2 weeks

A few pictures from our very fun tour and lunch at Facebook

 This is the first building on the campus.  It's like a small city.  They provide for every need their employees have; at least a dozen restaurants, dry cleaning, hair salon, gym, masseuse, bike repair shop, you name it.  But of course, they expect them to work 24/7!  But our friend Ben loves it!  He drives a Tesla, so I'm sure he is also paid very well.

 This is a vending machine where employees can enter their code and get any supplies they need for their job

 

 The walls in the office buildings have amazing artwork on them

 

 This is Ben, the MSA who works there and invited us to take a tour.  A really great guy!

 This is one of the Lego walls.  They provide the Legos and the employees can "draw" whatever they want on this board.  The largest one was so amazing, but we couldn't take a picture of it because there were workers there, and their screens are confidential.

.We then drove to Oracle's home base.  Dad wants to take pictures of all the major Silicon Valley companies.  He thinks the grandkids will be impressed!

 

 

We had another appointment that afternoon up near these places, and afterwards, it was about 5:00, and we didn't want to drive home at that time, so we went to a bird refuge up by the Bay.  It was pretty, but their weren't any birds!  We were hoping to see egrets, or something, but this must not be the season for them.  So Dad just took a picture of his favorite "bird"!

 

On the Monday before, we were having lunch at Costco while getting some pictures printed for my scrapbook, when a bunch of Elders showed up.  The older men in the background are a group that meets there for hotdogs every Monday called the "ROMEO" group.  "Retired Old Men Eating Out".
They buy the Elders their hot dogs if they are there at the same time.  Nice people, and very fun to talk to.  I think Dad will want to start his own ROMEO group when we get home.

Our temple day last week with Claudia was amazing, and we have another one today.  Such great experiences!  Love you all.  See you soon.



3 weeks!

Wow!  We'll be starting to pack up the car 3 weeks from today, and head out on October 1st.  No need to repeat how fast it has gone, or how fast those 3 weeks will fly by!  We're excited, family.  It will be so good to be back home, but know that we will be homesick for this place for awhile.

These last two weeks have been busy and fun.  On August 29th, we went with some other senior couples to Half Moon Bay and saw the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve.  We went at low tide and got to look in the tide pools.  We didn't see any starfish because they have been killed off by a virus, but got to see other interesting things.  This is a picture of a sea anemone and you can just barely see some little crabs.

This is a little girl who was burying her brother in the sand.  Cute!  I didn't get any other pictures (sigh).

Then that Sunday we had our fireside.  It was fun to reminisce about our mission and tell some of the things that have happened, and talk about the people we have met.  We put together a slide show of the MSA and their activities that went over well.  We had lots of positive comments after, and really felt their love.  It was a great night.  I got lots of pictures but for some reason they are not showing up on the link here on the blog.  Wish I had a grandkid here to help me find them! 

Anyway, that next week we had some great visits, did our last mission leadership council luncheon, where they sang "Called to Serve" to us (cry, cry), and on Sept. 5th we got invited to another senior couple's home to watch the BYU/Nebraska game.  Wow!  That was exciting (at least the last few minutes were!)  Later that night a couple who's calling is to help the MSA took us out to dinner.  They are Kristin and Blaine Bowman, and they have become good friends.

 

We also had a great night Wednesday at the institute of religion in San Jose, where we go every Wednesday to help feed the hungry young singles.  Here we are with Vivik, a recent convert from India, who is a very sweet man.  We now know 4 people from there who have all told us if we ever get to India, we can stay with their families, so I'm thinking we ought to go some time, right?

These are some of the Elders who come there for dinner.  Two of these are twin brothers from Vietnam.  Excellent missionaries and very sweet young men. 

The couple in the middle here are the Nelson's who are over the dinners and other activities there and have become good friends, and the couple on the right are new to the mission and will be helping out after we leave.  They are the DeGraf's and have a son who is deaf, so work with the ASL members here.  Great people! They are both from Utah so we think we will be able to keep in touch in the future. Next to me is Ceidy, a young adult who suffers from depression, and we have become close.

Yesterday was the Labor Day barbeque.  It was a resounding success!  We had lots of new people come, and were able to get to know some of them.  I have never felt more comfortable at an event with lots of people!  They truly felt like family.  It was great.  I took lots of pictures, but of course can't find them.  Dad just fiddled with my phone, so I am going to post this and then get back in and see if they show up.

No luck, but here are two Elders that we love.  Elder Barbosa on the left helped us with our outreach last year, and has been such a strong example and hard worker.  He had a knee injury last year and had to go home for a few months for surgery and recuperation, but came back out.  Then he crashed his bike and hit his shoulder into a street post and caused a compound fracture.  He had surgery again, and is on the road to recovery!  Can't believe what he's been through.  He is amazing.

