Week of September 26-October 2, 2016 (General Conference Weekend)

We have a new addition to the mission office; a jar of fruit snacks on the front counter. When our missionaries come into the office we tell them that if they can share a "fruit" of their labors with us, they can have a fruit snack. We have heard some amazing, inspirational stories from them. Even a kind of funny story. Sister Hays and Sister King were out of toilet paper and "P" day and shopping were many days away. They prayed that they could get some toilet paper somewhere somehow. They had a dinner appointment with a family that night and before the sisters left the family asked them if they could do anything for them. Hesitantly, the sisters said they could use some toilet paper. On the way home from work, the husband called his wife to say he was stopping at the store to buy toilet paper. She asked why, and he just said he felt they needed some. It was an answer to the sister's prayers.




Tuesday James stayed in bed and slept most of the day because he got a cold last weekend and it was only getting worse. The rest really helped, and he was back to work at the mission office on Wed.

Friday we picked Melva up and joined her for a lesson with Elder Rocha and Elder Jacobsen at the church. She is planning on being baptized soon. She says she feels so happy and she wants to learn everything in one day. It makes us happy to see her so happy. On the other hand, our hearts were broken and we felt so sad when Elder Bennett told us that Serena does not want them to come teach her anymore.

After our teaching appointment, we went to Victor and Isabel's house to put lds.org on her desktop on her computer and showed her what to do to be able to watch conference. Victor turned 80 on Monday, so we took him a birthday present, his mother's temple ordinance card ready to take to the temple. We figure Victor can baptize his wife or someone else as proxy for his mother. Then we took them with us to the High Priest social at the Nation's house. It was a Mexican dinner. We took pan dulce. A few days ago we were talking to Victor's relative Noe, who lives in Herriman, Utah, about their family history to try to help Victor. James asked Noe if by chance he knows Freddy Munoz, who we knew from Houston, but now lives in the Salt Lake City area. Remarkably, he does and they are quite good friends. What a small world!

Saturday we watched conference in our apartment on our computer. Sunday we went to the stake center for both sessions of conference. It was mostly missionaries with just a handful of members watching. However, the Relief Society room had quite a few Hispanic members listening in Spanish.
I loved the question President Uchtdorf asked, "What shall we give for receiving so much?" I also loved President Monson's reminder that Heavenly Father gave us the perfect plan for peace and happiness here and in the world to come. Elder Brian K. Ashton's talk on the doctrine of Christ; faith, repentance, baptism, the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end reinforced the things we are looking for and underlining as we continue reading the Book of Mormon for our 65 day challenge (27 days so far) in our mission. We will always be trying to "gear down and power up and put it in compound" as Elder Carl B. Cook told us. (He is coming to visit the California Bakersfield Mission in about ten days.) James especially liked Elder Quentin L. Cook's talk about stumbling blocks that we see people encounter and get caught up in like philosophies, extremes, and not acknowledging sin. Then Elder M. Russell Ballard talked about similar things like not letting doubts and questions you may have push you away from the church. He said to "have faith to believe".

The Hispanic members carried on their twenty-five year tradition of having a potluck lunch at the church between conference sessions. I took Italian Chicken Pasta salad. (As I was making that big bowl of salad it almost felt like I was making food for a family dinner.) They invited all the missionaries also. They asked James to say the blessing.

                                                             These are our substitute "granddaughters", twins Grace & Jaylene Martinez. They are seniors in high school competing to be the valedictorian and salutatorian 

     Nora & Vicky Urbina from Guatemala

  ?, ?, ?, Vicky, Nora, & Melva (investigator)

It was such a nice, cool (76 degrees) day that we ate our dinner (zucchini bread and drink) on our little front porch. How do you like our fancy chairs ($5) from Walmart?

THE LORD LOVES YOU AND SO DO WE!

Week of September 19-25

This was another great week. Monday the temperature was 104, but on Thursday, the first day of Fall, we enjoyed a beautiful day at only 77 degrees. It was a refreshing 57 degrees that morning when I took a walk.

