The Sabbath

Happy Sunday!  I am SO hoping I can stay awake in church today!  It has been the hugest struggle since we came back to Oxnard 2nd Ward, which meets at 1 p.m.  It's not the ward - it's the time!  It doesn't matter whether or not I had a good night's sleep, whether or not I don't eat anything close to meeting time -- I simply nod off during sacrament meeting, no matter how hard I try to stay awake.  Even if it's really good!  Sigh.  Evidently my body preferred nine o'clock church.  :)

We will be having dinner with the bishop's family this evening - the Sweets.  They are great people. I made a pretzel salad this morning to take.

After dinner, we will meet up with the Trumans and transport several vehicles from the office church parking lot to the Ventura Stake Center parking lot, so they will be there in readiness for transfers on Tuesday morning -- because there really will be no time Monday (or Tuesday morning) to shuttle them up.  These cars get SO dirty sitting in the parking lot, minding their own business - haha.  They were filthy.  So yesterday, a guy (hired by Elder Truman) came to the parking lot and got them all looking new again.  Not only the new cars waiting to be placed into action, but also an older one, which had been up for sale -- now we will need it!  He also washed up the mission vehicles, so everything will look spiffy for the trips to the airports tomorrow. 

Did I say trips?  Did I say airports?  Yes, I did!  Four of our visa waiters will be departing LAX tomorrow on their way to their assigned missions in Argentina!  Hooray for them!  They have been serving here for 12 weeks, so I imagine they are excited to finally be heading to "their" mission!  In the meantime, they have done much good, however, in this mission.  Two of them have been serving in Oxnard the past 6 weeks, so we got a chance to get to know them quite well.  Randy and I will be taking these four to LAX early tomorrow.

We will be back in time for Randy to catch his breath, then take the van to the airport in Santa Barbara where we will be picking up 40 incoming missionaries, making a total of 42 coming in this transfer.  (One is arriving from California and did not go to the MTC.  One arrived a week early last Monday!)  Half of these wonderful missionaries are Spanish speakers.  Have you read the Book of Mormon lately?  Prophecy is being fulfilled!  Love it! 

If I remember to take  picture, I will add them later this week!  How exciting!  Oh, and can you say "Sister Missionaries"?  Last transfer we received 17, this time there will 16 (four of which are visa waiters, so they won't remain in this mission -- but they could be here for several weeks). That is a LOT of sisters!  We love them. 

Good Grief

Yes, it is 12:30 a.m.  Randy couldn't sleep and is at the office.  When he left about an hour ago, I was just about to climb into bed (where he had been for a while, but alas, could not sleep).  Just after he left, our lovely neighbors had a stomping, door-slamming, name-calling, yelling fest!  I swear (haha - I don't swear, but she certainly is proficient at it) - her vocabulary is pretty limited, especially when she's upset. Of course, the windows are open, because it's too warm inside with them shut.  I covered my ears, which was futile, then quickly turned on the fans to mask the vulgar rantings.  That worked pretty good.  But I was too disturbed to go to bed.  I read for a while, then decided to update my blog.  I turned on the music from last General Conference, and, well, here I am.  I cannot tell if the "party" is still going on (no, it definitely was not a party), but I am calmed now.  Hopefully Randy won't be too long.  In the meantime -- goodnight.

7-ish this morning.  More yelling.  One car left.  Quiet after that.

8-ish.  Police presence.  ??

It is extremely sad that people do not know where/how to look for peace and happiness.  It seems such behavior is perpetuated to the next generation.  I feel very sorry for the children involved.  I cannot imagine growing up in that environment.  How blessed we are!  And obligated to share with others the great plan of happiness! 

Missionary Grandson

 

Our oldest grandson, Avery, has received his mission call.  He turns 18 in August.  He leaves for the MTC in September.  He will be serving in the Arizona Gilbert Mission.  So excited for him!  He has always been the best kid.  Now he has the privilege of being one of the Lord's chosen servants to bring people unto Christ.  And in the process of converting others, he will become fully converted himself and become a man of God.  Love you, Aves!  So proud of you!

 

 

 

His Family

 

 

Proof

Proof that we took a brisk walk at the channels on a beautiful, breezy evening when our husbands were "working" late - again :)  Love you, Sister Truman!

