Monday – Your Mission example will have a tremendous impact on your grandchildren. Thank you! - Wendy
Thank you Heavenly Father…. No rain, no wind, beautiful sunshine and all day to get things done and play. That is a wonderful combination and we took full advantage of it! We got our work done around the trailer and then headed for the beach! We met James down at the jetty and he taught us how to find agates among all the little rocks. There were a lot of people down there looking for agates. Dumb me, I just look for pretty rocks. I was quite successful! And, there are a couple of agates in the mix. It was fun. We ran into Mary and domino from our RV park there also. Then we got a dinner invitation from Tom and Liz Olive to come join them for Ham and eggs and Family Home Evening fun. After dinner we watched a video about Porter Rockwell. What an interesting character he was! Good day all the way around!
Tuesday – Just put on your tags - Chloe
We got the Family History Library computers up and running this morning and at the precise moment of 9:00 a.m. there were 3 patrons waiting at the door. Oh boy! Time to see if we can put our scant amount of training into practice! Elder Wels took Elton under his wing and I helped Juanita. I had the easy one! She was starting at point zero but by the time she left, she had a whole 5 generation pedigree chart filled with the names of her relatives, complete with dates and places. She was very happy and I was thrilled to have been able to help her. I would say our first day was very successful!
There was a really nice turnout at the E.A.T. Program tonight. We served 70 people. It was a delicious Ham dinner served in honor of Bernice who passed away while eating at the E.A.T Program the Tuesday before Christmas. We didn’t write about that night because it was a bit traumatic. But Bernice is in a far better place today. She was 93 years old and had led a good life, filled with family and good friends and love. You can’t ask for better than that. So her son honored her tonight by supplying her favorite dinner for the community to enjoy. There was a lovely duet singing tonight and they sang Bernice’s favorite hymn; Just a closer walk with thee, before the blessing on the meal . It was a grand tribute for a grand lady.
Wednesday – Read your scriptures - Connor
The alarm went off at 4:00 am this morning. Ugh! Too early to get up but get up we did and we were out the door by 5:30 am headed to Eugene (a three hour jaunt) to attend a Special Missionary Meeting with our mission President. President Young is our biggest cheer leader! And, for this Gramma, it is always so fun to find yourself surrounded by 60+ young Elders. The highlight of which was to see our old Zone Leader, Elder Johnson! He now serves in Springfield which is still in our zone. That made this Gramma happy. President Young introduced us to the 2012 Standards of Excellence. We got to watch a 12 minute clip from the movie, Secretariat. It was the clip with the actual horse race. I am old enough to actually remember the horse race. He won by unprecedented 31 lengths! A feat that some 38 years later has never been equaled! President Young came up with 43 points of comparison between this horse and his race and we missionaries and our race. Be a Star, Be a Champion, Be a winner! Pictured here is our mission symbol for a baptism. Each baptism is filled with love! It was 4:00 pm by the time our meeting ended. We were well edified and fortified and very tired. We decided to spend the night in Eugene rather than try to drive the 3 hours back to Bandon in the dark. We found a Comfort Inn for which Elder Wels still had some “choice privilege” points from his Lumber Products days. We were so tired we decided to just have dinner at the Denny’s right next door to the motel. Nothing against Denny’s, I enjoyed the meal, but it did not agree with me. Lee ate the same thing and he was fine so I am thinking there must have been some hidden glutens in there that did not go over well with me. It was a long night.
Thursday – Find those lost sheep - Danielle
We slept in a bit this morning as I was still not feeling my best. Elder Wels took advantage of the free breakfast and came back with a yogurt and banana for me. Then before pointing the car in the direction of Bandon, we hit Fred Meyer for gluten-free bagels, Costco for muffins and cookies and Trader Joe’s for anything gluten-free (they don’t do much in gluten-free foods! How very disappointing! How sad!)
Once home in our little trailer I was done for the day. I decided to spend the evening with a RootsMagic CD webinar. Maybe not such a great idea……. The webinar was an hour and a half long. It was a how-to course in getting Family Search to interface with RootsMagic. Now armed with a little knowledge, (yes a little knowledge can be very dangerous!) I decided to try to input my FamilySearch genealogy into my RootsMagic family tree program. Oh my stars! I had no idea what was out there in FamilySearch! The program said that if there was a lot of data to download it might take a while….. well, that turned out to be a great understatement! The download started at 8:00 pm. It was still going strong at 11:00 pm! 12:00 am! 1:00 am! 2:00 pm! I dozed a bit during the process but by 4:00 am, I gave up and went to bed with the ancestor count already over 15,000! When I got up the next morning the count was frozen at 16, 590 ancestors. And, so was the computer! I had to do a “hostile” reboot to get it running again. I don’t know if you can see the list of names on the left of the computer screen….. but some of those birth years are in the 1400’s, 1300’s and 1200’s! Can that be true? Now I get to do a lot of investigation into my family tree!
Friday – Do you miss me? – Chloe (Oh boy, do I!!!!)
