough grants and scholarships to cover their first year at BYU with some left over for the next year. Grace, Jayline, and their mother were on the early morning KGET news. It was a nice story about twins graduating at the top of their class, their love for education, and how they have inspired their mother to get an education also.

We met  a very interesting, nice man who was sitting in front of us at the graduation. Mr. Grasso will be 100 years old in August! He was pretty spry getting right up several times so people in his row could get in and out. His mind was sharp as a tack and he loved to talk. He served in World War II. He started smoking at 14 and quit at 65 only because it was getting so expensive. He worked until he was 90 when his kids made him quit. He drove until he was 97 and his kids made him stop. He said that was okay because he knows his reflexes aren't quite what they used to be. He worked as a cement contractor all his life. He recently was asked and put up a flagpole at an elementary school near where he lives. He is pretty amazing and looks like he has quite a bit of life left in him!

Friday many of the elders who came into the office were sporting flower ties. I commented how pretty they were and I was reminded it was "floral Friday". I took a picture of Elder Kent and Elder Werrett when they came in to bring their monthly mileage report.

On our P-day Saturday morning, we got up early and left at 6:00 am for a day trip to Death Valley National Park. The park is about four and a half hours from Bakersfield. It is one of the hottest places on earth and holds the record for the highest recorded temperature in the world of 134 degrees on July 10, 1913. It has mountains that are about 5,000 feet high and also has the lowest point in North America at 282 feet below sea level at Badwater Basin. Only about eighty-four miles to the east/southeast is Mount Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous United States at 14,505 feet.  Death Valley National Park has sand dunes, salt flats, minerals, volcanic rocks, colorful mountains, etc. It was stifling hot! At Furnace Creek Visitor Center it was 113 degrees about noon. It got up to 118 degrees a few hours later. Wow! We drank a lot of water as was advised. In several places along the road we felt like we were on a roller coaster ride with all the dips. It was kind of fun. We really enjoyed seeing another part of this beautiful world that was created for us to live on.

High on the mountain straight ahead of us we could see a big sign "Sea Level". It was kind of weird to be so much below that. 

President Carter, our stake president, was at our Spanish Group Sacrament today. After the meeting, he asked James if he could translate for him in temple recommend interviews. James said yes, and he did three of them. That was a good experience for him since it had probably been twenty five years or so since he had been a branch president and had the opportunity! President Carter thanked us for our service and wished us well in case he didn't see us again before we go home.

THE LORD LOVES YOU AND SO DO WE!

Week of May 22 - 28

We ate dinner in the "wine cellar" at Frugati's with our Mormon senior dinner group. It was a lovely place to have dinner and we were not required to drink wine thankfully.

James had to suspend driving privileges for two of our missionaries. When they get too many Tiwi violations like speeding or aggressive driving he gets an email from Salt Lake and has to take action. Elder Steel took it well, but Sister Harmon hung up on James twice when he was informing her and trying to explain it to her. Sister Harmon only has one more week before her mission ends.

This week I finally submitted our 2016 Mission History to the church. It was less than two months late; "better late than never"! I have been working on it for several months and then had to wait for other people to submit their contributions and give the okay. Then it was quite an ordeal getting it all in the proper electronic form to submit to Salt Lake. The Church History Department emailed back that it was received, processed, and submitted. Then we had a couple copies printed up at Office Depot. It is 140 pages.

Friday we had a staff potluck luncheon at the mission office after our staff meeting. Sister Layton shared the scripture, Jacob 6:3 "And how blessed are they who have labored diligently in his vineyard..." She and President Layton told us all how much they appreciate what we do and they would not be able to do their jobs without us. It is nice to be appreciated! We talked about the plans for the new missionaries coming Monday and those leaving on Wednesday morning. We discussed the transition for the new senior missionary couples that will be arriving June 23rd and later in July. We talked about the rash of car accidents lately and discussed ideas to help the missionaries be more safe and responsible. President Layton said the Zone Conferences will have to be longer since there are no more Zone Training Meetings to give the Zone Leaders time to train their zones. Then we got talking about baptisms. I asked the question, "What is the average number of baptisms for our missionaries?" President Layton said it is about 2.2 baptisms per year per missionary. California is on the low end, as are most missions in the United States.