They had the trees on the property of our apartments trimmed and really thinned out. The trees look kind of sad now, but I guess in the end they will grow better. The problem is that some of the limbs were hanging in front of a light outside our bedroom window, but no more. What used to be kind of a soft night light like light coming through the window blind is now like the noonday sun. Well, not quite that bad, but you get the picture. Sadly, they cut one tree down entirely.

James has had quite a week of dreams. One night he screamed loudly and meanly, "Get off of that!" Later that night he was talking out loud in Spanish, but I don't know what he said. He woke up Friday morning asking me if I had seen the rain pouring down. He swears he looked out the window and it was pouring rain. I told him there was no rain and he was just dreaming. When we left the house that morning I did point out a puddle on the sidewalk to him and he felt better. (It was from the sprinklers, but he doesn't have to know). Friday night he was fighting a war and running up a hill to get behind some buildings to avoid getting shot at when "thump"  he was on the floor by our bed. At least we had moved the nightstand so it was not there to knock his head on. I guess we are going to have to move the bed next to the wall so he can't fall off.

Tuesday we had 22 new missionaries arrive in Bakersfield about noon. They were suppose to come on Monday, but their plane was canceled for some reason. President and Sister Layton and the AP's picked them up at the airport and brought them to one of the churches. We had pizza and salad waiting to feed them. Then they went through the orientation stations - finance, vehicles, health, and contact info - we had set up for them to sign papers and get their missionary medical card, money card, and kiwi (driving) cards. Then they had their pictures taken with President and Sister Layton and group pictures. After that they went into a meeting to learn about vehicle safety, housing, medical info, etc. It was fun to meet all of them. One Elder's first name is Eli and James sang him a few lines from the song "Eli's Coming", which of course he had never heard of and probably thought Elder Porras was a little looney. At 5:00 pm we all had a nice dinner at the President's house. The 9 Elders who had completed their missions and were leaving the next day were also invited to dinner. We will miss them.

One day I got a call from a Colorado number I did not recognize. It was sister missionaries asking me if I could accompany them to an appointment at 4:00. It took me by surprise for a moment until I realized they were in Colorado from the Pinery Ward probably going down the ward list. I told them I would except I was in Bakersfield, California serving a mission. I think that took them by surprise.

Thursday evening we took Ingrid and Bruce out to dinner at Red Lobster to celebrate her birthday. We had their four course dinners. It was delicious and fun.

The next evening we met President and Sister Layton and the mission staff at Wool Growers for dinner to thank Elder Moyce, the mission doctor, who is soon to be released for his service. That was an experience. We had about a ten course dinner served family style, which included a cabbage vegetable soup, beans, salsa, bread, tomato salad, green salad, spaghetti, French fries, pickled tongue, lamb, chicken, or beef, and ice cream. Wool Growers is a Basque restaurant that has been in Bakersfield for sixty years. Originally, the Basque people reared sheep in the Pyrenees mountains that run between the border of France and Spain. A group of Basque people settled here when they came to the US.

This week we also went on another teaching appointment to see Serena. She still loves the Book of Mormon and thinks it is pure, but she has been reading some anti-Mormon stuff and has lots of questions and is confused. We also met Vickie and Nora Urinda at the Family History Center to help them get a LDS account and log into FamilySearch. They are sisters from Guatemala who are single and live together and are so sweet. Vickie is the oldest in their family of eight siblings and Nora is the youngest with twenty years between them.


One day as we going to get in our car to go to the mission office a lady was out there and said, "Thank you for your service". We thought that was nice and were on our way. Then another day James was out by his car and a man was getting in his car and said, "Thank you for your service". We finally figured out they were thanking James for his military service, not us for our mission service.

Saturday James participated in the Stake Golf Tournament. He went with Bob Ritchey, the mission housing coordinator, and his son. He said it was fun, but he did not have his best game because he has not golfed for a while.

I listened to the Spirit and invited Serena to go with me to the General Women's Broadcast. I knew she doesn't believe in going to church on Sunday, so I thought this would be a good opportunity for her to go to a church like activity on Saturday. She accepted without hesitation and thanked me for asking her and taking her. I think she felt the Spirit there as I did.  Pres Uchtdorf's talk on Faith was so inspirational and uplifting.

