Exploring the neighborhood

The last couple of weeks have found us exploring our nearby neighborhoods. On our way to the LDS distribution center in Fountain Valley, we approached the Vietnamese American cultural center on Newhope St. Children were learning from teachers on the porches, and there was a feeling of peace. The next photo was taken just a few blocks from our apartment. Flower Street in Santa Ana is aptly named and is a wonderful street to explore slowly -- with the windows down -- to catch the wonderful fragrances. But on this street there are no cookie-cutter homes. All are distinctive in architectural design. This is one of our favorites.

One evening Signe wanted to go to someplace different for dinner. Knowing that Signe likes ribs, Gary asked Elder Monney -- also a ribs-lover -- if he had found an authentic place for ribs. We ended up at this place, whose owner looked like a transplant from New Orleans. (In fact, there was a house across the street that looked like it was moved from New Orleans, it was so different from the Hispanic barrio homes surrounding it. Anyway, we had a wonderful meal outdoors.

Our Facebook page has lately been festooned with former missionaries from our mission. We have about 20 now, and half of them will be at BYU when we get home. We hope to have a party for all of them to show our appreciation for their wonderful service and friendship. (Three of them are from Korea and two served as office elders.)

The work progresses. Gary had three accidents to report last week, including that of an elder who ran into a fire hydrant on his bike. He also finished upgrading 50 missionary cell phones by using the programing from Sprint to make them operable. Today both of us were involved in the Palmyra Ward sacrament meeting by giving the two prayers and by Signe playing the Bach Double Concerto for violin with another member. Gary played the prelude, postlude and congregational hymns on the organ.

John McClintock has been learning from the missionaries for nearly a year now. Well, yesterday he was baptized into the Church and told everyone that the people had made a big difference for him. His family was not very supportive, but he was finally confident in making the decision: and his countenance showed it. He was absolutely radiant, and very different from when we first met him many months ago.

Korea, Mexico and Vietnam

President Watrous had asked a special favor of us for Tuesday morning: to take Elders Lee and Fraga to the airport so that they could go home respectively to Korea and Mexico to get ready for Fall semester at BYU-Provo and BYU-Hawaii. Elder Lee, pictured with us above, is one of the kindest and friendliest of the missionaries, and our love for him was especially keen because of all the help he gave us as an office missionary. It was a hard good-bye at John Wayne Airport. (And have you ever seen a taller Korean?)

Sisters Meagher and Sister Brennan are our two ASL (deaf) sister missionaries. They have been wonderful to work with during the few months they've been here. Next to them is the mission office parking lot with the cars assigned to the missionaries who were here for training.

China Garden Mall is located in Little Saigon in Westminster, California. We've passed by this mall countless times, but it has always been so busy. This past Thursday our granddaughters Keely and Cami (along with our first great-grandchild Adrienne) met us at the mission office so that we could sightsee in this Vietnamese mall. It was really quite an interesting place, with all sorts of Asian wares like you would probably see in downtown Hong Kong -- complete with the Happy Buddha and the Buddhas of Prosperity, Longevity and Fortune standing outside.

Then we went down the street to a Vietnamese supermarket. It was like a warehouse grocery store, complete with the largest fish market we've seen --including the Pike Street market in Seattle. All sorts of live fish, from crabs and lobster to catfish and tilapia. (But no one was throwing fish around!) We thoroughly explored this store, and we all bought something: our selection was a Green Grass Jelly drink, rice noodles and almond cookies. We plan on returning.

We finished our day at our favorite restaurant, Chili Pepper -- in Orange. Saturday was a full day of choir rehearsal, temple grounds tours, and stake conference. Today was our Orange Stake Conference, with some of the best music (our choir with harp, flute, oboe and organ) and speakers, including our periplegic stake patriarch who gave a wonderful talk. (He had an accident surfing at Laguna Beach 20 years ago: his wife has been a wonderful caregiver.) Our trials look miniscule compared to his.

Fun happenings

Every Sunday evening for many months we have played two games of Scrabble to keep our brains active and supple. A couple of weeks ago we managed to use up all of the letters from the game --without cheating! (Only the second time we've been able to achieve this.)