Saturday morning, we drove to Arvin (about 30 minutes south) to the Bakersfield National Cemetery. Along the way we passed field after field of grapes, fruit and nut trees, onions, and other produce. Bakersfield National Cemetery opened in 2009 and is nestled in the foothills of the Tehachapi Mountains. It is a very peaceful and tranquil setting. Service men and women were directing where to park and they directed our car right to the front of a row instead of all the way back where we thought we were going to have to park. We figured it must have been due to our "Disabled Veteran" license plates. We arrived just in time for  the very moving and patriotic Memorial Day program. We sang the National Anthem, said the Pledge of Allegiance, listened to a couple of speakers, enjoyed Taps and a rifle salute. The program ended with a helicopter that served in Viet Nam flying in and circling above us, stopping, and bowing its nose. James said he remembers that sound of the helicopters when he served in Viet Nam. It was a welcome sound when the helicopters were bringing the mail, supplies, or new servicemen. It was not such a welcome sound when a helicopter flew in to pick up the wounded or the dead bodies. After the program, we were handed an armful of flags and got to help place an American flag at each of the headstones. We walked among the headstones reading some of the names and inscriptions. We noticed a woman standing by a headstone for a long time who was crying. We found out it was her sister's headstone who had died in Iraq a few years ago. We talked to another woman whose husband is buried there and she will be buried beside him. She pointed out to us that the spouse's name and info is engraved on the back of the headstones. She also told us about the significance of the coins left on some of the headstones. This practice dates back to the Roman Empire, but became popular in the United States during the Vietnam War. A visitor might leave a penny if they knew them, a nickel if they were in boot camp together, a dime if they served in the same platoon, and a quarter if they were close friends who served together or were together when the deceased died.

We left the cemetery and drove to Tulare, which is about 65 minutes to the north of Bakersfield. We met my friend and her husband, Helaine and Henry Lopez, at Apple Annie's for lunch. We have been friends for 60 years! She and her parents moved to Logan and she walked into my 1st grade class on March 17, 1957. They only lived in Logan for a couple years before they moved to California, but we have stayed friends all these years. They live in Fresno, but will soon be moving to Modesto to be near her only daughter and first grandchild. Before we parted ways, I gave Helaine a Book of Mormon with my testimony written in the front and some scriptures underlined. She thanked me. That afternoon she thanked me again for the Book of Mormon when she sent me a text about how she enjoyed our time together.                            (Apple Annie has quite the toothy smile and red lipstick!)

After church we took pictures with Elder Cruz and Elder Labrum who will be transferred out of our ward on Tuesday. We will miss them!

Top:  Elder Cruz, Elder & Sister Porras
Bottom:  Melva Arce, Sister & Elder Porras, Elder Labrum

THE LORD LOVES YOU AND SO DO WE!

Week of May 15 - 21

We had a short lesson about "Faith" at Family Home Evening tonight. Sister Hall, a single mother of six cute kids, said she has to have faith everyday to be able to take care of her family and raise her kids. Sister Medina shared that she has a strong faith that Heavenly Father will be with her when she needs His help and then she acts and goes forward. She had an example of just that last week when she took her hard earned money she saved all year and went to the flower markets to buy flowers armed with the faith that her good intentions, purpose, and hard work would pay off and bring results. It did. They were able to make the money to feed her daughters next year in college. Then we played "Mafia" for an activity. We had cookies and mandarins for a treat thanks to Elder & Sister Porras.

