Good-byes

This was a week of fond but sad goodbyes, as we saw seven missionaries complete their missions. Two of them were Sister Nekesi, a Samoan who lives in Utah and who lived in our same apartment complex for awhile, and Elder Queen, whom we met in the Orange Third Ward in our first Sunday here in the mission before we met any other elder or sister at the mission office or elsewhere. He was on his way home to Colorado

and then to BYU-Idaho. (He wants to be a chef!)

The week went fairly skidding by before we knew it. More baptisms this weekend, plus a funeral on Friday for Gary, who had been asked to sing in a men's choir for Dr. Andrew Bauer, an aeronautical engineer for McDonell-Douglas in Long Beach. How singular that of the two funerals Gary attended this summer, they were both for aeronautical engineers! Dr. Bauer actually invented a wind-powered vehicle which could go faster downwind than the wind pushing it. His wife has been one of our wonderful ward organists. Speaking of which: Gary was also asked by the organist at the funeral, Jim Anderson, to turn the pages for him while he played prelude music of the masters like Bach, Dupre, Franck, Mendelssohn and Saint-Saens. It was a trip for him to not only hear this great music but be seated next to a very good organist who has played organs all over Orange County. (Finally, speaking of organists, we have discovered a fabulous new organist who not only has fabulous technique but is a great showman as well. Go into Google with the name of Cameron Carpenter and watch him perform "Stars and Stripes" on YouTube. He is fun to watch and listen to.)

Baptisms, Baptisms, Baptisms

What a week it's been! The most fantastic news is that Karl and Ana had their eighth child on Friday. Joshua was born on his mother's birthday and makes 70 grandchildren for us!

As you can see by the photo below, we are beginning to fill the top row of the bulletin board with baptism photos, and we have still have four months to go this year! (Yet we don't want to think about statistics: these are souls whose lives have changed in the direction of the Savior and increased happiness. We attended two baptisms this past week: one of an Hispanic young lady, at which Gary played the piano and accompanied the choir, and the other a 42-year old Filipino brother who was bursting with happiness.

The other photo is of our monthly bulletin board. This month we chose photos of the temples in each of the missionary's districts back home. (There is a lot of duplication, of course, and not all of the 130 some temples throughout the world are represented.)

We continue to be blessed -- and do our best to help others. Wednesday night we had dinner with Brother and Sister Bates. He taught Biology at Santa Ana College for almost as long as Gary was at BYU, and this wonderful couple shared many of our same interests. A recent heart transplant recipient, he is a former bishop of the Palmyra Ward. Then today Gary was asked to teach the High Priests group: they wanted to know about his life history and also about Hugh Nibley. It was amazing that several High Priests had copies of Gary's Nibley quote book, Of All Things!

Finally, Gary had had it with his PC laptop and its crazy machinations lately. Four years old, he was afraid he was going to lose everything, even after saving it all. So he returned to an Apple MacBook -- and loves it. Just before working on the blog we relived our 2008 trip to Italy with the choir by reviewing the photos we took of that trip. Life is full of wonders, miracles and joys!

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.