Driving Miss Daisy....or Miss Maria

Sunday, August 17, 2014

I am slow getting this blog out this week as today was a day of continuous meetings from 9:00AM until 8:00PM this evening. Reminds of Sundays as a bishop. It was a good day. A sister in the ward talked to me yesterday and asked if I would teach her 12 year old Sunday School class. They were a really good group and I enjoyed getting to know them and spending a few minutes with them.

Sister on left was baptized. Daughter and son-in-law on right

Yesterday there was a baptism in the ward. An older sister, (about our age), was baptized. It was really nice. She is a great lady. Several in the ward were not aware that she was not a  member. She comes to church with her daughter and her son-in-law.

Ward Birthday Party

Bishop on the right going through the food line

A Sister we taught and helped reactivate. She is preparing to go to the temple

Following the baptism, we celebrated the 2nd birthday of the Huachuca Ward. They had a nice pulled pork dinner. Attendance was good. I was amazed at the number of kids. The ward has lots of young military couples with several kids each. It was fun.

We did our last apartment inspections this week. The apartments were all in pretty good shape. This week is transfers and they are transferring more than half of the missionaries. The sisters in our apartment complex are being whitewashed, meaning that both are transferring out. We are not sure if they will replace them with Elders or Sisters. Sisters, we hope.

Monday, RoLayne had an interesting experience. We have this little hispanic neighbor that we have made friends with. She is about 70 something and is a widow. She is a very nice lady but a bit eccentric. She is the one that we took to church with us about a month or so ago and she really did not like it. If RoLayne does not talk with her every day, she thinks that RoLayne is mad at her. She always thinks I am mad at her. She asked RoLayne to drive her to the doctor's office. It ended up being an all day event as the doctor was in Douglas and was way behind on his appointments. They went and visited Maria's sister and got lunch at a taco place while waiting to see the doctor. She really appreciated RoLayne taking her. She is very lonely and really likes RoLayne, but then, who doesn't?

We get monsoon rainstorms almost every night. It is really beautiful as there is generally lots of lightning associated with the showers. They generally start in the evenings about 7pm and last  until about 10 or 11pm. It is often quite a show for a couple of hours. The days are generally very nice though sometimes a little muggy. The high temperature the past few weeks has been in the 80s. It has been very comfortable.

We did have one soldier graduate this week

Soldier and his proud family who drove from Spokane, WA to see their son graduate

As we continue to try to stay busy, the reality that our mission is going to end is starting to set in. We are in our final month. For those in Vancouver, we should be home about the end of September. I expect that we will leave Sierra Vista around the 15th or 16th with some stops along the way to visit.