Wednesday morning we got up super early, drove to LA airport, and flew to Denver. Our flight was delayed more than four hours and we would have been late for graduation, so we bought tickets on another airline that got us to Denver earlier. We took a "leave of absence" from our mission for four days to attend our granddaughter's, Jackie, high school graduation. We were also going to attend another granddaughter's, Chloe, graduation, but as it turned out she was not even there. Chloe was already in the Dominican Republic with ILP (International Language Program) for the summer. Delane picked us up at the airport. We were surprised as we were walking out of the airport by Ruby, our four year old granddaughter, coming up behind us and taping James on the leg. We thought they would be at the arrival pickup area in their car. That was fun! Then we went to the school to pick up Delane's two boys. She hadn't told them we were coming, so it was a big surprise to them when they opened the car doors and saw us! You should have seen their shocked faces! It was kind of weird, but very exciting to walk back in our own house after ten and a half months of being away.

It was so nice to be at Jackie's graduation and see her family. The graduation was moved up two hours because of the bad weather coming in. It did rain during part of the graduation ceremony and was cold and windy. We enjoyed dinner at Mt. Fuji with Troy's family after the graduation.

Thursday morning we woke up to snow! It snowed all day and into Friday. We probably got about six inches of heavy wet snow and the temperature was only in the 30's. However, it was kind of fun to find my boots and have a chance to wear them.

Savy (in pink) with her project mates and their project.

We were able to attend Savy's science fair, spend time with Melissa, go bowling with Tony's family, shop with Nadezda and Amelia, play UNO with Greta, watch a movie with Troy's family, watch videos Ivaras made, go mudding in Austin's jeep, and just spend quality time with most of our kids and grandkids. (Sierra was in Logan, Chloe was in Dominican Republic, Mark, Robert, and Martin  live in  Prague, and Janel was in London, Gaby was there thru Wednesday and flew back to Hawaii Thursday morning.) James enjoyed seeing how the restoration of his '68 Corvette is coming along. I enjoyed pulling a few weeds.

Saturday morning we had a family breakfast for everyone at our house. We sang "Families Can Be Together Forever" before Cesar blessed the food. We loved every minute of being with our family and catching up on all their comings and goings and news!

Troy took us to the airport early Sunday morning for our return flight back to Bakersfield to finish the last six weeks of our mission. There was the longest check in line that anyone had ever seen. It snaked back and forth in front of the counters like usual then went to the end of the building, turned the corner past the bathrooms, turned the next corner, and went halfway down that hall. We were in line for about 1 1/2 hours. The flight was delayed about 40 minutes so all was well. Anyway, it gave us time to visit with our neighbors in line. There was a sweet girl going to Orlando for work for the week. She just got married five months ago. There was another very nice young couple going to Cancun for a vacation. They are Mexicans who live in Denver. They speak both Spanish and English, but James mostly spoke Spanish to them. We talked about family. Her mother came from Mexico  to stay with their two small children. They showed us a picture of their kids and we got to show them a picture of our family. We gave both the couple and the working girl pass along cards.

THE LORD LOVES YOU AND SO DO WE!

Week of May 8 - 14 (Mother's Day)

We had another fun Family Home Evening at church with the missionaries, some members, and some investigators. We took turns reading from the Book of Mormon. I read my scripture in Spanish, believe it or not. Everyone clapped for me even though I know it wasn't very good. For the activity we played "Minute to Win It". We had to put an Oreo on our forehead and try to get it in our mouths without using our hands. It was hard! A couple people were pretty good at it. We all laughed a lot.

I had an experience that showed me the Lord is in our lives and aware of what we are doing and what is going on. A couple of missionaries came into the office inquiring if we had a Korean Book of Mormon. I looked in the cabinet where we have some Book of Mormons in other languages besides English and Spanish. There was not a Korean one, so I ordered a couple. I noticed what a mess that cabinet was and decided to organize it and label the Book of Mormons with what language they are. I also found a bunch of pamphlets in other languages. Just as I was about to finish the project and close the cabinet, some other elders came in to check on a name badge. Elder Chamberlain saw what I was doing and got so excited to see the Hindi Book of Mormons. He said there are quite a few Hindi people in Wasco where they are serving. They had just talked to one the day before. So they took three Hindi Book of Mormons and a stack of Hindi pamphlets. Pretty cool how that all worked out!

