Memories of All Kinds

Last Sunday was another President’s Fireside.  They are always great.  Every talk is inspiring.  We got to see Sister Recinos, who is out on full pross!  What a treat to see her again.

We also got to see my Sister Laurel and her husband this week!  They were vacationing in Newport Beach and drove down to visit.  Hooray!  We had lunch, walked on Crystal Pier, got some ice cream, then they came to the Battalion.  It was Tuesday which is the Sisters’ Preparation Day and they don’t come in until 5 pm.  So the senior couples give the tours until then.  We come on shift at 3 and I always give the first tour when we get there so I can be available to meet with the Sisters before their shift starts.  Laurel and Michael came on my tour.  That was fun!  Michael was a good sport to dress up like a soldier.  I should have asked Laurel for a picture of that so I could include it here.  I do have a picture with the Old-timey camera, though.  Plus one in the Courtyard out by the well that has some bricks that were made by the Battalion.  I have sent that one in to the lady in Salt Lake that posts on the Mormon Battalion Facebook page.  It should show up there in the next couple of weeks.  I LOVE seeing family!

Mexican food for lunch

Laurel talking to her daughter while on Crystal Pier

Sneak peek of the picture I sent in to the Mormon Battalion Facebook page

Since Sister Kennedy sang at the senior couple Family Home Evening we were in charge of, we said we’d take her and her companion out to lunch.  They chose a sushi place in their area and it was good!

Sister Kennedy and Sister Baker eating sushi.

This weekend has been rather trying at the Battalion.  A lot of new computers and equipment are being installed.  A change in one place impacts several other places.  This means some of the tours are disrupted and we are learning the differences between the new and the old.  Some of the timing is a lot different!  All tours are an adventure!  We had to stop having tours at all for over an hour on Saturday.  Saturday is a pretty busy day at the Battalion, too.  Ah well.  It should all be finished on Tuesday.  Fingers crossed!  One nice thing is I finally got to meet the computer guy in Salt Lake that we call with problems.  I now have a face to match the voice. 

My heart is starting to hurt when I give myself a chance to think about our mission ending soon.  I gave my phone to a couple of Sisters and asked them to make me some memories.  I think I will do this on every shift I can!  I think you’ll agree the memories they are making for me are hilarious.  And priceless to me.

It Feels Like Summer

We have had several beautiful days in the 80s lately.  Our costumes make it feel even warmer!

Since we don’t work as many mornings at the Battalion these days, we don’t deal with very many school tours.  But we had one this week with 31 kids.  Thirty one kids is pretty crowded in the rooms, but kids are small so we try to do that many in one tour so it doesn’t make others wait as long as if we did two.  We herded them all in the Intro room and found they also had 9 adults.  That is more than we usually have by a long shot.  So we squeezed all of them in too.  It was pretty crowded!  But our Sisters can do anything and it all turned out.

This week the Director of the Battalion and his wife, the Barnes, invited us out to dinner to say goodbye.  We only have a few weeks left of our mission and they wanted to get a jump on things.  They chose a fancy restaurant with a spectacular view!  From our table we could see the USS Ronald Reagan, a Nimitz-class nuclear powered super-carrier.  We could also see the San Diego skyline and the Coronado Bridge.  We watched a beautiful sunset, then saw the cruise ship pull away from the dock, turn around and sail right by us.  And the food was good!  That was a very nice evening.

USS Ronald Reagan

San Diego skyline and a Princess cruise ship

Coronado Bridge

Sun is starting to set

Cruise Ship sailing away with the lit up Coronado Bridge in the background

Something that we decided to do before the end of the transfer is to go out with each companionship.  We have gotten about half of them so far.  This week we went to one of those really fast pizza places with Sister Sanchez and Sister Hatch.  It is always a wonderful time with the Sisters. 

These same Sisters were busy in the kitchen this week.  They brought in some homemade granola bars that were delish!  And some green salsa they made.  It was pretty great, too!  Then they found out I had never had horchata.  They brought in a pitcher of that and I really liked it.  It is a drink made of rice and has cinnamon in it.  This particular recipe had sweetened condensed milk.  Yum.

We decided not to go to dinner on Valentine’s day.  We’ll go tomorrow instead.  But we did go to Mr Frostie, a popular ice cream place in Pacific Beach.  There was a pretty long line.  Who knew? 

Making Gold

A couple of weeks ago there was a President’s Fireside.  It is always a great meeting.  Recent converts speak, there are short Mormon Messages videos, music and of course the Mission President and his wife speak.  The missionaries come in from the back singing as they file up on the stand.  It is glorious!  The first man who spoke about his conversion story is from China.  Sister Xia, a Battalion Sister, translated for him.  It was very sweet.  The four Mandarin speaking Sisters, who all are Battalion Sisters, sang a musical number.  The other two speakers who were recent converts, were taught the restored gospel of Jesus Christ by Sister Dunaway and Sister Anderson, both Battalion Sisters.  They gave great talks!  All of them did a wonderful job.  There were musical numbers by the missionary choir and there was also a number by Sister Kennedy (another Battalion Sister!) who was accompanied by piano and violin.  She has the voice of an angel and it was so beautiful.

President Schmitt and Sister Schmitt also spoke, and their 7 year old son bore his testimony.  It was short and sweet.  It was a great evening and you could feel a strong spirit there.

The Battalion gets iron pyrite that needs to be pounded into smaller nuggets to put into the gold panning sluice.  Sister Hafer has wanted to learn to do that for a long time now.  Finally, this was the week.  Craig pounds the iron pyrite by the shed behind the parking lot.  To go there, the Sisters need to be with their companion.  Sister Hafer’s companion had no desire to pound iron pyrite.  It is a dirty job.  But Sister Martindale was excited at the idea.  So Craig took them both out to learn to make gold nuggets.  They had a great time!  It takes some practice to keep from getting the dust all over yourself.  I think they’ll want to get more practice soon.

The first Monday of the month all of the senior missionaries get together to have Family Home Evening.  February was our turn.  Since February is the month of love, that was our theme.  The Gospel is love and missionary work is love.  Perfect!  We asked Sister Kennedy a few months ago if she would sing that night.  We asked her long before she knew she’d be singing at the President’s fireside, but we were very happy to hear her both times.  Every couple had a part in the evening and I think it turned out nicely.

On P day this week, we took a very nice drive about an hour away to Santa Ysabel where there is a Julian Pie Café.  One of the other senior couples told us about it.  We split a piece of Mountain Berry Apple pie with cinnamon ice cream on top.  YUM!

We often hear navy jets here.  On our way to Santa Ysabel, two flew pretty close to us.  It is hard to get a picture with your phone while the car is moving, but I caught one before it sped too far away.

 

My fun cousin Jeff and his wonderful wife Janeen came to visit.  We had lunch together and then they went through a tour at the Battalion.  Craig arranged with the Sister who led the tour to have Jeff dress up like a soldier.  He was a very good sport about it.  We always love seeing family and friends!