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.