On Sunday we picked up Melva, an investigator, for church. There were several other investigators in attendance as well. Mary, another investigator, came back this week with one of her daughters, her husband, and a grandchild. An additional set of Spanish speaking missionaries joined our ward, so now we have two sets of Spanish speaking elders and one set of English elders. James taught the lesson in High Priests.

It was fun to FaceTime with most of our family tonight. They were at Troy and Crystal's where they had family dinner. They admitted they did not sing our song, "Families Can Be Together Forever" before dinner, so we all sang it together over FaceTime. They had us on their big movie screen. We felt like movie stars!

Something I have really tried to do every Sunday is say my prayers with only thankfulness, no asking for anything or any help. It helps me to be aware of all the blessings I do have and it feels good!

THE LORD LOVES YOU AND SO DO WE!

Week of September 12 - 18

We were given more zucchini from Jilleen, a lady in our ward, as a thank you for fixing a hole in her skirt. This time I made zucchini carrot cupcakes and took them to our Tuesday staff meeting. It took a while to bake them because I only have one cupcake pan. They were a hit!

We had a lot of missionaries come and go in the office on Tuesday and Wednesday because President Layton was doing interviews. Two came hobbling in on crutches. Elder Casper tore some ligaments in his foot playing Frisbee and the other Elder hurt his hip jumping on a trampoline. Boys will be boys! It was fun to visit with all of them. I decided that instead of just idle chit-chat I would ask them, "What is the best thing that happened today or in the last few days?" Elder Duncan told me about how a dragonfly kept circling around him and almost landed on his finger. It reminded him of where he grew up and all the dragonflies there. Another elder was excited about his 90 year old investigator who came to church. One elder turned the question back around to me and asked, "What was the best thing that happened to you today?" The first thing that came to my mind was the cool, refreshing air this morning and how we opened our patio door and let it in. It was so nice.

Both Tuesday and Thursday afternoons we picked up Melva, an investigator, and took her to the church where we met Elders Rocha and Toluta'u for lessons. They taught her about The Restoration and about Chastity and The Word of Wisdom. She said she feels so peaceful when she is around all of us and at church. On Thursday, she said she had not had a cigarette all day. She gave the prayer at the end of the lesson. Even though it was in Spanish, I could tell it was very good and natural to her. James agreed.

Friday, we had the opportunity to go to the Los Angeles Temple with the nine missionaries that will be departing soon. Pres & Sister Layton, Matt & Patti Morris, and the Assistants also went. We took pictures, had a chapel session before our endowment session, and ate lunch at the temple.When we were in the Celestial Room, one of the workers came over to me and asked if this was a group of missionaries. I said yes and that we were from Bakersfield. She thought James was their mission president because of the way he was going around talking to all the elders. I told her we worked in the office and pointed out President Layton, who was also visiting with some of the elders. Next to being in the temple with our own family members, this was a great experience being in the temple with these young elders who have served the Lord so well these past two years. Even though we have only known them a short time, they almost feel like family. It was a tender mercy. It was a great day!                     

Elder Nicholes, 4th from the left, is from Heber City, Utah and my cousin, Jay Niederhauser, was his Bishop and then his stake president. He is thinking about going to Utah State University.  

It takes a little over two hours or more to drive to the temple depending on the traffic. The Los Angeles Temple is the 2nd largest temple. The largest temple is Salt Lake City.

Elder Porras likes to play around with the missionaries. He has a good relationship with all of them. These four are the Assistants to the President. They are in the office several times a week, so we get to see them often. (Elder Rojo, Elder Holmgren, Elder Porras, Elder Tasi, Elder Larsen)

I made another batch of zucchini carrot cupcakes on Saturday. To keep from eating them all ourselves, we took plates of cupcakes to three families we went to visit Sunday afternoon after church.  First, there was Serena, an investigator, and her husband. She was busy helping her cat give birth to kittens. Then we visited April, a new convert, and her boyfriend. Lastly, we had a nice visit with Victor, who was baptized about two months ago, and his wife, Isabel, who just had skin cancer surgery on her face.

