Happy Thanksgiving

We can't believe it's almost Thanksgiving.  November has flown by. We had the great privilege of going up to Oakland to spend
almost 6 hours with Elder David A. Bednar.  The first meeting was with the 2 missions that are here in the Bay area.  There were about 600 people in that meeting.  Elder Bednar talked about what it is an Apostle does when he travels all over the world.  The meetings and conferences and firesides are not the purpose of their trips.  Their purpose is to find "the one" and tell them what the Lord wants them to hear.  In his trip to California, the ones he needed to see were the two teenage boys of our mission president.  They needed to hear what he had to say as he spent an afternoon at their home. 

But Dad and I feel that he came to give us a message.  At the end of the missionary meeting, he looked right at the row of senior couple missionaries and said, "Some of you have sacrificed a lot to serve a mission.  You have been away from your families.  You have missed the birth of grandchildren, and their baptisms.  You worry about your families.  But I promise you as an Apostle of the Lord that you will do more good for your families by serving in the California mission that you could do for them at home."  That meant a lot to us.

We then had another 2 1/2 hour meeting with him and the single adults.  Both meetings were amazing.  He spent  almost the entire meeting taking questions from those gathered.  And every answer he gave was incredible.  It was a great day.  This was on a Saturday.

Then on Sunday, Elder Bednar talked at the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Oakland Temple.  He gave a brief history of how the Temple was built, and talked about the miraculous way then President David O. McKay was able to stand and dedicate the Temple.  He had had a stroke a few days before the dedication, and no one thought he would be able to speak.  He was brought into the meeting in a wheelchair.  When the time came to speak, he was wheeled to the pulpit, pulled himself up to the mike and went ahead as if nothing had happened.  He hadn't been able even to say a coherent sentence prior to that moment.  Elder Bednar was there, as he grew up in Oakland, and said it was really amazing.  The temple's anniversary is November 17th, the same day as ours, so it was very meaningful to us.

On Sunday we also had the privilege of taking an investigator to church.  Her name is Mira and she is from Bosnia.  We met her by chance when we went to visit one of our MSA sisters that we see every Friday night.  Their apartment building had been evacuated due to a minor flood, and they were across the street at a fast food restaurant.  We sat and talked to them for about an hour, and talked about the Church.  We asked her if she would like to attend church with us, and she said yes.  So we picked them both up.  We gave her a Book of Mormon, and she is coming again this Sunday.  We are excited!  We were even able to find a Book of Mormon in Croatian for her.

We spent our anniversary at the MSA Family Night watching "National Velvet".  I don't remember ever seeing that before, and really enjoyed it.  One of our members is a real old movie buff, and can tell you what movie won an academy award for any year since they began.  He also knows who starred in them, and lots of other trivia about movies and songs.  So he picked this one, as it is one of his favorites.

We met a sister on Sunday who works as a personal assistant for a local wealthy family.  She does everything for the family that most of us do on our own; shopping, cooking; running errands; house repair and organizing.  How would it be to have someone do all that for you?  She really enjoys it, too.  She started out her career as a personal chef, but likes the variety in being a personal assistant.
She served a mission in the Philippines and had some amazing stories to tell about that.

When she first got to one of her areas, she noticed that their activity rate had fallen dramatically.  She and her companion started visiting the less-actives, and found out that the reason they stopped going to church is because the wife of the local church leader was traveling with her husband to visit people and spreading rumors about everyone!  So she talked to the sister and told her she was causing a lot of hard feelings and got her to quit (I don't know how she managed that!) and by the time this missionary left, the district where she was serving was made into a Stake.  It's amazing the damage one person can do, huh?

We are excited to see Rob and Amy and their family.  They get in late Wednesday night and will be here for 3 days.  We are going to squeeze into our tiny apartment for Thanksgiving dinner, and then head down to - guess where - the beach!  Can't wait!

We hope you all have fun plans for the holiday.  We'd like to hear what you are each doing, and hopefully can talk to you by phone on Thanksgiving day. 

I don't have any pictures to share, so I'll close with this:

"Life is like an old-time rail journey - delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed.  The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride."  Pres. Gordon B. Hinckley

I'm thankful for the ride, and for each of you for making it a beautiful journey for us.  We love you.

Weeknight Chili

When I made it, I doubled it, but didn't double the beef broth.  It was plenty soupy that way.  You can also add as much heat as you want, with jalapenos or Tabasco sauce.  The regular recipe serves about 6 and doubled, 12, which can be reheated in a crock pot to take to gatherings.  I took it to the trunk-or-treat, and it was gone.

