Category: Uncategorized

It’s early May, but it’s already warming up…

Living two hours from the action in San Diego means trips to the city for mission functions require a lot more planning than the rest of the missionaries, who live within twenty minutes of whatever is happening. It means packing the “Valley Vans” with young missionaries who all carpool out and back. Today was zone conference, where all the missionaries gather for training. As is tradition, in the group chat we all traded photos of ourselves on the drive.

Zone conference is always good, and it means we have the opportunity to see so many of our friends who have “passed on” from our area to other areas in the mission. What a hoot.

There’s always good instruction and lessons, fun conversations catching up with friends, and of course a chance for meals out with senior friends.

This will be our final zone conference, so our mission leaders, President and Sister Merritt, invited us over to their home afterward. President Merritt is famous for making homemade ice cream and sharing it with “departing” missionaries the night before they leave for home. We joined our friends the Knudsens and Woolstons, who we’d met on our first day at the MTC.

The six of us are all serving one-year missions, so we came in together and will be leaving (approximately) together. We’re actually staying an additional two weeks so we can finish the seminary school year. The Merritts are also finishing their three-year assignment in about a month, so farewells like this are bittersweet for all of us. What an amazing group.

Today is Celia’s birthday. We were invited to a big party that felt very much like the kind of party you’d throw for a six-year-old. Celia is the one in the back right wearing a red sash that says “BIRTHDAY GIRL”, along with a candy necklace. That’s pretty much her style. Happy birthday, my friend!

When Pepper and I first moved to Montana in 2019, we wanted to get to know people in the area. We jumped into trivia nights, I played with a local bridge club, and we even went to a pickup pickleball game. The pickleball crowd was entirely over-60 people whose athletic ability wasn’t stellar, but whose love of the game was obvious. After learning how to play, we jumped into the games. After a while I was asked to “not play so hard” by the coach/organizer guy. Apparently I was running around too much to get deep shots, and generally playing at a higher athletic level than the rest of the people. Fair enough. (We didn’t go back.)

Fast forward to today, when we played pickleball with a couple of senior missionaries (who are, notably, in their 60s). Unlike the Kalispell club, they’re serious players who are quite good. They taught us a few “tricks” of the game– like how to position ourselves to receive the serve and so on– and then proceeded to wallop us. We posed afterward, looking appropriately serious for this serious endeavor.

It was actually a lot of fun. Prior to this, pickleball held no appeal for me because every game I’d played (not many) had been with people who didn’t really know what they were doing, or had little to no athletic ability. Being on the court with solid players completely changed the game!

Since our friends had driven two hours out to the Valley just to visit us, we all went and hung out with the young missionaries too. Our little group played nine-square and had a blast.

We first met the Farrers about two days after their arrival in San Diego to start their missionary service. We invited them to lunch at a place called Duke’s Old Fashioned Onion Burgers; when we all met there, Sister Farrer informed us that she’s allergic to onions. Hmm. Anyway, we’ve enjoyed spending time with them over the months, and this evening we had one last meal together.

They’re an amazing couple. They’ve been married almost sixty years and have served five missions. Elder Farrer is 85 years old but still going strong. He’s always grinning like he’s thinking of a good joke, and he has fashion tastes like my own.

This is Jerry.

He owns the Brickhouse Deli and has been working there for decades. He’s always wandering the restaurant, talking with customers (he just sits down at your table and joins the conversation!) and handing out free cookies. He’s a hoot, and we enjoy seeing him once or twice a week when we drop in at his place.

We’ve loved the opportunity to work with a local charity to distribute food to people in the area who need it. Today marks one of the last times we’ll be doing this before we leave, so we snapped a picture with the people who run the show.

That’s Roberto, James, and Ariel in the back, with Cari in front. They’re awesome, and have been doing this every week for years. It’s been a privilege to work alongside them.

Of course the food distributions also need many helping hands, and the missionaries always come through. Here’s today’s crew:

It’s been great to do this work and know we’re making a difference in the lives of hundreds of local families.

Having lunch with the missionaries as they join our little Valley family is always a treat. Here are our lunch buddies over the past two weeks:

Every now and then we have a bonus lunch with the whole group. Always a good time!

One of our mission roles here is working with the local young adult group. When we arrived, almost a year ago, there were only three who attended activities regularly. Today we have a much larger group!

What’s funny is that they’re all… women. Our lone man recently left to serve a mission in Kansas, and since then it’s been me, Pepper, and a gaggle of twenty-somethings. If only we could find some handsome, fun young men for them…

One of the things I’ve always loved is having a “lunch buddy” who I can call pretty much any time and meet up for lunch somewhere. Here in El Centro, Woody is my lunch buddy. Today, on a whim, we had sandwiches at our favorite spot, Brickhouse Deli.

He’s even sporting his Magnicephopolis shirt!