We have noticed that most of the streets in Bakersfield are very wide. They must have taken notice of streets in Utah cities .Some parking lots at schools, churches, movie theatres, etc. have covered parking spaces to help shield from the sun and heat I guess. Most of them also have solar panels on top so they are doing double duty.

THE LORD LOVES YOU AND SO DO WE!

Week of September 5 - 11

This week started off celebrating Labor Day, the unofficial end of summer. It is also a day to celebrate the American labor movement and the contributions that workers have made for our country. The week ended remembering all of those who tragically lost their lives fifteen years ago on 9-ll. It was also a day to celebrate our granddaughter's, Chloe, 18th birthday.











We left the office for a couple hours on Labor Day to attend a barbeque at Hermana Medina's house. It was a perfect day for a picnic under the shade of a tree in her yard with her children and other ward members.









Early Tuesday morning, even before the crack of dawn, we were out in the garden along with the Balls helping Don plant the fall and winter crops. Those are snow peas along the trellis.

Tuesday at our weekly meeting, President Layton said, "We are fighting a war. The adversary is very active." He told us he was going to issue a challenge to all the missionaries to read the Book of Mormon in 65 days. He said the Book of Mormon was translated in 85 days, but the actual translating was done in 65 of those 85 days because of things that were going on. We are joining in the challenge. As we read, he suggested we look for and underline doctrines of Christ like faith, repentance, baptism, and the Holy Ghost

Wednesday night we ate at the Nation's (he is the High Priest Group Leader and she was just released a few months ago from seven years as the Stake Relief Society President) house along with the Spanish elders in our ward. The next evening we joined in the monthly potluck dinner at the clubhouse for the residents here at Scenic River Villas.    FYI: we have yet to see a scenic river anywhere around here.

On Friday morning we went with the Balls for a tour at South Valley Farms. SVF is an affiliate of the church in their farm lands program. They have 38,000 acres planted with 3.6 million almond trees in about ten varieties. It was so interesting to see the whole process and what they do. It is harvest time so we got to see the machines shake the trees for about six seconds and all the almonds fall to the ground. In about a week a sweeper machine sweeps them to the center of the aisle. Then a vacuum type machine comes and picks them all up. Then they are transported to the plant where they are put in huge stacks until they are processed. They go through many different shaking, blowing, and pounding stages to clean all the husks, dirt, rocks, and twigs off them and finally the shells. They sell most of their product overseas to places like Japan and China. It is quite an operation. I don't think I will ever look at an almond the same again!

                      

Saturday, on our "P Day" we went to Wasco for their 49th annual Rose Festival. Wasco is a small town about thirty miles northwest of Bakersfield where 55% of the roses grown in the United States are grown there. They had a fun parade and their lst annual car show in the park after. James loved that! There were even two blue '58 Chevy Impala's, but they were not as nice as ours. Then we took a bus tour out to the huge rose fields. The roses were so colorful and amazing!

I made two fleece blankets for Project Linus. The Community Make-A-Blanket day was the same day as the Rose Festival, so I just made them at home. James was so kind to model them.

THE LORD LOVES YOU AND SO DO WE!

Week of Aug 29-Sep 4

Does this blog look any different or any better? Well it should. We have a fancy new All-In-One computer. Our old laptop that we brought with us was giving us trouble and about ready to die. We also got a free TV and printer with the deal. We bravely left the TV in the box and put it away in the closet. We figured we have survived without TV this long, so we will be better off without it the rest of our mission.

We have officially been on our mission for two months (1/6th of the time) already because we entered the MTC on July 4th. One thing that we constantly remind ourselves about is "It's not about me; it's about thee!" It is easy to think "I did a great job today" or "I'm so smart I figured that out", but then we need to remember why we are doing what we are doing and why we are here. It is all about bringing souls unto Christ.