I could go on and on about these great kids, but I'll save that for when I see you all again.  I'll try to get one more blog in, about our day at Facebook, at least 2 sisters who will be receiving their endowment, and our trip to San Francisco on the 22nd to see an opera!  We also have more member dinners we've been invited to, so our dance card is full!  It will be a great last few weeks. 

Love you all so much!

I'll try another tack.  Barbeque pictures:

 

Volark and Rene man the grill.

 

 Chris, Elder and Sister Holt, who are taking our place (yay!), Brother Call and Bishop Cole

Sister Call and Irma

So much to do, so little time

Hi again - I figured I'd better record some of our adventures of the last three weeks, since they have been so full.  We visited a really old Japanese garden in Saratoga on August 3rd.  It was the first traditional one in North America.  It's very pretty.

It doesn't have all the "bling" of the gardens in San Francisco, but is more reserved, patterned after older traditional gardens.  Fun.

We traveled with a mid-single up to the temple again.  It has just re-opened, and we were excited to see the changes they had made.  We couldn't tell what they had done!  They are putting in a new water feature in front, but hadn't completed that yet.  Here we are in the Visitor's Center

Then we traveled to Monterey once more with the Busks, a senior couple who work in the mission office.  We went to say goodbye to the Fairhursts, who are military liaisons for the church on the military base there.

We delivered some things to the missionaries that serve in Seaside, whale watched, and had a great day.

On Saturday night of that week, one of our mid-singles got married, so we went to his reception with Claudia.  It was so fun.  We got to dance, and sat and watched our MSA dance for 2 hours!  Claudia didn't want to leave, so we actually got Dad to stay for the whole thing! 

They are a very sweet couple.

For our FHE that next Monday, we wrote letters to God.  We were supposed to tell Him what we wanted for the next  year, and make commitments to Him, write these things down, and keep the letters for a year and then see if we had been successful.  It was a very craftie activity, and I was surprised how many of the brothers got into it.  It was fun.

The next week, we saw the guy from India that had been here last year.  He has since married and moved to San Jose, and he decided to look up his old friends in Saratoga, and introduce his wife to everyone, so he showed up at church.  We said we wanted to come and visit them, so they invited us to dinner.  His wife is an amazing cook; she served us a chicken curry, fruited rice, a very spicy vegetable dish, and herbed potatoes, with a custard for dessert.  We got there at 7, talked to over 2 hours, and started dinner about 9:30!  I didn't think I would sleep that night, but I did, and the evening was so wonderful. 

They told us about their marriage.  It was an arranged marriage, which about 80% of people in India still do.  They only saw each other 4 times before they were married, and one week after their wedding, she hurt her knee, had surgery, and was bed ridden for several months.  It has been very hard on their relationship.  They looked for the church in India, and were able to attend and have some more missionary discussions there.  They are going to resume their lessons here, and have been coming to activities.  They are a great couple, and invited us to visit them in India when they return.

 

Their names are Sirshindu and Parometa.

Our days have been very full.  We have a long list of people to visit before we come home, and have kept busy with that, we've started to pack, and people suddenly want to have us over for dinner, so it's been a whirlwind.  We met a guy who works for Facebook, and he has arranged a date to take us on a tour of the facility, and to eat lunch there next month.  We are very excited for that.  His girlfriend was baptized last Saturday.  She is from the Ukraine, and her name is Tanya.

That was an exciting day and she is very happy.  We think they will tie the knot in the near future.
Those sweet missionaries taught her.  Elder Li is from China, and Elder Jenson from Highland, Utah.

We got to bear our testimonies at the outgoing missionary devotional last Sunday.  It was a great meeting, and we are sad it's the last one we will attend.  The spirit is always so strong, and we love being with those young missionaries. 

We are looking forward to our return, but it will be so hard to leave our friends here.  We will miss them so much, and miss the beautiful weather and the ocean, etc.  But life goes on, right?  The next weeks will be very full and will go by very fast!  Hope all is well with you. 

Love you all!

2 more months

As usual, time is going by too fast.  We are trying to get in one last visit with each of the mid singles in our ward.  We feel so close to them, and love them so much.  We took one sister to the Sacramento Temple last week to do baptisms for the dead, and it was a wonderful experience.  She has made so much progress, and we have seen her learn to handle some huge stresses in her life.  She recently had her car stolen, and her mother has colon cancer, with this sister being the only family member available to care for her.  A year ago, either of those circumstances would have put her in the hospital because her mental health has been so fragile, but she has gotten so strong, she has handled those experiences really well.  Dad and I both feel like she is the main reason we were called to serve in San Jose in the mid singles ward.  It's very rewarding.

Last Saturday we went to the Spanish Branch's open house where they had tables with displays from the countries of their heritage, and food and costumes from them as well.  We tried a lot of different foods, most of which were quite spicy!  But one taste of chili I had was so good, I couldn't stop eating it even though it was hot!  Here are some cute kids making music, and some of the costumes and displays.