Getting Ready

This week the mission has zone conferences Monday through Thursday.  We will be seeing all the missionaries in our mission.  The four office staff works together on car inspections, which we will have completed by noon.  After lunch we will be free to leave and attend to other duties.  This is a really good thing, because in just two short weeks, we will be receiving 38 new missionaries.  The Lord is blessing us to be able to accomplish everything that has to be done.  It is amazing, really.  Elder Mecham has been especially busy.  He put in a full 12-hour day yesterday (Saturday).  There are many steps to getting a new apartment lined up and furnished.  I am really proud of him and what he has done.  Elder Truman has also helped out a lot, too.  We all fully realize the Lord's hand in all of this!

Oh, and we are going to need every day of the next two weeks to have everything in readiness.

Our Abode

On a whim, I decided to take pictures of our apartment.  It is not large, but it accommodates us nicely and it is comfortable.  As you will quickly see, it is lived in :) 

A Lovely Spot

We treated ourselves to this little beauty.  Not sure if it'll like our Idaho climate, but we will find out :)

By the way, the orchid at the Mission Office still looks fantastic!  It's been blooming four months!

(Current view)

Mental Visuals

I was just reviewing some notes I took in church a few weeks ago.  The High Council speaker reminded us that we are visual.  He suggested we focus on where we want to eventually be, then picture ourselves falling at our Savior's feet and running to greet our Heavenly Father, and to picture these things over and over and over.  I really like that!

I posted this on fb yesterday:  "Stay on the Lord's side and you will win every time!"  I had copied this onto a piece of paper last month when it stood out to me after reading Elder Richard G. Scott's conference talk.  I had intended to post it on fb right away, and then we got the news about Theresa.  I just couldn't post it for a while.

More About Theresa

It still seems completely unreal that Theresa is gone.  I realized that I posted my thoughts and memories about her, but did not post Randy's.  So I am going to do that now.  To be honest, when we received the news of her death, we were so swamped at the Mission Office we hardly had time to grieve.  In a way, I suppose that was good.  Randy and Theresa were very close.  She sought his advice often throughout the years. ~~ It seemed a bit uncanny that Randy and I basically wrote the very same things, just in our own styles.

 

Randy:

When Theresa first came to our home she seemed shy and quiet and spent a lot of time by herself in her room - which she liked to keep at about eighty-five degrees and still said she was cold all the time.  I told her she could keep her room as warm as she liked but she had to leave the door shut when she went to school because we would come home and the house would be like an oven from the heat in her basement room coming upstairs.  After several attempts to get her to keep the door shut, I one day turned off the breaker switch to her heater.  She came home and that evening told me her heater didn’t work.  I said, “It’s working just fine.”  She said, “No, it won’t turn on.”  And I said, “I know, I turned it off because you left the door open again and I can’t get you to close it during the day.”  She asked if I was going to turn it back on and I told her I would if she would start keeping the door closed.  She said, “Okay, I will, but you have to give me three more chances.”  I told her she only got one more chance.  She kept begging for three more chances, then with a laugh she said, “Come on!  I’m an Indian!  I need three more chances!”  Actually she got it right from then on and didn’t need all three chances.   

Theresa took a lot of pride in her Native American heritage and would occasionally talk about what it was like growing up on the Reservation.  We visited the area where she was raised and were surprised to learn that the house she grew up in never had running water.  It had to be hauled in from some distance away.  When I asked her about it and said it must have been difficult, she just indicated that it was no big deal, that’s just the way it was.  She grew up without a lot of things we take for granted and that may have been one reason she always took good care of the things she had.  Her clothes were always clean and in good repair, her truck was kept looking nice and she worked hard to fix up and keep up her house and yard.

It didn’t surprise me that she got a degree in biology.  She loved nature and the outdoors.  Very few people know how hard she worked for that degree, starting in high school.  Her reading and writing skills were way below her grade level when she first came to Idaho, but she was determined to improve them.  Some of the things she wrote were well thought out and had a marvelous story line but she struggled with the mechanical part of writing.  She would have us read and correct things she wrote and never took corrections as criticism but always looked at them as a chance to learn.  I know of no one else who made such tremendous strides in such a short time.  While working in Fort Hall she was writing rather sophisticated documents that had to be correct, and she did it well.

