The photo you see above is of the Orange Stake Center, where our ward meets at 1 p.m. Today we spoke in sacrament meeting, sharing our time with the Ward Mission leader. We must have done a good job, for the congregation was raptly attentive to our remarks. The ward organist even told us they were the finest talks she had heard in a long time! And Signe played her signature violin piece, "Meditation from Thais" as the musical number. Afterwards, many ward members were effusive with praise for our talks and the music and welcomed us to the ward. We love the reception we've received. After the three meetings, we attended our first ward "Linger Longer," which is only done on fifth Sundays. The theme was salads: very fitting since the temperature outside was 99 and fueling the 20,000 acre fire in the Angeles National Forest north of L.A. (The smoke above L.A. reminds us of the Mt. St. Helens eruption years ago.) Sad. 2300 homes have been evacuated.

It's been an extremely busy week, with four missionaries going home on Monday and fourteen new ones arriving on Tuesday. Unfortunately, one of the departing elders left his former vehicle at the new missionaries' apartment in Costa Mesa in a NO PARKING area, so the car was towed. Elder Budge and I had to drive down to Costa Mesa to retrieve it from the impoundment yard and pay $234.

Tuesday night we had dinner at the Hometown Buffet in Costa Mesa and ended up sitting right next to an LDS family of three generations who were giving their daughter/ grand-daughter a send-off to BYU. They even have a relative, Dora, who works in the BYU library. (If any of you librarians are reading this, please tell Dora: I forget her last name.)

Wednesday Gary began training two new office elders: a different Elder Lee from Korea and an Elder Chandler. He trained them on Housing spreadsheets, which are absolutely necessary since we now have 51 apartments and 5 member homes to keep track of. Signe is learning how to be Secretary to the President, since a new office couple who may arrive in October will fill her Financial Secretary role. In the evening all six of the office staff had our monthly staff dinner out: at Chili Pepper Mexican restaurant, the same place we took Mike and Ginny to the week before. (It will be one of our favorite places.)

Friday we both tried to get caught up with Vehicles, Housing and Finances. Then just after 4 Gary got an e-mail from President Watrous wanting him to order 15 twin mattresses to be delivered on Monday. Somehow Gary got that all done before 5 p.m.

Saturday Gary increased his swimming lengths to 18, up from 4 in the beginning -- using three different swimming strokes. He's feeling stronger now and getting some muscle around the middle. After doing laundry we went to the Segerstrom Hall box office in Costa Mesa to get tickets for the Midori concert in September. This is a once-in-a-life-time opportunity to hear one of the three best violinists in the world. The we went shopping at Sam's Club in Irvine across from the two 300-foot long dirigible hangars of 1930s vintage. Later, as we were getting settled around the computer to watch the new (and great) LDS film "Forever Strong" on Netflix, Elders Lee and Chandler rang our doorbell, thinking that ours was the residence of a less-active member. (I had actually seen some unforwarded mail sent to this person.) But it was a funny coincidence to close the evening.