Busy Week

Tuesday, Sister Blue and I were invited to attend the Sisters' Conference, and it worked out that we could.  Elder Mecham and Elder Blue spent the day in Bakersfield, so ordinarilly one of us would have had to be in the office to sign for deliveries and answer phones; however, the APs, in preparation for Zone Conferences next week, needed to be using computers in our office, so it worked out perfectly.  They "covered" the office, and we attended the conference.  Tuesday was a slow office day.  The rest of the week has been anything but!  The APs had bookmarks for us to laminate and cut, numerous boxes of supplies for the zones came in and had to be opened and shelved, we had staff meeting on Friday (that's what I call it), the never-ending mail duties (which I enjoy doing), plus various other things.  Nothing too extraordinary - just kept us hopping all week :)  I LIKE it that way!

Our amazing APs, Elder Braeden Udy and Elder Michael Prete.  This isn't a great picture, but they are definitely great missionaries! 

A couple of weeks ago, the sisters in "our" zone (the one right here in Oxnard) informed us that they had been told by their zone leaders that they could not come into the office any more.  They have district meetings in the building, and would usually come in through the office, say hi, see if they had any mail.  We all loved having them and the elders drop in from time to time -- gave us a chance to get to know them.  Evidently President heard this was disruptive, plus he wants his missionaries to be productive and not "hanging out" in the mission office, so something was said to the APs, then down to the ZLs, and all of a sudden, we had no missionaries dropping by the office -- none.  We were so sad, so brought this up in our staff meeting last week, and made it clear that the missionaries don't hang out -- just come shake hands and visit for a minute (and partake of treats we set out :).  President said this was a misunderstanding and that it was okay for them to stop by the office.  However, another week went by -- still not one missionary has been in the office, so we talked about it again at meeting this Friday.  Sister Castro, who attends this meeting when she can, suggested that President clear up this misunderstanding right away.  She is so cute with him. Sister Blue and I are happy to have an advocate in Sister Castro :)

Last evening, we had dinner at Sister Penelope Braxton's place.  She is a single sister -- wanted to feed the elders, but has to have others present to do so.  We happily agreed to be those "others."  We put her address in our GPS, and luckily left early enough that Lucy's wrong directions didn't make us too late.  After we called Sis. Braxton and made our way back to where she lives, we discovered she lives close enough to us, we easily could have walked it :)  Sis. Braxton is an interesting lady and a very good cook!  She had homemade egg rolls, stir-fried veggies, rice, bbq pork, fruit salad, rolls, and homemade banana cream pie.  The elders, both big boys, enjoyed it greatly, as did we.  Sis. Braxton deals with seizures and is unable to work.  Well over a year ago, she was crossing the street and hit by a car.  Her injuries included a broken hip and pelvis and ribs, and she still suffers from those. She has a 21 year old daughter who opted not to be at dinner with the missionaries because she wants nothing to do with the church and figured her mother was trying to "trick" her. 

We purchased a gel mattress topper last night.  It is comfortable, but we will be grateful when the odor of it dissapates in a few days (at least it is supposed to do that - hopefully it will).  I was actually awakened by the beeping of Randy's phone, which needed to be charged.  I got up and plugged in his mission phone, but the beeping continued.  It was his personal cell, which he really never uses.  Needless to say, I am wide awake now and figured I may as well be productively using this "gift" of time :)