Lessons, 47th Anniversary, YSA Halloween Dance 

We have a new set of YSA missionaries - Sisters!  And boy, oh boy, are they on fire!  Sister Draney (from Florida) is on her last transfer, and her goal is to work as hard as she can to finish up her mission.  Sister Snow (from Farmington, UT) is about half way on her mission, and is following Sister Draney's lead.  They make a good pair.  We had three opportunities to meet them for lessons this week.

    1. Anissa - we've known her pretty much since we arrived here.  She's been taught by the Elders for some time.  She finally set a baptism date for the first week of January (I think she did this just to please the Elders).  She's a fun girl, about 19 years old.  I feel that she likes a lot of things about the Church and doctrines, but she says she hasn't felt the confirmation to know for sure.  She goes to Mexico every weekend with her family, so she hasn't been to Church.  Today the missionaries told me that she's trying to decide between two churches!  

    2. Eli - this young man seems to be a golden contact.  He loves the Lord and prays everyday and throughout the day.  He reads the Bible faithfully, so hopefully we can help him to start reading the Book of Mormon.  I love bearing testimony of my love for the Book of Mormon.  I love the Spirit I feel when we're in lessons. The Sisters invited him to Church, but he had some commitments on Sunday morning with family, so wasn't sure if he would make it.  He didn't make it!

    3. Will - he met us at the Church.  Will was baptized earlier this year, came to Church for about a month and hasn't been back.  He's a fun guy - he loves shoes!  We read from 3 Nephi 11 with him, and had a good discussion. The Sister's invited him to Church, but didn't show up.  

I know the Sister's invited others to Church as well, but none of those they taught showed up.  I'm sure they are disappointed, but that's part of being a missionary.  I think of Christ when he  went around teaching people.  Not everyone accepted him and his teachings.  He experienced a lot of rejection.

We drove up to the La Jolla Institute on Wednesday to meet with the Stringham's, a Senior couple that works with the La Jolla YSA's.  Elder Stringham is really good at finding addresses and figuring out how to get in touch withe the YSA's that we can't find.  So while he taught Stan the tricks he's learned, Sister Stringham and I had a nice visit.  We found out this week that we are going to be working with them in feeding the missionaries at some of the training meetings they have at the San Diego Mission Valley Church building beginning in December.  The Senior couples that have been doing it are going home in a few weeks. 

We celebrated our anniversary this week.  Forty-seven years ago we were sealed by the power of the Holy Melchizedek Priesthood in the Salt Lake Temple.  President Nelson says this date is more important than our birth or death dates.  Why?  "Because the very reason the earth was created was so families could be formed and sealed to each other.  Salvation is an individual matter, but exaltation is a family matter.  No one can be exalted alone."

In celebration of our 47th Anniversary, we went into San Diego to the Embarcadero where the USS Midway Museum is located.  We enjoyed a seafood dinner at the Seafood Market Restaurant next to the San Diego Harbor.  Our table was next to the water where we had a perfect view of the sailboats, Navy ships, and other watercraft in the area.  After dinner we walked over to the Midway, where we had tickets to attend a concert from the Candlelight concert series.  This is a series of concerts played by various  musicians  and genres of music at different venues in the San Diego area. They are all played by candlelight!   This particular concert was located in the USS Midway with a string quartet playing music composed by Hans Zimmer, who writes music for many of the famous movies like Lion King, Inception, and Pirates of the Caribbean and many more.  We really enjoyed the talent of the musicians (the cellist was amazing), being on the Midway, and the ambiance of the lighted candles with the lights turned low.

                                        

 

Friday evening we went to a Regional YSA Halloween Dinner and Dance.  We were trying to figure out what to do for costumes and what to dress up as - what do you think?  

Some of the young people had pretty creative costumes; the guy in the shower was pretty amazing!  There was a costume contest with $10 gift cards from In 'n Out; the Senior missionaries were the judges.  Here is a picture of some of them:

I'll end with a scripture that impressed me in my reading this week.  "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and love, and of sound mind.  Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord..."  2 Timothy 1:7-8