We are Half Way

This week will be 26 weeks in the Mission Field.  Wow!  In that time we have fallen completely in love with over two dozen Sister Missionaries that work at the Battalion.  (One Sister told us just this week that we have 30 new daughters.)  We have taken part in hosting over 90,000 visitors at the Battalion since March and over 20,000 at the temple grounds.  We have had two wonderful Mission Presidents.  We get to spend hours every week at the peaceful, beautiful temple grounds.  We get to go on new adventures to new places.  We get to see family and old friends and have made new friends.  We adore Pacific Beach and especially watching the sun set there.

We are so appreciative of the members of the Mormon Battalion and the incredibly difficult things they did.  They were instrumental in U.S. and California history.  They were vital to the migration of the Saints going west.  The difficult lessons they learned proved invaluable once they got to Salt Lake. 

We especially love getting to spend lots of time together and knowing we are sharing in something bigger than ourselves.  We look forward to seeing what the next six months will bring.

Our schedule has changed and now we spend a 5 ½ hour shift at the temple on Mondays instead of the shorter shift we had there on Sundays.  We bring something to read for the slow times, but really enjoyed our first Monday shift last week.  It helps that we are in San Diego and the weather is beautiful!  And now we only wear costumes five days a week instead of six.

Monday night was the monthly senior missionary FHE.  We had a bbq and everyone brought a potluck dish.  We said goodbye to three senior couples who are going home this month and said hello to two new couples.  We have a lot of senior couples in the California San Diego mission.  It is the second most requested mission (I think Nauvoo is first).  And we need them.  There are Battalion missionaries, Military Relations Missionaries, CES Missionaries (Institute teachers – there are a lot of colleges with Institutes here), Young Single Adult Missionaries, Office Missionaries and Member Leader Support Missionaries.  It was a nice evening.

On P day this week all but one Battalion companionship met for lunch to say goodbye to Sister Romero.  She is heading home soon and wanted to have a goodbye lunch.  What a treat to have nearly everyone together.  Sister Romero promises to come back and visit soon.

Sister Romero is about half way down on the right side with a light pink top leaning forward and smiling.

This week we started doing some missionary apartment inspections.  We make an appointment with the missionaries and have a checklist of things to look at when we are there.  We have a few more to do next week, but we were impressed at the apartments we saw already.  We continue to enjoy interaction with outstanding young men and women who are ready and able to serve in the California San Diego mission.

At the beach this week was another spectacular sunset.  And here is a blurry picture of some guys playing spike ball. 

 

Today you get to meet adorable Sister Teanoa, from Kiribati, an island nation in Micronesia.  There are no mountains there.  It is about 2 meters above sea level.  Her favorite thing of all is dancing, and she does it well.  She likes changing her life for the better.  She also likes to eat meat.  She is a happy person.  She describes herself as brown.  One Sister said about her, “Sister Teanoa sure knows how to hoedown with the Mormon Battalion.”  One day she was on shift at the Battalion for ALL twelve hours we were open.  She did EIGHT tours!!  I think that is some sort of record.  Each tour takes about an hour, including looking at the artifacts and going gold panning.  Wow.  Just wow.  She is always willing to help.