FYI we have the following languages of Book of Mormons on hand: Abdiel, Arabic, Armenian, Afrikaans, Cambodian, Chinese, French, German, Hiligaynon, Hindi, Indonesian, Igbo, Marshallese, Maya, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Russian, Samoan, Swedish, Tagalog, Thai, Tongan, Ukrainian, Yoruba, and Vietnamese. 

James had a "tender mercy". His lawyer friend, Richard Olona, called to tell him he was about to be sued. It just so happened that Richard works for a big asphalt company as their lawyer. He was asked to sue Pak-One, LLC for an unpaid bill. So he called to tell James he was about to file a lawsuit against our company. After researching the situation, James found out it was for some asphalt work done at two of his Wendy's parking lots after he sold the business. David See, the new owner, said they had paid it. However, that company subcontracted it to another company and never passed on the payment to them. Thankfully, it got sorted out. What are the odds the lawyer who was going to sue was Richard. The Lord does know what is going on in our lives and blesses us.

Speaking of blessings, we were promised in our setting apart blessings from President Lyman that our family would be blessed because of our sacrifice and service of serving a mission. We were wondering if you, our family, have seen blessings in your lives or the lives of your families this past year that could be attributed to our promise. Please let us know.

Friday morning we drove to Los Angeles. You never know how long it will take because the traffic is always bad, but sometimes it is really bad. It is always amazing for us to see the sea of cars and be slowed to nearly a standstill. There are old cars, new cars, semi's, trucks, small cars, big cars, expensive cars, and junkers, but we are all in the same boat. However, it is legal for motorcycles to drive between the lanes of traffic. Sometimes they nearly scare the socks off you as they come roaring out of nowhere and go whizzing by so closely.

We attended the Los Angeles Temple with six missionaries who will be departing in a couple of weeks. Sister Harmon was suppose to come with the group also, but she was sick and stayed in Bakersfield. In our chapel session a counselor in the temple presidency spoke to us. He said that on most tombstones the birth date and death date are separated by a dash. That dash represents our life on earth. Even though that dash is just a flash in the eternities, how we live our lives here is very important and will determine our destiny. He said the Lord has prepared many mansions in heaven. (John 14:2, D&C 76:111, Ether 12:32) We are preparing where our own mansion will be by the service and sacrifice we do on this earth and by the covenants and ordinances we make and keep.

Elder Markwalter, Elder Larsen, President & Sister Layton, Sister Kuang, Sister Pincock, Sister Martineau, Sister Badger

Sister Medina had her annual Mother's Day flower sale this weekend.  It is a family affair with her daughters and son helping. They also sell flowers on Valentines Day. They live on a corner lot and she puts her little white trailer out front where she sells from. On Sunday her son, Danny, and his cousin set up another stand on a busy corner a few blocks away. Danny said he was a little scared when two police cars showed up and the policemen searched them for weapons. The police said they couldn't be there. So Danny called his mom and she came over with the permit. All was well and they didn't end up in jail thank heavens. Each year they have a purpose in mind for their flower sale. One year they bought a car. Another year they made the money to send Grace to Stanford for a summer program. This year they want to make enough money to cover the food costs that Grace and Jayline will need at BYU next year. We went to help support them and bought  five flower arrangements. We dropped them off at Melva's, Isabel's, Ingrid's, Martha's, and brought one home for me.

Saturday evening we attended the baptism for Lori Lampo. Ernie Lindle from her ward baptized her.
He is originally from Wellsville and we had a nice visit with him. Bishop Little welcomed Lori to
the ward with his testimony and advice to "look for ways to lift others. It will strengthen you and bless
their lives." Lori has been investigating the church for over a year and finally decided it was time for
her to make the commitment. It was a wonderful baptism.
She wanted a picture with all the missionaries that were there.

Sister Layton, Elder & Sister Ball, Sister Kuang, Sister Hutchinson, Lori, Sister Hogge , Sister Boyer, Sister & Elder Porras, Elder Salvesson, and Elder Fry

Being a mother is one of my greatest blessings! All I every wanted to do was be a mother. When I was young I didn't even think ahead to the added blessings that grandchildren would bring. Sunday James made me breakfast, ham and eggs, and he and Elder Ball cooked dinner for Ingrid and me. I broke my chain of 55 days without sweets or desserts by enjoying chocolate covered strawberries our Bishop made for the women in Relief Society. It is so nice to be pampered!