For part of the time she was with us, Theresa dealt with migraine headaches and occasional depression.  We finally found someone in Utah who could effectively treat and help her.  Some of my fondest memories of Theresa are the trips we made to Utah, which gave us time to just talk and be together.  She responded well to the treatments and while she still dealt with migraines, they were infrequent and much less severe.  

We have in our home some of the crafts Theresa made.  She had a lot of artistic talent and loved working with her hands and working with wood.  She gave us a type of mosaic of an Navajo woman made from various types of wood, and also a stylized fish which we cherish and she even remodeled the inside of our motor home and did an amazing job.

Theresa often came to help with yard work or other labors outside or to fix dinner at our house.  I can still visualize her playing with our grandchildren who adored her.  I don’t recall any of them ever asking who she was or why she sometimes hung around our family.  She was just a natural part of our family.  She was just Theresa.  She will always be our Theresa.

 

I also wanted to post a letter Theresa wrote as she was applying for schooling in law enforcement.  She asked for our help with it, and we changed a word here and there and some punctuation, but this is a good sample of her writing about herself.  We miss you, Theresa!

My name is Theresa Tsosie. I am originally from Arizona and I am a current resident of Idaho. I am a half-Navajo and half-African American female, with a unique background representing two cultures from opposite worlds. I was raised on the Navajo reservation by my grandparents, whom I consider my parents and role models; unfortunately, they passed away shortly after I moved to Idaho in 1995 as a teenager. My grandparents taught me the basic values and ethics of life, instilling in me the wisdom and knowledge of our culture, which motivated me to leave the reservation at a young age to explore boundaries beyond our reservation, to diversify and to educate myself. I hope to one day return to the People to provide education, cultural knowledge, opportunity and expansion to continue operating as a sovereign entity. My mother maintains residence on the Navajo reservation and is an exceptional artist, a skill uniquely handed down to her from her grandmother.  Unlike my mother, who did not complete high school, I was fortunate to depart the reservation by utilizing the Indian Placement Program (est. 1947 and terminated in 1996), a program designed for Native American students through a religious organization to assist in providing a home and public education off the reservation in participating states. Throughout my high school years, I was fostered by Caucasian parents, who provided a stable home and helped me reach my educational goals; but most valuable I gained their outside perspective of work, education and life in general.  As of today, I continue my ties with this family and I’m proud to know such parents, who retired from a respectable agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

After high school, I attended Utah State University in Logan, Utah, for a semester then returned to Pocatello, Idaho, where I completed my education at Idaho State University and received a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology in 2005. During my college career, I secured an internship as an Associate Engineer at Idaho National Laboratory.  My responsibilities included collecting time-sensitive samples and learning the principle value of our natural resources, which eventually propelled me to obtain a degree in biology. Upon completing college, I worked for a licensed contractor as a carpenter, where I gained valuable experience working with the public and providing quality services. Today, I am a Fisheries Manager for the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes.  Duties include providing management for federally listed fish species, budgeting, coordinating, planning and implementing projects. In addition, I maintain my public involvement through the Gateway Habitat for Humanity by volunteering my services as a carpenter to those who are in need, building homes and fund-raising.

Through the different stages of my life, my association with various people, shared experiences, and self expectation, I am driven to provide my services to fellow citizens and the community and to be part of a respectable organization such as law enforcement. I have family members who serve in the armed forces, military, law enforcement and a cherished legacy of an uncle who was a Navajo Code Talker during World War II. I like the physical challenges that are associated with and required as part of the tactic force. I played sports in college, primarily rugby, and I continue to maintain an active lifestyle. I hope to work in various avenues within law enforcement, such as a parole officer or a detective, with the goal of working for a federal agency in the long term.

Throughout my life and work history, I have been enthusiastic and motivated. I look forward to achieving a new career in law enforcement. I hope one day I can make an impressionable difference and be a role model for the younger generation within my family and community. In essence I have become the person I am today due to my own role models, my grandparents, mother, foster parents, uncle and sister.

