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.)

Tree Trimmers and Identical Twins

June gloom brings June blooms! We see these beautiful hibiscus blooms each morning as we go into the office. They are Signe's favorite flowers down here. They are well taken care of by Elder Monney, who maintains the cars.

On Friday we were treated by the trimming of a really scraggly palm tree at the back of our parking lot at the office. A young man climbed the tree and cut off all the dead branches. It was amazing to watch him work. What is even more amazing is that there are so many kinds of palm trees down here: we've begun to notice the difference even more the longer we've been here.

In the last blog we told you about the realignment of the Orange Stake. By doing so our Palmyra ward is larger: that benefits our ward choir considerably. Sister Hess is one of the finest ward choir directors we've ever known, and now she (and the ward) are blessed by a wonderful choir of over 20 singers -- all good. Our rehearsal today was incredible! The changes in the ward have also meant changes in leadership. Now get this: our new bishopric second counselor and the executive secretary in our ward are 50-something year-old identical twins with almost identical beards. When they sit on the stand together it's hard to tell them apart!

Yesterday was Gary's birthday and tomorrow is Signe's but we celebrated both yesterday since we have 16 new missionaries arriving this week. We explored the area some more and attended one baptism in Fullerton, where Gary helped out by playing the hymns on the piano. But Friday night was the real celebration: the senior office staff treated us to dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Garden Grove. Then we wandered Garden Grove's old main street area where the locals show off their antique and classic cars every Friday night. Many of them brought back old memories: Model T's up through '56 Chevys and a Cadillac with the big fins! Then we went to the Gem Theatre down the street for a production of the musical Fiddler on the Roof. The music and the acting were both very good, and the small theatre meant that we had close seats -- four rows from the stage. So it was a fun evening for all of us!

A New Discovery

On Memorial Day we discovered a memorial park in honor of Jack Fisher, a local World War I hero. The nice thing about the park is that it's less than a mile from our apartment. The flowers and flowering trees on the way there were quite profuse, especially the purple-flowered jacaranda trees which festooned all of the neighborhood by us. Their brilliance is not given justice by the photo below: they are incredible blooms!

The smile on Gary's face, as we sat reading and relaxing in Fisher Park under the shade and oxygen-giving aroma of a eucalyptus tree, is very revealing. Gary was feeling so good that he hadn't felt so healthy since before his back surgery in March 2007. Then this past Friday Dr. Francis put Gary on once weekly adjustments since he is doing so well. We definitely consider this a miracle! Even Gary's countenance shows the lifting of the burden of ill health that was once there a month ago when he could hardly walk or get out of bed.

We had 19 baptisms this weekend, including our ward's own Joseph Smith, who lives on Palmyra Street and was born in Baton Rouge. We attended three baptisms this weekend on behalf of the President.

By the way, the next two photos of flowers we could not identify, but there were clearly very lovely. And while Signe was taking a photo of the jacaranda tree at the bottom, Gary parked the car under another jacaranda tree, opened the door, and was met by the sweetest and most wonderful flower aroma he can ever remember! No wonder these beautiful trees are so plentiful here in Orange County, although certainly not as plentiful as the ubiquitous palm tree.