Month: December 2024

Christmas week was a little unusual for us; we didn’t have our normal schedule of preparing and teaching classes, and most of the activities with which we fill our time were on hold. Although the young missionaries are still working as usual, we senior missionaries have a lot more flexibility… so we decided to head east to Arizona, where Pepper’s sister Jeanele lives.

Here in the Valley, people talk often of going to Yuma for shopping or just an evening getaway. The drive is less than an hour, and it’s a bigger city than El Centro, so I guess there’s some appeal. We don’t know much about it, as we haven’t been there, but since we’d pass right through it we timed our trip to have lunch in town. We found a little Italian restaurant that was quite good.

Here’s proof we were actually in Yuma:

Continuing east, we drove another three hours or so to the Phoenix area. The weather there was pretty much the same as ours, so it didn’t even feel like much of an adjustment to be in sunny Arizona for the holiday week! It meant Dave and I could go on a desert bike ride, which was a ton of fun.

While we were gone, Pepper “got her hair done” (whatever that means). You can sure tell these two are sisters, can’t you?

We enjoyed a bunch of board games, including the classic Skull King.

Potbelly is my second-favorite sandwich chain, and I was excited to learn there’s one right down the street! We all enjoyed lunch there.

Because most of Dave and Jeanele’s kids live within a ten-mile radius, there’s always something to do with our nieces, nephews, and their kids.

One of our grand-nephews (is that a thing?) had a birthday so of course there was a big party. I did the math– based on the size of the family in that ten-mile radius– and there’s a birthday celebration for someone almost every week!

It was great to spend a few days with family, and take a brief break from our “mission life”. But it’ll also be great to return home and prepare for the new year and the new adventures it brings.

Although our kids aren’t with us for Christmas, we find ourselves with fifteen other kids! The missionaries serving here in the Valley are missing their families and their holiday traditions just as much as we are. Naturally we all had to celebrate together.

We started with a sort-of-traditional Christmas dinner of ham, potatoes, and corn. There were paper plates and plastic forks, the potatoes didn’t cook as quickly as we’d planned, the tablecloths were cheap plastic, and we were sitting in a gym. But hey, you work with what you have.

After finishing our meal together, we headed– where else?– to the Dunes. I’m not sure, but it might’ve been almost eighty degrees there. The sun was hot, and we were in shorts. It definitely didn’t feel like the cold Montana, Colorado, or Missouri Christmases I’d known my whole life!

We played an impromptu game of sand ultimate, which is always fun.

Everyone took turns sledding down the sand. It’s the climbing back up that’s tough… the dunes are steep, and the shifting sand makes every step a bit more work. Luckily there’s a helping hand at the top.

We spent several hours together, basking in the sun and chatting. We sure love our fifteen kids here.

Yeah, it was a different sort of Christmas for all of us. But that didn’t make it any less merry.

It’s definitely going to be a different sort of Christmas around here.

It’s seventy degrees outside. The kids are all a thousand miles away. We only have a teeny Christmas tree with two ornaments and a handful of gifts.

But it’s all good.

A few months ago, we coordinated our little group of missionaries to help with a charity event. Not only was it fun to hang out with a bunch of kids, we felt like it was really valuable to serve in our community. Well, the woman who runs that organization was hosting another event today, and she needed a lot of help. We heard about it a week ago, and Pepper called to ask what we could do to support her. She was surprised; she told us she hadn’t contacted us earlier because she’d heard (mistakenly) that our missionaries aren’t “allowed” to do service work at other churches. Although her organization isn’t affiliated with a particular faith, the event itself would be hosted at a local Christian church. Pepper told her that was categorically false, and we’d be happy to help.

So, as with many of our other service projects, we put out the call. The missionaries all volunteered to help! Some of them had been at the October event, and they were eager to do something similar. We arrived a little early to help with setup. There were dozens of bags of donated clothing and other items that needed to be sorted and laid out for people to “shop” during the event.

