Let God Prevail, YSA Institute & party, Cactus flowers

 Greetings!  This week the storms have subsided and life has gotten pretty much back to normal - as we went through the storms of the past several weeks, we saw how the media blew up the impact!  For the most part, the rain had a fairly minimal effect on San Diego, with the exception of a few areas where the drains got plugged & caused some water damage.  So..... we were just fine!  Our week went through its fairly predictable cycles with preparing dinner for the institute, district council with the Missionaries, & Mission Prep class.  We did have a couple events where our help was requested by our Institute director, so Thursday night we helped with a Seminary & Institute night especially for the youth, where BYU & Utah CES people came to play some games with the kids enticing them to consider the value of taking Seminary & Institute.  Their objective was to help kids become "disciples of Christ" by taking advantage of Seminary & Institute.

Our Institute instructor, Brother McKay had an inciteful discussion about being accountable & having unity, asking "How does more accountability to God change our relationships with others and provide greater unity?"  As we become more accountable to God, we draw closer to Him, and become more "one" with Him - this process allows us to become more unified with our brothers & sisters in the Gospel as well. 

 He also reminded us of Russell M. Nelson's discussion of the meaning of "Israel" found in his Conference talk October 2020:

"With the help of two Hebrew scholars, I learned that one of the Hebraic meanings of the word Israel is “let God prevail.”⁴ Thus the very name of Israel refers to a person who is willing to let God prevail in his or her life. That concept stirs my soul!

The question for each of us, regardless of race, is the same. Are you willing to let God prevail in your life? Are you willing to let God be the most important influence in your life? Will you allow His words, His commandments, and His covenants to influence what you do each day? Will you allow His voice to take priority over any other? Are you willing to let whatever He needs you to do take precedence over every other ambition? Are you willing to have your will swallowed up in His?"

God is doing His work to gather each of His lost sheep.  In Sacrament meeting on Sunday, we heard from a returning YSA member who had a prompting that he was missing out on something important in his life.  While shopping on Sunday someone said something about the Lord's Sabbath day & it pricked his heart.  He googled the Church and found out that there was a Chapel  just 5 minutes from his location.  As he came to Church, the spirit confirmed that this is where he should be - he had an answer & his heart was softened.  Where ever we are in life, we must remember that it can be so much richer & better as we "let God prevail in our lives!"

Our Mission Prep class started up again and we actually had 8 people come (the students had voted to continue the class). We had a "Kahoot" (interactive game) on our review of last weeks lesson on the restoration that the youth seemed to have a lot of fun with!  We then brought together a panel of 5 full time Missionaries - 3 Sisters & 2 Elders so that the youth could ask them any questions that they had regarding full time Missionary service!  The Spirit was very strong during class, so we felt good about what we were teaching!  God is serious about His covenant to gather Israel again.   It turned out to be a successful night.

Saturday night was a big YSA institute party held at the San Diego Institute.  The directors went all out to invite all the High School Seniors and YSA's to enjoy Grilled cheese sandwiches with specialty cheeses, pulled pork, bacon, buffalo chicken, guacamole, pesto, etc and homemade churros.;  games featuring Mini-golf, ping pong, pool, stand up an empty coke bottle with a ring on the end of a string tied to a fishing pole, popping balloons by throwing darts, baseball throw to knock down stacked cups, dancing, basketball free throw game machine,

etc!!  Quite a shindig.

Signs that spring time is coming are happening already with some pretty flowers showing up on the cactus:

Lastly, Debbie had a birthday this past week!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY!  Debbie has been a great blessing to me & to all that know her - WE LOVE YOU!

 Bayside Park, Safari, Dixie, BYU International Folk Dancers, Mission Prep Class

One of our favorite things to do as Senior Missionaries is to join with the young missionaries for their lessons.  We were invited to a lesson Tuesday afternoon after District Council.  We have met the missionaries at various locations for lessons, so we are never quite sure where we'll be meeting them.  This time they told us to meet them at Bayside Park.  We had never been there before, so we put it in the GPS and away we went.  It ended up in a location just like the name says; right next to a Bay!  I thought to myself that these missionaries are sure blessed to be able to teach in such a gorgeous location.  

                                                Stan and I next to the Bay!

We really enjoyed the lesson.  The Elder's taught a lady named Leilani.  She has been investigating the Church for a couple of years, but whenever she got close to baptism, something happened.  She has had a hard life, but she is filled with a love for the Lord and His teachings.  The Elder's challenged her to set up a baptism date, and she scheduled it for March 2.  I hope it happens for her this time.  She really is a golden contact.  

For Valentine's Day, we met a few other Senior Couples at the San Diego Wildlife Safari.  We had fun walking around enjoying the animals, the beautiful plants, and just hanging out with some of the other Seniors.  