Mission Growth

At the end of the month our next transfer occurs.  We will be sending 9 missionaries home.  We will be receiving 39.  The following transfer in September, 3 missionaries will return home.  To date, we will be receiving 31.  So although we "lost" 74 missionaries to the new Bakersfield mission, we are rapidly gaining that number back. 

What does that mean for Elder Mecham?  Well, for starters, that means 15 new or additional, apartments by the end of this month.  In three weeks.  And then that many more for the next transfer in six weeks.  Do we believe in miracles?  Yes we do!  Do we believe they happen without any effort on our part?  Rarely.  And in this case it will be after all we can do.  And I suppose that would include the many days Elder Mecham goes into the office around 6 or 6:30 - or like this morning - 3:30.  And several hours on Saturdays.  (Oh yeah, today IS Saturday!)  He has so much to do (and evidently it weighs on his mind to the point of sleeplessness.)  We are praying for assistance as we do all we can, then, in faith, counting on the Lord to make up the difference!

The message of the WW Satellite Broadcast by the Brethren a couple weeks ago that the members must work with the missionaries is so critical.  Our mission will happily be saturated with many more missionaries.  Who will they teach?  They absolutely will need the help of the members to find people to teach - now more than ever. 

Times this by 58.  New missions.  It is incredibly exciting! The work must be done before Christ can come again.  The Lord is hastening His work. Will we do our part?  I pray we will!  Each and every one of us. 

It's Official -

Where there were two - now there are three - missions, that is!  Bakersfield is on its own.  Seventy-four of "our" missionaries are now serving in the new Bakersfield Mission! We wish them well.  We shall miss them.  We know they will do a great work there.  And our numbers are rapidly being built up again.  Less geographical area - by a LOT - with a much higher concentration in missionaries - and sisters - and Spanish speakers.  Prophecy is being fulfilled before our very eyes!

LOVE IT!

Miracles

Elder Burgos came to this mission from the Dominican Republic.  His parents are divorced and his records indicate both are nonmembers and to not contact them.  He is a sweet missionary, and his time to return home is nearing.  Since he came on his mission, his mother has moved to Philadelphia.  It has been decided that Elder Burgos will not go back to the Dominican Republic, but will go to Philadelphia.  President Castro was able to determine who the stake president will be and made a call to him.  He left a message.  The stake president returned the call and during the conversation the two learned that they had served together and even lived in the same apartment together on their missions.  This stake president was, in fact, a zone leader to President Castro.  How amazing is that!  This world is truly small - especially when you are a member of the Church!  You can be sure that Elder Burgos will be in good hands when he goes to Philadelphia!

The Great California Ventura Mission set a goal the beginning of this month to have 50 baptisms.  That's huge. Each week we have seen the numbers grow.  With one week to go, we were still 15 short.  Well, here is a part of President Castro's email to the missionaries on Monday. 

"Dear Elders and Sisters,  Sister Castro, Samuel, Hannah and I had the privilege of attending the baptismal service of Joseph, Susan, and their daughter Missy [I've changed the names] at ___ in Newbury Park on Sunday, June 30th.  The baptism and confirmation of this wonderful family took place in the evening hours of the last day of the month, and they became the 48th, 49th, and 50th worthy converts to join the Church within our mission during the month of June.  It was a simple, beautiful, and well-attended baptismal service.  When the service concluded, we were filled with reverence and gratitude to our Heavenly Father for 'granting unto [our mission] according to the desire of our hearts [baptismal goal]' (Alma 29:4).  As we met the baptismal goal for June with His divine assistance, we felt honored and humbled to witness what we could originally behold only 'with an eye of faith' (Alma 32:40) at the beginning of the month.  Now we could notice and more fully recognize 'the evidence of things not seen' (Hebrews 11:1).  My joy was full.

". . . We know that we truly live in a day of miracles.  It has been reaffirmed to us that 'with God nothing [is] impossible' (Luke 1:37).  Let us thank our Heavenly Father for His intervention in our behalf."

As I was able to view the baptism pictures for the month, it was wonderful to see several families come into the Church together.  The Lord is blessing the missionaries in this area with great success.

I love serving here!  I love seeing the hand of the Lord in the work!