When it started, parents showed up and left their kids in the church. They were all given wrapped Christmas gifts, and the parents were able to pick any clothes or other items they needed for themselves or their families. The kids, meanwhile, had two hours of activities ahead. Our job was to “chaperone” them– not so much to keep them out of trouble, but just to provide some support and continuity during the event. My new friend is a fourteen-year-old boy named Kat. (That’s his mom with us.)

Kat and I had a grand time. He told me about high school and football and anime. We frosted cookies and made posters and tie-dyed a t-shirt and threw rubber axes. He loved the activities, and I loved chatting with him through the morning.

After everyone had gone home, we cleaned up and then posed for a group photo. Here are all the missionaries who joined us this morning:

And a few of our trusty young adults came out as well.

We’ve loved having these opportunities to serve, and we hope that community leaders– like the woman running this organization, and the people at the food bank, continue to contact us when they need help. After all, isn’t this what the Lord did during His time on earth?

We do a lot of service work in the community, and much of it is with a local food bank. They have an impressive operation and provide food for thousands of families in need all over the Valley. On Monday, we got a call from the volunteer coordinator: with the Christmas holiday approaching, there was a need to prepare and package more food than usual, and she was having a hard time finding people to help. We told her we’d not only help, but round up a few assistants as well.

Our young adult group was excited to volunteer! We all showed up at the food warehouse yesterday morning and went to work filling boxes. Every box contained juice, rice, beans, peas, and nuts. We set up an assembly line and made quick work of the pallets of warehoused food.

Our hard-working crew of seven managed to pack almost four hundred boxes in two hours. Woo hoo!

Today it was time to deliver all of it. At the distribution points, people drive up in cars and we load their trunks or back seats with food. These boxes we’d packed were only a portion of it; there are also mixed vegetables, potatoes, apples, strawberries, milk, frozen meat, canned goods, pasta, and so on. It’s impressive. This time we asked the missionaries to help, and they answered the call.

It’s awesome to volunteer like this, knowing the work we’re doing in the warehouse and on the street is directly benefitting the people who need help.

Today was the last day of seminary for the semester. We’ve really enjoyed spending our mornings with these ten high-school teens. Sure, six o’clock comes painfully early each day, but they show up with a good attitude (mostly) and we have a good time together.

Now it’s time for a nice two-week break before we start the next semester. Ahh, it’ll be nice to turn off my alarm tonight…

Another six weeks, another transfer finished! We posed with our mission family one last time.

As always, these fine men and women are inspiring to us. They’re dedicated, diligent, hard workers. And they’re also young, goofy, and hilarious. It’s an honor to serve alongside them.

Every week we gather with a handful of young adults in the Valley to have an activity together. ‘Tis the season, so last week as a group we decided to decorate gingerbread houses today. Pepper and I volunteered to buy some g-bread house kits and bring them, but when we looked at the selection at the store, we realized they’re all garbage. The gingerbread doesn’t look at all tasty (although the box says it’s technically edible), and the “frosting” and “candies” included in the kit aren’t anything I’d want to ingest. We made a last-minute decision to decorate Christmas cookies instead.

That meant we had to get to work making cookies! I whipped up a batch of sugar-cookie dough. Then we thought about how many people might attend, and I whipped up a second batch. That’s when I learned that two batches make a lot of sugar cookies!

We rolled out the dough, cut the cookies, baked them, put them on cooling racks, added them to bags, and repeated the process. Again and again. By the end we had four massive bags of cookies!

We hastily made a big bowl of frosting and hustled over to the activity. Everyone seemed excited to do this, and we went to work decorating (and eating).

We’d bought some fun sprinkles, and there were some cool creations!

I’m more of a traditionalist, and my cookies are pretty simple…

We spent almost two hours talking, laughing, and decorating. Even after that, we still had bags of cookies left over. No one complained about taking them home, though.

We’ll call it a success. And now I have a plate full of cookies to give to friends!

My friend Wayland wore an amazing suit to our Christmas party today.

Not only was it completely obnoxious, it even had lights sewn into the fabric so he was constantly blinking. And all for ten bucks!

It reminded me of Richard’s Christmas suit last year. I gotta get one of these!

I haven’t been to New York City yet, but when I go I hope I can get this tourist shirt.