Such nice people

 

Last Sunday we had a fireside, and it got 2 of our mid singles to pose with me for a selfie, with another photo bombing it!

 

This is Brook and Debra, with Janelle in the back.  Love it!

We met Paul and Linh at their home in Hayward, where Linh once more fixed a wonderful Vietnamese meal for us

Doesn't that look good?  We don't know if we will get to see them again before we leave, but it has sure been great getting re-aquatinted. They seem very happy.

We did lunch for the missionary leadership again yesterday.  Taco Salad.  We served 60, and bought enough pre-made taco meat for 160.  And guess what?  They ate it all!  We think they starve all week, and then try to eat enough to get them through the next week!  But we sure do love them.  They are so full of energy and faith.  Here are some of the Sister Trainer Leaders, and the other senior missionaries who came and helped us in the kitchen. 

There will be a lot to miss out here, but we are also anxious to be home with our family again.  I hope you are all having a great time at camp, and am glad there were medical people there for Cailee when she fell on her bike (and non-medical family who supported her).  Hope she is recovering; thanks to everyone for taking such good care of her.  Glad she was able to get to an Instacare and get stitches and such.  What a brave little lady! 

Happy Birthday to Tracy.  Hope you have a great day, and a fun trip to Seattle.  Post pictures!  That goes for all you campers also.  If not here, at least on Facebook, k?  We love seeing what everyone is up to.

Bye for now.  Next post will say "one more month!".





We're still here!

We haven't gone away - just been busy.  It's a good busy, and we are enjoying our time here, trying not to get too trunky!  I hope these blogs haven't gotten too boring.  I enjoy sharing our experiences and hope they are being read. 

We had 3 dinner invitations in one week a while ago.  That's amazing! We are friends with two brothers, the Karrens, and their wives, who are sisters.  They are great couples and they both invited us to have dinner with them, along with the young Elders and Sisters who serve our ward.  Both occasions were lovely, and we taught a single sister and her son a temple lesson after one of the dinners.  Then another single sister that we work with invited us for that Friday.  People here are great!  And the Karren ladies are super cooks, so we had some wonderful food.

We spent another P-day at the beach the end of June.  A guy was doing a sand sculpture, and this is what he ended up with

 

I guess it's a self portrait (?!)

 

 

We both got sunburned that day.  It was the warmest, sunniest day we have had yet at Sunset Beach, and I found tons of sand dollars.  Don't know what I am going to do with all of them.

 

Dad went to a doctor out here about his medicines (our Dr. back home was getting funny about calling in his prescriptions), and he had his Shingles diagnosis confirmed.  He is feeling much better now, and his hip injury is improving also.  We both are feeling our age, and I wonder if it has something to do with the cheap mattress we are using here.  We need to buy a new one when we get home, so if anyone has any ideas on a good brand, let us know.

 

We have served lunch to 55 missionary leaders twice in the last week!  We had pizza one day and pulled pork yesterday.  They are sure fun to be with and serve.  Here they are, posing and going through the food line

 

                                              

Such great kids.

For the fourth, we drove up to Fremont and met Paul at Olive Garden Restaurant for dinner.  We tried to see him and Lin on Paul's birthday in June and couldn't make it, so it was nice to be able to take him out.  Lin got stuck at the hospital and couldn't come, but we had a great visit with Paul.

Then Tuesday night, Bro. Call called and asked if we would like to go with him and his family and office staff (he's a dentist) to a Giant's game in San Francisco.  We had a bunch of stuff to do and people to see, but we re-arranged our schedule so Dad could check that particular event off his bucket list!  We had a great time.  The stadium is amazing, and the Calls took us around San Francisco to some sites we probably wouldn't have seen on our own.  We then had dinner at an Italian restaurant in Little Italy, with the best (authentic Italian) pizza we have ever eaten!

 AT&T ballpark

 Dad eating the obligatory hot dog

 Me and Sister Call

 You can barely see the Oakland Temple up on the hill to the right

 At the Cable Car Museum

 An amazing old cathedral

 

At Coit Tower

 

Needless to say, we had a great day. We got to meet the Call's son, Don Jr., who lives in Taylorsville with his second wife.  His 2 boys and their mother live in Riverton.  So naturally we asked where in Riverton they live.  He said, "Right across from Riverton High, in the little gated community there."  Really??? So we got their address, and they are 4 houses down from us in one of the townhomes!  We remember now meeting the oldest boy, who is about 16.  Isn't that amazing?  It will be fun to have a San Jose connection when we get home.

 

We're going back to the city next week for Dad's birthday.  He wants to see an art exhibit of one of his favorite artists at the de Young Museum, so that's what we'll do.  We're actually getting so we can find our way around that huge, sprawling metropolis.  We are going to miss it.

 

So that's what's new with us.  We'd love to hear what's new with all of you.  Love you all so much.