February 27th Letter

Dear Family,

We have concluded our first week in the mission field and it has been very interesting and enjoyable. We arrived in San Diego on Thursday afternoon and spent the rest of the afternoon unpacking the car and getting a little settled. Our landlady (Patty Greaves) was still here trying to get things cleaned up and put away. This house was the house she grew up in and since her parents have died it is now hers. But it is basically furnished exactly as her parents had it before they died. It is a very nice home, older, but well-kept but it is almost overstocked with furnishings. It has white carpet so that seems a little intimidating to us. It has 3 bedrooms, a living room, dining room/family room, kitchen and 2 bathrooms plus a garage. It has a small but nice back yard with a patio and cover. We took Patty and her good friend Marie Tuttle who was with her out for dinner. They love a restaurant in Little Italy called Filippi’s and the lasagna was great (take note Michelle) and you know that I don’t really like lasagna. After dinner we stopped by Staples and got the one piece of office equipment we didn’t have which was a printer, copier, scanner.

There are three senior couples that work at the Mormon Battalion Historic Site plus the directors plus about 24 sisters. Having said that there are really 4 senior couples plus the director, the fourth couple being on loan from another assignment they have so they don’t work as much but a lot. The site is open 12 hours a day 365 days a year from 9 in the morning to 9 at night. The sisters break that 12 hour day into 2 6 hour shifts and the couples break it into 4 3 hour shifts. One day a week we have P-day (ours is currently Thursday). The sisters P day is Tuesday so on that day the site is manned by 3 senior couples from 9 to 5 when the sisters come back. These couples do all of the tours in that time frame. And the Sunday times are a little different to allow the sisters to attend the various ward where they are assigned as well as giving the couples a chance to make it to some sacrament meeting. We also have a shift each week at the Temple temporary visitor center.

As I indicated the sisters do most of the tours except on Tuesday and some on Sunday. Otherwise the couples man the front desk, look after the sisters, organize the various groups that come in, take care of all maintenance and other issues that present themselves. They also open the site each morning and close it each night. It is both meaningful labor and not burdensome for the most part. I have been assigned to help put on a charity golf tournament that will assist in bringing the fourth graders in the district back to Old Town as a part of their history curriculum. The school district funded this for 40 years but about 2 years ago they decided they couldn’t afford to do it any longer so they dropped the funding, over the protests of lots of parents. The Old Town Chamber of Commerce stewed over how they could get those kids back (we are talking 12 to 14 thousand student each year) and then come back after those tours and bring their parents. The idea that came to the surface was to conduct a charity golf tournament and its first year (last year) proved very successful and this year looks like it will do about the same. But having people from the Battalion help in the effort a lot of prejudice and preconceived notions have been overcome. I say all of that so that you will understand that trying to get up to speed on that and to make sure that our assigned tasks are completed as expected has added a level of effort that would not have been there without that assignment. I enjoy it all but efforts to memorize the script we use and to know the names of the sisters hasn’t been as good as it might otherwise have been.

The people that trained us left to go home on Tuesday morning so we are kind of on our own but as Cassie loves to say, “the Lord qualifies those he calls” so we are not unduly concerned.

And I should tell you all that I absolutely LOVE my companion. She is the greatest. We have tried to go walking about every morning, not far yet but good walks. We have eaten out a lot (I am sure that will taper down). And we have slept soundly, being tired when we go to bed at night. It will also not surprise you to learn that she has already begun “feathering our nest.”

Senior couples have quite a bit of flexibility in their service. We can call when we want, use iPads, be separated during parts of days, travel around the mission if not on a specific assignment elsewhere, etc. The church is really trying to make this service enticing because they need so many missionary couples to help in the work.

So all in all it has been a good week. WE love you all very much and are grateful that we can talk on the telephone with you and look forward to your visiting us from time to time.

Please keep the faith. 

 Love, Mom and Dad