Lull in the Action

Duties in the Mission Office seem to go in waves, and although there are always some things that need to be done, we have a bit of a lull between transfers.  I have worked ahead as much as I can, because May and June are going to be very busy.  Right after transfer week the first full week in May, Elder Lynn G. Robbins of the Seventy is coming to do a Mission Tour.  And with the split of the mission, we are involved in some things there.  Elder Mecham has been getting utilities set up for the new mission home and mission office in Bakersfield, as well as lining up apartments for the senior missionaries as well as the assistants to the president.  We will be training the senior couple that will serve in the mission office.  So things will be interesting the next couple of months.

Friday, Elder Mecham and I drove up to the northern part of our mission and did several apartment inspections.  It is always fun to visit the missionaries and see them in "their natural habitat," as Elder Mecham says.  We also stopped to see Elaine Kreamer and we enjoyed lunch and a nice visit with her.  She is moving forward in life without her good husband, Al, who passed away last November - a very tough adjustment.  It was good to see her.

We got back to Ventura just in time to drop off  three bicycles at the storage garage and meet Elder Wenz and Elder Wallace at the Main Street Restaurant for dinner.  They cannot come to our apartment for dinner as it is out of their area, so we sign up  to take them out every once in a while. Then we drove to our other storage garage and unloaded a broken couch, which will go piece-meal to the dump.  Whenever we go visit elders in their natural habitats, we end up hauling off items they don't want or need from their apartments.  This old couch was out on a little balcony of a second story apartment.  It had definitely seen better days.  The easiest way to remove it from their apartment was to drop it over the balcony down to the street below.  Yikes.  What a sight that must have been for anyone observing - but it worked quite well :)

Saturday evening, Sister Truman and I attended a fireside at the Camarillo Stake Center sponsored by BYU ____ .  The guest was Dallyn Vail Bayles, an LDS actor and artist.  SO enjoyable.  He has toured in Phantom and Lew Miserables.  Such a nice voice, and he presented a beautiful fireside.  This is not a very good picture, but it's the only one I got :)  His opening and closing numbers were done with a youth choir from the stake - they had just finished rehearsing when we arrived that evening. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaVz8ryx_R8

You might enjoy listening to this song.  It touched our hearts as he sang it at the fireside.  Elder and Sister Truman lost a son to cancer a couple of years ago, so this was especially tender for Sister Truman.