Anniversary trip

After a busy week last week (lessons taught, Elders out to dinner, meetings, firesides) we decided to take 2 days this week (next week is too busy) and celebrate our 47th Wedding Anniversary.  We went down to San Simeon and stayed in a motel right on the beach.  It was lovely.  The beach down there is gravely and dark, very different from the beaches up north.  The sea was very rough, and we sat and listened to it crash and roar.  It's amazing.  On Tuesday morning we walked along the shore and saw dolphins playing.  There were some surfers there, and they all stopped to watch.  There were also two fishermen who cast their poles from the beach. They caught 3 perch in just the few minutes we were watching.

Then we went up to the Hearst Castle for the rest of the day.  It is an amazing place.  Very over-done; the guy had way too much money.  But it was fun to see.  So many antiques, and some things that are very, very old; vases, statues, ceilings from the 17th century, some older.  Tapestries, Persian carpets - it was all beautiful and intriguing.  They have 3 separate tours, where they show just part of the castle and other buildings, but never all of it at once.  It's quite the scam (hehe).  You pay $25 to see a small part of the house.  We went on two tours and saw everything we wanted to see but the kitchen.  Here are some of the pictures I took.

We had a good time.  It was a long ride home (3hrs) but we made it, and got up at 6 this morning to help get some out-going missionaries to the airport.  We said goodbye to one of the sisters we worked with closely, Sister Ikegami.  She was born in Japan, but lived recently in Spokane, Washington, and that's where she was returning to.  Such a sweetheart!

She promised to keep in touch.  Sure hope she does.

We have written letters to most of the grandkids, just have the youngest three left.  We have been enclosing self-addressed, stamped envelopes, hoping they will write to us.  So far, no luck.  It's sure hard not hearing from our family at home.  Sigh.....

We are doing okay; keeping busy; loving the work.  We miss you all bunches and bunches.  We pray for you and think of you often. 

Another week

Well, another week has gone by, and it finally feels like fall here.  Not many trees change color, but we had a cold snap last weekend, and some rain, and that made some of the trees turn red and gold.  I actually found some pretty leaves and have pressed them.  But it's nothing like Utah, with the beautiful display we see in the canyons in October. 

We went to the beach (again!) yesterday.  Another senior couple took us to their favorite place to hunt for shells and sand dollars.  We found tons!  It was very fun.  It was low tide, and that is the best time to find them.  The only trouble with low tide is that there are sand bars hidden along the beach.  You can be walking along in the surf and all of a sudden, you can't get back to the beach because you are on a sand bar and it drops off a few feet right in front of you.  I was running away from a larger than usual wave, and stepped in water up to my waist!  I was almost swept out to sea (ok, I'm exaggerating), but it was a little scary.  I was more careful after that!  We had a nice couple of hours there, and then headed to our MSA FHE later. 

The sister who is in charge of our home evenings, Kimberly, was teaching a lesson on how to set smart goals.  She had a certain process she explained to us, and had us all make our own goals and write down if they were realistic, obtainable, measurable, relevant, etc.  At the end she asked if anyone would like to share their goal.  So a very funny fellow, Justin, (the guy who had us playing Mafia), got up and said his goal was to get Kimberly to marry him.  He then proceeded to tell us how he was going to go about it, listing how many times he'd have to send her chocolates, ask her out, do things for her, and so on, in a very funny, satirical way.  He was kind of making fun of the whole lesson, but it was so funny, no one took offense.  They are really just friends, and are good sports. Here they are:

So it was a fun evening.  They always do a pot luck dinner.  The first few months we were here, they hardly had any food to share, but the last couple of dinners there has been enough for a small army!  The guys always stop and buy a bakery dessert, and the ladies make really good soups and casseroles and salads.  So that part is great, too.  I took a lemon cake (still trying to use up those free lemons!) that is very good.  I'll share the recipe if anyone is interested.  Email me!

We sure do think of you all often, and pray for you.  Our hearts go out to Rob and his office at the loss of one of their co-workers yesterday in that terrible car accident.  That is such a difficult way to lose a loved one.  We are thinking of you. 

We know you all have your own struggles and we hope you are able to get through them successfully.  This a hard time of year for all of us for various reasons, but know that the Lord loves you and will help you when you ask.  He helps us every day.  We love the work here and are happy to have this chance to serve.

We hope your November goes well.  Let us know what you are all up to for Thanksgiving, etc.  We love hearing from you.