Our good friends, Byron and Nova Johnson traveled over here from Central Point in their adorable little red rocket Corvette to spend the day with us.
I guess it has been a bit overcast in the Rogue Valley for the last few weeks. They saw that we, over here on the coast, were going to enjoy a beautiful day of sunshine. They could not resist the temptation to come enjoy the sunshine with us! Who are we kidding guys?! It was an opportunity to drive their new little rocket! Whatever the temptation, we were happy to have them visit for a day. As Nova is now trying her best to avoid wheat, we were happy to start our afternoon with a visit to Subway Sandwich for a gluten-free sandwich. Then it was off to Old Town and the Cranberry Sweet Shop for some chocolate dessert…. We sampled all of it! Next stop the Jetty for a walk on the beach and a bit of agate hunting. Nova found a small one! I just found some more beautiful rocks for our rock jar. We gave them a tour of our branch building and made some stops along the coast to see “Elephant Rock” and “Face Rock” and the lovely homes along Beach Loop Drive. Our final stop was a treat for Nova at Dairy Queen. No visit to the coast should end without a Blizzard at Dairy Queen! It was a delightful day. Thank you, good friends for coming to visit us. We love you!
Saturday – The Best bear is a Gramma Bear- Tanner (This one made me cry. .thanks Tanner!)
It was another awesome day here in Bandon. Sunny and it warmed up to 63 degrees! How we enjoyed our morning walk around our RV Park! We met up with our lovely Ida Cluff who was on her morning run to the Jetty to walk her dog, Copper. We had planned on visiting her today so it was nice that we could do it out in the sunshine in our park. Then it was off to find some more of Bandon’s inactive Mormons. We feel so blessed to have a GPS system in our car…. That having been said…… Bandon roads remain a mystery to us and to our GPS system! We get sent down more dead-end roads! After an entire morning finding no one home and just leaving our cards on doors, we headed for the Yates house, hopeful to find a smiling face and welcoming hand. Yea, Fred Yates did not fail us and we enjoyed a lovely visit. 7 year old daughter, Cassidy, is a sweetheart too! Home for lunch and a short nap (the joys of being SENIOR missionaries!). Then back out on the streets of Bandon in hopes of finding someone home. OK, this is just not our day. We did stop by the Harbor View Events Center to volunteer to help with their big “Taste of Bandon” event. We just heard about it today. They were very nice and very thankful for our offer, but they were well taken care of tonight. That turned out to be a good thing as we got a phone call from a sweet single sister in the Branch. She had just had all her teeth pulled, was feeling miserable, and wanted someone to come clean her kitchen for her. That would be us! I do believe there was more than just a couple of days of dirty dishes there! Elder Wels and I washed and dried dishes for almost 2 hours. As we were leaving, her dog, Patches, got out the door and we got to enjoy a half hour of trying to catch the little cutie. It ended in success, all the while we got to enjoy the setting sun in the warmth of a very nice day.
Sunday – Keep up the great work – Connor
We actually had a leisurely morning as we had no early morning meeting before Church today. Elder Wels and I were asked to give the prayers in Sacrament. As you can imagine in a small branch, that will happen quite often. We had 3 inactive members come today and so we got to have a Gospel Essential class for them during Sunday School. Oh my goodness…. Our class turned into a counseling session because two of our inactives have been living a lifestyle far different from the standards of the Church. Their lifestyle has given them so much heartache. We tried our best to open the door of faith and help them to feel the forgiving power of a loving Heavenly Father. I once read a statement which rang of so much truth. It read; “It is better to prepare and prevent than to have to repair and repent”. This couple has much repair work to do in their lives. I hope we were able to give them the hope they so desperately wanted. Our sweet Ida Cluff was in our class today. She was able to offer insights from her years of experience. Thank you dear Ida!
Lynda Sessions, who has been sick with some kind of respiratory ailment for weeks now, asked Elder Wels to give her a Priesthood blessing after Church today. I love to watch my sweet husband use his Priesthood power to serve the members of our Branch. My eternal companion is well loved here in the Bandon Branch. Please put me, his loving wife, at the top of that list!
Zack came to our Branch again this week. He was excited about receiving the Priesthood. And, even though his heart yearns for the Coquille Ward where his girlfriend attends, he is so willing to do whatever it takes to be worthy to be given the Priesthood. He had his interview with President Stockford before Church and asked Elder Wels to be the one to ordain him a Priest in the Aaronic Priesthood. Elder Wels felt quite honored. We had Zack come by the trailer tonight so we could give him his Certificate with his Priesthood line of authority on it. He was thrilled to know that the Priesthood authority he now holds can be traced back to our Lord Jesus Christ.
The sweetest part of our day came after Church when we were able to take the Sacrament to two elderly sisters who were unable to attend Church today. Nancy Williams just lost her husband of 59 years this last Tuesday and she was too distraught to come to Church today. And, Fay Quimby is too weak from a heart ailment to attend. Sweet Fay is just counting the days until the Lord takes her home again. She is so looking forward to that day. It was precious time we spent with these two lovely sisters. You just can’t beat being part of the Gospel in action!
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