Today our granddaughter Cami and her daughter Adrienne came by the Mission Office for a visit. She is in town for a 10-day visit, mostly with her sister Keely in Irvine since her husband Ephraim is away from Utah on a work assignment. She actually arrived with Addi last night at Signe's niece's home in Anaheim Hills last night at a party -- after driving all the way from Utah alone. Addi just happens to be our first great-grandchild.

Friday night the five of us office staff visited Downtown Disney: Monneys had never been there before. We ate dinner at Joe's Tortillas and listened to all of the excellent street musicians and bands.

Sunday we attended three baptisms in the Cypress Ward, which serves both the Anaheim and Long Beach missions. It so happened that a Hispanic husband and wife we were baptized, along with a single woman. The service was wonderful, even though we understood very little. A baptism on Saturday, which we did not attend, was of 8 Tongans from a large family. It reminded us of the large groups of people baptized in the Waters of Mormon in the Book of Mormon.

New eye glasses and 21 baptisms

Signe says she's still getting used to these new glasses. But it's very nice to see clearly out of both eyes, and to not have any more eye aches.

An unbelievable 21 baptisms this weekend! We attended four ourselves: two of which were a father and a son. Another one which we didn't attend was of a family of six. Not only that but Saturday night Gary went with a couple of the elders to begin teaching an Indian woman and her son the Gospel. (They are from Mumbai, India.) They are very open about religion and interested in the Book of Mormon and may go to Church soon. She is a computer consultant who travels around a lot. She talked about the similarities between the Hindu Krishna and Christian Jesus Christ!

And that's all for now from the Four Corners region of Orange County: the corners of Santa Ana, Orange, Garden Grove and Anaheim converge just a couple of blocks from here.

Day off at the beach

Work in the mission office has been hectic lately, so it was with great joy that we were able to take off Tuesday the 13th because of the office being deep-cleaned. With Elder and Sister Monney in the back seat, we drove south to Corona Del Mar to a wonderful beach, where we were able to take in the beautiful sky, the water and the peaceful surroundings. (It also happened to be the first summer day without June gloom, as it's called here.) We later met our granddaughter Keely at Ruby's Cafe on the pier at Balboa Peninsula. It is the original Ruby's and has been here for over 60 years. The building and pier originally housed an anti-aircraft battery during World War II, purportedly to help keep the Japanese from invading. The food was good, after which we watched as about 100 kids in a junior life saving class were practicing jumping off the pier into 15 feet of ocean water.

We then ended the day by spending of couple of hours out of the sun at the Mile Square Park on Euclid and Edinger in Garden Grove.

On July 5 we enjoyed a barbecue at the Mission Home for all of us office workers. Elder Monney, who is an expert at Texas barbecue, cooked the meat. It was exquisite! At this informal setting we learned about some changes in the church's missionary work and will be gearing up to prepare the missionaries for these improvements.

(There are the four of us, standing above the beach on a 'porch.' )

We still feel very blessed and fortunate to be on this mission, despite its challenges and busy days. The spiritual growth has been immeasurable, not to mention that we have learned and all that we have contributed to the missionary effort -- especially by being friends to these 170 missionaries who are away from home, some of them for the first time in their lives.

July's Flags and Flowers

July has arrived already! The bulletin board in the office displays the flags of the 20 nations represented by our missionaries here. And Elder Monney is proudly showing off his well-pruned hibiscus flowers.

June ended gloriously with music at our zone conferences June 22-24. With Signe playing the violin obliggato, and the two American Sign Language sisters doing an incredible job of signing the words to "Joseph Smith's First Prayer," our choir of 20 missionaries, led by Gary, set the stage for a very inspiring end to each day's zone conference. It is an experience neither of us will soon forget.


Our son-in-law Matt stayed with us most of the week, visiting places hither and yon during the day on his motorbike and sleeping in our spare room. Meanwhile, his daughter Kyra and her four friends spent most of the week enjoying Disneyland, as part of their high school graduation celebration. It was nice to have some good visiting time with Matt.

Saturday the 26th was the funeral for Jim Skaggs. It was well-attended by over 500 friends and family. It was obvious to us all that his gifts and talents are needed elsewhere at this time -- and that he will eagerly await us all to see him again.