My sister, Dixie, flew in  Thursday evening.  She had a conference on Friday and Saturday, but we were able to spend the evening with her and then take her to the airport on Saturday.  Thursday evening we enjoyed a yummy dinner at a middle eastern restaurant called Istanbul, and then went to the Balboa Theater downtown San Diego and enjoyed the BYU International Folk Dance team performance.  We enjoyed talking and being together.  When we picked her up on Saturday, and on the way to the airport we drove up to La Jolla Cove.  We only had about 30 minutes, but we were blessed to find a parking place and enjoyed a short walk to the shoreline to see the famous seals on the rocks.  It was great being together. 

The Mission Preparation class that we've been teaching Sunday afternoons has kept us busy with preparations.  We thought today was our last class, but last Sunday the Stake President asked us if we would consider continuing the class on a regular basis.  So we will forge forward creating more lessons from Preach My Gospel.  Today for our "final" class, the youth prepared short lessons with questions and scriptures to do role plays teaching the full-time missionaries who were acting as their "Friends".  I was walking around listening to each of the groups, and I realized how important this is for those who want to serve a mission.  Most of us read and study and learn about the Gospel, but don't have too many opportunities to teach it.  This practice that they are getting now will help them in the future as they go to the MTC to prepare to serve a mission.  

Mission Tour of General Authority Seventy - Elder Ojediran

Greetings!  This past week, we had the opportunity to have a special zone conference with Elder Ojediran, a general authority seventy from Africa, who toured our Mission.  He met with half of the Missionaries on one day & the other half on the next day. 

Elder Ojediran had a number of inspirational messages for us during the 2 hours that he spent teaching.  He asked us:  Who has invited us to serve on a Mission?  Christ.  Who will watch our grandchildren while we are away?  Christ.  We are on the Lord's errand & we should go in the power of our ordination - we should be who the Lord wants us to be, so we should let God prevail in our lives.  He told us that there is no better place for us to be, than right here, right now - so we must learn to enjoy the moment and learn to love where ever we are assigned to serve.  

He made some interesting parallels between his assignment as a general authority and our assignments as Missionaries:

• He doesn't decide where he is to live
• He doesn't decide what his assignment is,
• He doesn't decide who he serves with,
• He doesn't decide what language he speaks, and
• He doesn't decide whether to wear a suit on a plane!

Likewise as Missionaries:

• We don't decide where we labor,
• We don't decide what our assignments are,
• We don't decide who we serve,
• We don't decide what language we speak, and
• We don't decide whether to wear missionary attire!

The Lord is at the helm, so we get to serve where He desires!  We do get to decide if we are going to trust Him and His will for us, as manifested by His prophets, seers, and revelators!  We strive to bring others to Christ through covenants and ordinances - it is never about us - Jesus is the light!  When we accomplish something good, it is because the Lord has been merciful to us - it is for the Glory of the God.

Elder Ojediran gave us some great things to think about!

We had our usual weekly YSA family home evening, providing a meal for the institute class, District Council with the Young Missionaries, teaching the Missionary Prep Class, & various other meetings, but we had a new opportunity to invite one of the nice pickleball couples that we have met to have lunch with us in our little apartment during the week.  After lunch we had the opportunity to teach them a little about the restoration of the gospel & introduce the Book of Mormon.  They are both Methodists, but they like hearing messages about other religions, so we gifted them a personalized copy of the Book of Mormon & highlighted the introduction as well as Christ's visit to ancient America.  They said they would start reading it, and would enjoy coming to see what one of our worship services is like!!

I think that some of the most rewarding and fulfilling things that we do, are to help teach people about God's plan of happiness & help bring people a little closer to Jesus Christ!

Sushi, Charades, Pure Love, Angelica's Baptism, "Graduation" for a couple of YSA's

We began our week with a Zone P-day; Sushi , Sports and Games!  Sister Matsushita is from Japan.  Since she is experienced at making Sushi, she taught us all how to make Sushi. I didn't think I liked Sushi, but what I ate was really good!  The STL's (Sister Trainer Leaders) also made a birthday cake for everyone who has a birthday in February; there was a pretty good group of us February birthdays.  We all played games and sports after we ate.  Elder Hardy taught a group how to play "Knock-out".  I bet you can't guess who won!  (I tell him he should give the missionaries a chance to win sometimes!)

Monday evening we played Charades with the YSA's for Family Home Evening.  We had a lot of fun, but on our way home I told Stan that young people today have a totally different culture than us Seniors!  Many of the words, terms, and people that we had to act out were foreign to me.  It was sure fun watching them, though.

