Aren't they cute? I stood and watched as they crossed the road from one side of our complex to the other (a very busy road), and held my breath. But everyone stopped and watched, as fascinated as I was.
We have been keeping busy. We got re-acquainted with a sister we had met about 6 months ago, Brynne. She is not a member but wants to be. The problem is, she is on probation, and is an addict. We started working with her the first time, and then she disappeared; ended up back in rehab. So she's out again, and we aren't going to teach her missionary lessons. We will leave that to the younger missionaries to do in 8 or 9 months when she is off probation. She can't be baptized until then anyway, so we are doing the 12 steps with her. She also has schizo-affective disorder, which is schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder combined. Sounds scary, but we find a lot of common ground with her. Everything we learned from our 3 years as addiction recovery missionaries is coming back to us, and we took her to a recovery meeting up by Stanford Tuesday night. They only hold 2 such meetings in all of San Jose, so they aren't convenient, but it was sure a good meeting. Walking into it was like coming home. We felt God's love there, as we did in the jail and prison all those years ago. We are very happy to be able to get to know Brynne and hope we can help her.
The ward keeps adding more people to our list of those to teach the Temple Preparation lessons to; we are up to 5. Its great, but the problem is that we are teaching them on a one-on-one basis. There aren't enough free evenings for us in the week to teach that many, plus see Brynne, but we are making it work. It's wonderful to feel so needed! It will help our last 5 months go by even quicker.
We continue to enjoy our work, and love the people. We are learning so much about ourselves, and growing in many ways. We sure appreciate the love and support from our family. We hope you are all doing well. October will be here before you know it! Thanks for the cute message on Facebook, Megan!
At the Institute dinner last night, the sister missionaries asked if they could sing for us. One of them is from Tonga, and the other from China. They performed a beautiful Tongan number for us, where they harmonized. It was amazing!
What sweet ladies! They work with the young single adults that come to the Institute, so they come and help with the dinner as well. We had about 130 there last night, as it was a special dinner where they invited the high school seniors to come and check out the Center for Young Adults, attend the dinner and a class. Everyone was thrilled that so many showed up.
We went to our favorite beach again on Monday, and took another senior couple, the Nelsons. It was freezing! Foggy, windy, cold. There was a poor little bird that was injured on the beach, and couldn't walk or fly.
We have a service project coming up on Saturday, where we help clean up the West Valley College grounds. It was the first thing we did last year just after we got here. Hard to believe its been a whole year!
Well, better get busy. Hope to hear from you all. Love you lots.
Hi Mom and Dad and everyone! I am glad to hear from you. I love seeing the baby geese. It looks so green there at your complex. We had a whole bunch of snow last weekend, which we needed badly for our snowpack. Now the weather is getting nice again, grass is greening up. Things are going good with us. Dave is super busy with work and I am too. I'm doing some QA work along with transcription now which is kind of fun. Dave keeps talking about a "hobby car" that he is going to buy for himself on his 50th Bday, which is supposed to be a cheap old car that he can have fun rebuilding and restoring for the rest of his life, but then what he is actually looking at on-line/You-Tube are these 1960s cars that have already been restored and are going for 50k or more. I think he is doing it to inspire himself...I hope. LOL. K better get back to work but I thought I better post because if I don't right away, I forget. Love y'all. T
ReplyDeleteAwww...cute little baby geese! How fun! I can't believe it's been a year. It feels like it has gone by fast, but whenever we have a family event we sure can feel your absence. Life is crazy here as usual. May is the busiest month of the year for us. Lots of concerts, assemblies and all that. Plus Alex is graduating (yay!) so we have that as well. Shawn just started nights at the jail job. He isn't sure yet if he is going to like it. I really hope so for his sake because I know he wants to find a place where he can stay that pays well. He doesn't like jumping around from job to job. But it's nice to know that there are so many opportunities for him. It's part of the reason why he went to school. It has been interesting for him working within the criminal justice system. We realized he has come full circle in a way. At the research place he worked at he worked with a lot of drug addicts who came in to participate in narcotic studies. Then he worked at the hospital where he sees many people who have overdosed or who are drug seekers. Now he works at the jail where he sees people who have been arrested for drug use and possession. In fact, he has seen one person at the jail who he recognizes from a previous study at the research facility. Pretty weird! I hope everything goes well for the sister you are working with. It's a difficult situation for people with mental illness who turn to drugs for relief. I feel for them and wish there was some way I could help people. I have thought about getting involved with NAMI but am unsure of what I would be able to do. I have felt for a long time that I could see myself doing something to help that cause. We shall see! One thing at a time, right? There will be a time and a season for that I am certain.
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