We met Elders Rocha and Tolata'u at the Family History Center along with Kimberly, a recent convert, and her cousin. We helped them get on FamilySearch for their first times. They all got so excited when they saw their names and their parents on their family trees. They entered their siblings information and thought it was so cool. We told them now they need to get names and dates of their ancestors to build their trees backwards.

This week we also went with Elders Bennett and Olsen again to teach Serena. She has read more in the Book of Mormon and loves the way it makes her feel. She accepts what she is being taught. However, she still is not ready to worship on Sunday.



The other day on a walk to the park I saw this sweet chalk drawing. We all need faith and hope.




Anytime we get a chance, we love to show off our pictures of our family and grandchildren and brag a little!

Friday night for our date, we went back to Taft to their monthly car cruise. There were not many cars, but it was fun to walk up and down the street and see what an event it is for the locals. Next to showing off pictures of his family and grandkids, James loves to show off pictures of his old cars, especially with people who appreciate them. He got the chance to do just that. We enjoyed our yummy frozen yogurt treat sitting on a bench watching the cars go by.

Saturday night we attended the baptism of Julio Dominguez. He is a wonderful man that is so thankful for the church. He is enthusiastic and often agrees with what the speaker says by an audible "amen" or "thank you brother". We sang "Amazing Grace" for the closing hymn. When was the last time you sang "Amazing Grace" at church? James loved it. It took him back to his old Baptist days.

Today, Sunday, it was only 84 degrees in Bakersfield! What a lovely break! I heated the oven up and made zucchini cake from some zucchinis that Jilleen from our ward gave me as a thank you for sewing the broken handles back on her bag.

THE LORD LOVES YOU AND SO DO WE!

Week of Aug 22-28

We have had a cool down here. Last week the temperatures stayed at 99 degrees or below. This is suppose to continue for another week. For some reason most people mow their lawns very short almost scalping them. We don't know why.
We have been buying flowers every week to brighten our apartment up and give it a little decoration.

A couple times I have forgotten my name tag. I almost feel naked without it. Our name tags have become part of us. We wear them on the left side over our hearts because we are called and set apart representatives of Jesus Christ and the name tag helps us remember who we are and what we represent. Of course, our name tag lets others know who we are also. One day last week we went out to lunch at Habit (a hamburger place) with some of our co-workers. When the young man at the counter saw our name tags, he got excited and told us he has been investigating the church.

Our mission had zone conferences on Tues, Wed, and Thurs of the last two weeks. We attended our first zone conference on Thursday. It was great! Look at those smiling faces of the missionaries in these two zones. It seems like the missionaries are always smiling and full of pep and energy. President and Sister Layton taught the missionaries about preparing people for baptism and confirmation and enduring to the end from a mission president's seminar that Elder Renlund gave. He said, "If we find those who will receive us, we will build up or establish the Savior's church." We all learned how to do a direct approach, teach & testify, and invite.

Sister Gallacher (on the left) is from Highlands Ranch, Colorado. Her stake president is Ralph Walker who I went to high school with. Her dad called the mission office the other day to inquire about something, and we discovered he knows our son, Tony, and used to do business with him.

We went with Elders Olsen and Bennett to visit Serena. She was a self referral and is a very spiritual person. Years ago her father found some scriptures (a triple and a Book of Mormon) in a case on a bench. He gave them to her. She read some of the Book of Mormon back then, but got confused. A few weeks ago she contacted the church. The missionaries visited and gave her another Book of Mormon. She has already read to Jacob and says she believes it and feels pure and close to the spirit when she reads it. She has a strong belief about not worshipping on Sunday because she believes that it is a pagan practice. Nonetheless, we invited her to go to church with us and hope she will call. She did call and said she didn't feel ready to go to church on Sunday yet. She said she is looking forward to our next visit though. James has been out with the missionaries several other times, but this was my first time to go. It is amazing the spirit the elders have and how they are able to answer her questions. James also goes to visit members with the High Priest group leader and has given a couple blessings recently; one to Jilleen Bingham and one to John Drake, who was in the hospital.