Pure Love is the theme for this transfer.  We had a mini Zone conference with just our zone.  Pres. & Sister Merritt taught us to beware of "Anti-Loves"; like, gossip, comparison, & jealousy.  The opposite of Anti-Loves is Pure Love or Charity.  We should strive to build up others, be the defender, find good and positivity in others, take joy in the success of other's .  Resolve to turn Anti-loves into Love!

A couple of weeks ago we invited our newly baptized member, Jay, over for dinner so we could get to know him better. He never showed up.   He is from Haiti, and it's not easy to communicate clearly through text.  So this time, I got a confirmation that he could come on Thursday, and I asked him if 6 pm was okay, which I didn't hear back.  Six o'clock came and went, and we figured he wasn't going to make it so we went ahead and ate.  Then Stan noticed a text from him, that he was getting off work at 7pm and would be on his way.  He arrived about 7:30, we were so glad he made it!  I warmed up dinner for him and he ate while we visited with him.  We found out that he's super busy, because when he gets off work (He works at Deseret Industries), he drives for UberEats!  So he's working all the time.  After we finished visiting, Stan got his cello out to play for Jay!  He was truly fascinated by it!  He had never seen a cello before.  He asked if he could record Stan playing, and he stood and recorded the whole piece.  He's going to have a hard time making it to church for a while because he is taking a class on Saturday and Sunday for eight weeks.  We'll have to keep in touch with him so we don't lose him.  

You may be aware that there was a lot of rain last Monday, and some areas had flooding problems.  Our stake had a service clean-up day on Saturday.  We weren't able to participate, but thought you might be interested to know that we had 120 stake members and missionaries that were able to help out and serve 15 families.  Here is a picture that shows some of the work they did.  

 

This evening we were talking to a couple of brothers that attend our Mission Prep class.  We found out that their Dad owns an automotive garage that was flooded with water up to their chest!  A lot of the tools and some vehicles that were parked in the garage were damaged.  They spent all of last week cleaning it out and working with the insurance company.  It appears that the City may have some fault as they haven't kept the street drains clear. This is their family's livelihood.  They said they've taken measures for this next storm that is supposed to hit tomorrow and last for a few days.  

We had a busy day on Saturday, but the best part of the day was Angelica's baptism.  She was raised Catholic. She's been investigating the church for more than a year.  She came to know that this is the Church of Jesus Christ, and made the decision to be baptized; even though she has not told anyone in her family.  Her Dad has been studying to become a Deacon in the Catholic church.  I'm not sure exactly why she hasn't wanted to tell her family, but I assume it could make her circumstances fairly difficult.  During the baptism, the Bishop felt prompted to tell of his baptism; which sounded pretty similar to Angelica's, with no family support.  He talked about how lonely it was to be the only member, but then he said in reality, it wasn't lonely because of the Spirit of the Lord that was with him, and his Ward family that supported him.  He didn't know about Angelica's family, so when we told him, he understood why he was prompted to say what he did.  Another thing that was pretty cool was that Eric, who was just baptized last October, gave the talk on Baptism.  He is so filled with the spirit.  Also, she asked Stan to baptize her, so that was really special.  

We had a Senior FHE/dinner Saturday evening.  After dinner, the Senior couple that serves in Imperial Valley (which is a huge agricultural farming area). shared with us some of their experiences. They live about 2 hours from the Mission office, so sometimes they feel pretty lonesome, being so far away.  They and all the young missionaries speak Spanish; about 98 percent of the people are Hispanic.  They live near Calexico (population about40,000), which is right across the border from Mexicali (population >1,000,000).  They told us that nearly everyday there are about 25,000 people that cross the border into the USA for work and to attend school.  This couple works really hard supporting the members and working with the young missionaries.  We are so used to the city, with lush vegetation.  It was interesting learning about the desert agricultural part of the mission.

So, we had, what some of the YSA called, a "Graduation" of two of our YSA's.  Trevor and Kaylee were sealed in the Newport Beach temple yesterday and had a lovely outdoor reception at the church last evening.  It was fun to be there to feel the joy of their celebration together.  They met at a YSA activity last spring.  We're so happy for them.  

We had received a couple of reports during the day that one of our Elder's was struggling.  He's been out for 18 months, and is in a slump, and missing his family.  So after we got home from the reception,  we decided to invite the Elder's over for popcorn and a visit.  When they came in, Elder P. noticed Stan's cello.  We had heard that he played the cello.  So Stan got it out and play for the Elder's, then he let Elder P. play.  He just lit up; it had been months since he had held and played a cello.  The music, the touch and feel for the instrument, well, you could just see his countenance change.  And, his comp, Elder M. enjoyed playing around on the piano for a bit.  The missionaries sacrifice so much to come out on a mission and serve the Lord.  One of the privileges and blessings that we have is to love them and help them move past the hard times and continue to love and serve the people.  We feel so blessed.