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I saw this sign at a Via 313 pizzeria in Orem tonight:

There’s a lot going on in the world these days, and it’s so easy to get caught up in anger and frustration and despair. But, as this sign reminds me, things will work out. Tenga fe.

In our apartment, I’ve gradually been adding photo prints to our living-room walls. We didn’t want to pay for fancy artwork, since this isn’t really our home, but we wanted something on the walls. It’s become our “mission wall”, with pictures of all the people we’ve met.

Sister Bodily was serving in the Valley when we first arrived, and we loved spending time with her. After a few months she left and served in various areas of San Diego. But now she’s back! And that means more photos as we’re with her.

The other day she was in our apartment, and counted all the pictures she’s in. She came up with an astounding twenty-four! (There are around three hundred in all, so that’s a sizeable fraction.) She was feeling pretty proud of that. Today as I was adding some more photos, several of them featured her, and I joked that the “Bodily Count” was rising.

Her companion, Sister Brown, decided she wanted to have her likeness all over our wall too, so when we bumped into her this evening she insisted on a picture with us. Another one for the wall!

The Bodily Count now stands at twenty-eight. The Brown Count is at four.

About a month ago, the missionaries were notified by their apartment complex that they were being evicted because their building was going to be renovated. Everyone knows this is the way landlords skirt laws against radical rent increases: kick everyone out for renovations, spruce up the place with some quick paint, and jack the rent. But we were secretly glad, because their apartment is really run-down and worn out.

There isn’t much available to rent in the area, partly because a bunch of people are being evicted by this complex, but we eventually found a swanky two-story three-bedroom place a few blocks away. This new apartment will be the envy of other missionaries in San Diego, who are generally crammed into tiny places because rent is frightfully expensive there. Out here in the Valley, things are cheap!

This afternoon we went to work loading everything into a truck, hauling it to the new place, and unloading it. We finished in under two hours, which was awesome. And afterward, we all went out for burgers!

Now the missionaries have to unpack everything, but they’re pretty excited. Well done, crew.

When we arrived on our mission almost a year ago, we went to our first activity with the young adults. It was sort of awkward– we didn’t know any of them, and there were only about half a dozen (we’d expected many dozens). But we made small talk and got to know them a little.

Fast forward to today, when we have a slightly bigger group and we know them all really well. One of the young adults, Ben, has been preparing for months to serve a mission. That day has finally come, and we threw him a little surprise party.

He’s been one of the leaders of the group for a few years, so when he leaves he’ll definitely be missed. Back in July we “sent off” one of the other young adults for a mission, and it’s exciting to see another one head out.

Godspeed, Elder Yearsley!

If there’s one tourist place we’ve visited more than any during our mission, it’s probably the Imperial Sand Dunes. We were last there in February, and before that on Christmas, Thanksgiving, and even back in June, July, and August. But it’s a thing, and all the new missionaries want to experience it. Out we went.

Today it was really windy– I’m guessing 20mph or more. That’s not a good combination with so much sand. It’s a really fine sand, which feels wonderful on feet but not so good when it’s blowing in your eyes. And tongue.

No matter. The missionaries loved it.

We snowboarded (err, sandboarded) down the steepest dune for a while, complained about the hike up, watched the side-by-sides zipping around in the distance, sat and chatted, and eventually decided it was time to head home.

Despite the less-than-ideal conditions, it’s always a good time with these yahoos.

Summer is still a long way away, but here we are today, over a hundred degrees…

It brings back memories of last summer, when it was hot enough to bake cookies in a car. Crazy days. And they’re coming…

Pepper and I love hiking, and we haven’t had many opportunities during our mission. Our day in Joshua Tree was great, and we’ve hiked a few other trails. So we were excited to head up to Palm Springs today and hike an area called Murray Canyon.

The hike begins in the desert (of course), and the sun was beating down. Even in mid-March it was edging toward 90 degrees. Still, there’s a different sort of beauty in the desert.

As we approached the canyon, we saw a grove of palm trees.

Coming up to the trees, we were surprised to hear the sound of running water! There’s a spring up in the mountains that feeds a sizeable stream, and that stream runs through the canyon. In the shade of the trees, there’s plenty of refreshing shade and water.

The trail crosses the stream multiple times (I think I counted seven) along its three-mile course, so it’s really cool to hike in the desert amongst rocks for a bit, and then dip beneath the palms for a stretch.

At the end of the out-and-back trail is a large rock formation where the spring water cascades down. It’s called Seven Sisters Falls, although I have no idea why. It’s a little hard to see the waterfall behind us, but it’s there:

We agreed this is our favorite hike thus far in our mission. It was a great way to spend the afternoon.

Whenever I cook ground beef for pizza, lasagna, sloppy joes, and so on, I always use the same set of spices. Tonight, as I was preparing pizza, I finally decided I’d just pre-mix all of them into a single “secret blend”. Behold!

It’s like those jars of sand art! Of course I shook it up– otherwise the pizza would’ve been a bit heavy on chili powder. And now I have my very own spice mix.

Our friend Marilyn is a self-proclaimed “word nerd”. She teaches a weekly class called “Roots” where we explore English words that are based on Latin and Greek roots. It’s always insightful to learn about the origin of words, and figure out how to decipher their meaning by knowing their components. But really, we go because it’s fun to hang out with friends (there are many jokes and stories in class) and eat Oreos (which Marilyn brings without fail).

Many years ago, as a high-school English teacher, she jokingly invented the word Magnicephopolis, which means “City of the Big Brains”. It became A Thing, and she even printed t-shirts for some of her students. Years, even decades, later, some of those students will still send her photos of them wearing their shirts somewhere in the world.

Today she gave us a special gift! A Magnicephopolis license-plate bracket:

We’re honored to be inducted into this elite group. Thanks, Marilyn!

“Do y’all want to run the St Pat’s 5k in Brawley with us?”

That was the text we received from the missionaries last night. We hadn’t heard about a 5k race in Brawley, and a couple of web searches came up short. It turned out it was simply the missionaries looking for something fun to do to celebrate St Patrick’s Day (which also happened to be P-day, so they had some time off). We’re fun, and we run, so we agreed and drove up this morning.

The sisters were decked out in full St Pat’s gear!

There’s a nice track at Cattle Call Park, and we think it’s about a mile around, so we agreed to all run three laps (5 kilometers = 3.1 miles). Off we went.

It was a nice morning: cloudy skies kept it from getting too hot, so it was pleasant for running. We did our laps and celebrated at the end with little rubber-ducky trophies that Pepper and I made this morning.

Here’s our little group of champion runners:

We joked about making this an annual tradition, but of course none of us will be here next year, so I guess this was the one and only…