Friday two new missionaries arrived from Mexico. Elder Jarmillo is from Monterrey and Elder Velveer is from Puebla. They have been serving in Mexico City for the last six months waiting for their visas. Everybody was thankful that James can speak Spanish and was able to talk to them and help them get oriented to the mission here and fill out the paperwork.

It is weird not to have visiting teaching and home teaching assignments while we are on our mission. That has been part of our lives forever and will be again when we get back.

THE LORD LOVES YOU AND SO DO WE!

Week of Aug 15-21

Wow, we have already been our mission for a month! We are feeling more comfortable in our roles and jobs. James has been spending a lot of time on the phone talking to the Elders and Sisters getting their driving info into the computer correctly, figuring out who has what car, scheduling oil changes for them, etc. Talking to the missionaries is a real blessing to him. He is very good at engaging them in conversation. He says he can feel their spirit coming through the phone. He took the Assistants, Elder Tasi and Elder Holmgren, out to lunch one day last week. I have been helping Sister Ball go through the file drawers in the front office, organizing the files and labeling them, and throwing out the old stuff. I also enter the convert baptism and confirmation records every week in the computer. I love doing that. I almost feel like I know them after I enter their name, birthdate, place of birth, address, parent's names, spouse's name and birthdate, marriage date and place, children, etc. It is interesting to see if they are the only member of their family or feel the joy that their family must feel if they are members. Our mission averages six to seven baptisms per week.



We found out that one of our missionaries, Elder Allen, is from Aurora and knows Gaby. James was talking to him the other day about his car. Then the next day he called and asked me if I knew Gaby Porras. I said that she was our granddaughter.

I had the thought to compare our mission to a great play. The play would not be great if it did not have all the people behind the scenes doing their jobs. We feel like we are some of the people behind the scenes helping the mission run smoothly so the missionaries can do their great work in bringing souls unto Christ. Our personal mission scripture is D&C 64:33 which says, "Wherefore, be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work. And out of small things proceedeth that which is great."

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Two mornings this week we went out early and helped with the garden at our complex. One of the residents, Don, took on the project of a garden a couple years ago. We helped him pull out the old plants and weeds to get it ready to rototill and plant for a fall garden. We miss not having a garden this year, so it was so fun. We'll take another picture in a few months when it is planted and growing.

We have good Christian neighbors here and everyone is very friendly. In their conversations they say things like "The Lord really blessed me . . ." and "Have a blessed day".

Friday, for date night, we went to the movie, "Florence Foster Jenkins". It was a very good movie based on the real life of Florence, played by Meryl Streep, who was a rich wanna be singer in New York in the l940's. Her husband, Hugh Grant, called her "bunny" and "bunny rabbit". We couldn't believe our ears since we call each other "bunny" and James calls me "bunny rabbit" sometimes. What are the odds!

Our P-day is Saturday. We usually do the washing, clean the apartment, get groceries, and then try to do something fun. Last Saturday we drove 35 miles to Taft. We drove around and walked around. They have a cool oil workers monument and a very nice, interesting Museum, West Kern Oil Museum. Many movies have been made in Taft including Thelma & Louise, Five Easy Pieces, and Too Young to Die.

We have been trying to exercise more regularly, but it is hard to get up and get going when you don't have someone else keeping you accountable, like when we would workout with Troy and Crystal. We go to the fitness center at our complex sometimes or just exercise in our room. I have gone for a walk a few mornings. Sadly, the calluses on the palms of our hands are nearly disappearing since we don't do kettle bells anymore.

Everything in Bakersfield is covered in a layer of dust because it is so dry and then the wind blows the dirt from the fields and empty lots. It is terrible. Also, we have noticed there are no big temperature signs on banks or other buildings like most towns have. I guess they don't want to scare people with the numbers. Last week we were between 100-106 everyday. Something else kind of unique about Bakersfield is that it is a U-turn town. There are small medians on most of the roads so you can not pull out and go left. You have to go to the next stop light and then make a U-turn and go back the other direction.

THE LORD LOVES YOU, AND SO DO WE!