THE LORD LOVES YOU AND SO DO WE!

Week of May 1 - 7

This week in Bakersfield gave us a taste of the hot weather to come. We had a couple of 90+ days, Wednesday it was 101, Thursday 103, and then Saturday we got relief with 63, and lastly it was only 71 today with rain last night.

Monday evening we went to Family Home Evening/Book of Mormon class at our church that the missionaries in our ward started. Only people from the Spanish Group showed up, so it was in Spanish. We took turns reading the first chapter of the Book of Mormon, Nephi 1, and discussing it. Even though Nephi 1 is the most read and reread book in the Book of Mormon, it is always good to read it again and see what insights you can gain. Then we played "Signs". It took us and some of the others awhile to catch on to the game, but we all laughed a lot and had a fun time together. It is going to be a weekly event.

Elder Hulet, Elder Labrum, Elder Atkinson, Elder Cruz, Elder Hathcock, Elder Thomason

Tuesday we went to the Los Angeles Temple and took Melva Arce, who was baptized about six months ago. We left at 6:30am and picked up Melva's niece, Marian, in Altadena (next to Pasadena).

Traffic getting to Los Angeles was a solid sea of cars as usual.

Elder Jacobsen (he baptized Melva)  and Elder Labrum  along with Brother John Olsen, from our ward, met us at the temple visitor's center. Marian stayed there with all the sweet sister missionaries who took good care of her while the rest of us went into the temple baptistery. They showed her around the visitor center, introduced her to the church, gave her a Book of Mormon, and got her contact information. Melva was so excited and nervous! She took five family names to the temple. She was baptized for both of her grandmothers  and  Elder Jacobsen

was baptized for both of her grandfathers and her father. Elder Labrum did the baptizing, James and Brother Olsen were the witnesses and did the confirming after. It was an emotional and spiritual experience for all of us, but especially for Melva. She said she was thinking about her grandmas and when she came up out of the water she could feel them with her. Her heart was beating so fast, and yet she said she felt such peace and comfort. She said the temple was so peaceful! We took pictures by the temple and took Melva and Marian just inside the beautiful, huge temple doors to see inside and feel the spirit. A group of departing missionaries from the Los Angeles Mission came in just then and Elder Labrum was blown away when he saw someone he knew. They stepped outside for a minute to take pictures. She was a high school friend and is a friend of his girlfriend. We said our goodbyes to Brother Olsen and the missionaries. Then we drove to Alhambra, another Los Angeles suburb, where we had lunch at the Diner on Main. Marian and Melva got to visit some more. Marian used to live there and had some business to take care of, so that is where we left her. It was a very nice day for all of us.

Elder Jacobsen (Preston, ID), Elder Labrum (Ogden, UT), Marian, Melva, Sister Porras, Elder Porras, Brother Olsen

Wednesday Grace and Jayline Martinez turned 18. We dropped by to tell them "Happy Birthday" and drop off birthday bags. They bags contained a microwave potato bag and a couple of sweet potatoes. They love potatoes, but have never had sweet potatoes.

Of course, we went out for Mexican food on Cinco de Mayo at Senior Pepe's Restaurant. James had beef fajitas and I had caldo de polo (chicken soup).
YUMMY!

Saturday we went to two baptisms. The first one was for Areda Tallon, who is about 60 years old. She had to be baptized three times because the first two times her leg kept coming up out of the water. The second baptism was for Jackson Wells, an eight year old boy. His mother, Lisa, was baptized last December. They are in our ward.

Bakersfield has roaches. We had heard that, but had not seen any until a couple months ago. Then we started seeing a few in our apartment. Thankfully, they are not the "Texas-sized" roaches we used to see in Texas. They sprayed our apartment and we haven't seen anymore lately. Bakersfield also seems to have quite a few spiders. We have seen a few in our apartment and more on our little patio.

THE LORD LOVES YOU AND SO DO WE!