Sunday was the Newport Beach Stake Choir's patriotic concert. It was nice for us to be in the audience for a change. We were mostly there to hear Dr. James Welch play the Centennial concert for this 100-year old organ, most of it patriotric music. (For those of you who know Dr. Jack Welch at BYU, this is his brother.)

Yesterday was our ward's 25th annual July 4th pancake breakfast at Hart Park in Orange. While Signe helped to make pancake batter for 300 attendees, Gary made friends with a non-member and later talked to four homeless brothers on the fringe of our picnic area -- two of whom (Alex and Terry) took Gary's invitation seriously to go through the line and get some fruit, sausage, eggs and pancakes. Then Gary had a Gospel discussion with them and tried to find a way to get bus passes for them so that they could meet their appointments for prospective employment. (One of them had been homeless in the area for three years.) Gary was bold with them about how our Church could help them find not only employment but happiness like they have never known before.

From 4 to 11 p.m. tonight we attempted to relax. But the Mexican music from across the street was so loud that it was hard to do anything because the decibels were so high! Towards the end of the evening they dispensed with the canned music for some real live mariachi band music with two trumpets. It was nice to listen to, until it devolved to accompaniment by drunken party goers singing on a Karaoke machine and blasting their non-tunes across Memory Lane!

President Skaggs In Memoriam and Patriotic Concert

You may remember in our February 28 posting that we showed to photos of an F/A-18 Super Hornet that Gary made for President Jim Skaggs of the California Anaheim Mission presidency. He was thrilled to receive it, and said that when he retired (he is 53 now) that would be the gift of choice --except a manufactured model, not Gary's hand-painted one. Anyway, he was overjoyed with it. This past Friday morning around 6 our new friend left us. While it's devastating to have him gone, we are at the same time happy that is he is free from this cancer which ravaged his body from who knows where. It's a real mystery. The funeral will be Saturday.

The day lily outside of our apartment is one of Signe's favorite flowers, especially since it can be grown in Utah.

The bouquet of roses to the right is from our next-door neighbor Nancy, who attended Friday night's patriotic concert at Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa. She was so thrilled at our wonderful concert, that this was her way of showing appreciation to us -- especially the Irish song "Danny Boy." Yes, another concert with the Orange County Mormon Choral Organization (OCMCO): with guest artist Collin Raye, a country singer who has two Grammy's to his name, including "Love, Me." (It's on YouTube.) He was wonderful to sing with, and we were both honored to be part of another production almost as good as Messiah in America from March. Four-year old children sang "The Pledge of Allegiance," and then there were about 15 more numbers, ending with "Amazing Grace," complete with bagpipes. When we sang "God Bless the U.S.A." last night and got to the words "I'll stand up next to you," the whole audience stood up in a wave. It was so incredible for all of us in the hall! Collin told us that we were the finest collection of musical talent that he has seen anywhere in the nation. It was a fun evening, but very emotional. Gary was glad that he had his hankie in his tuxedo pocket!

Three nights before our concert (Tuesday) we had two kinds of excitement. Brother and Sister Brague of our Palmyra Ward gave us two tickets to the Pacific Symphony playing with the Magical Strings of Youth. This group consisted of 62 violinists from 4 years old on up to high school -- from Chicago and Orange County. They have played in front of the pope and the President of the United States. They have amazing talent, no matter what they played. Signe said that it's the first concert she's ever gone to where every piece she has played sometime in her life. You can watch them yourselves on YouTube: Magical Strings of Youth. There are several clips.

Well, when we got home we had seven messages on our cell phone. The children were trying to contact us to tell us that our 7-year old grandson Gabriel Hale was lost in the mountains above Diamond Fork (near Spanish Fork Canyon) while hiking with his cousins and others while on a Bradford Reunion at a cabin. Of course Karl and Ana were frantic: neighbors and family helped look for him, as well as rescue people and two helicopters. After being lost for 8 hours (from 4 p.m. until about 12:30 a.m.), he was found by one of the searchers. Our fervent prayers for his safe recovery were answered! All's well that ends well! (Including this blog.)