Weeks of interviews

We have been traveling to each zone during the last 2 weeks to do interviews with our missionaries.  I have loved getting to know them better and I also have enjoyed going over their area books.  These are the books the missionaries record their investigators and the investigators' progress in.  We have such great missionaries.  I know we have only been here for 4 weeks, but we love the missionaries so much!

We have about 210 missionaries right now, but tomorrow, we will add 2 more!  We have a sister missionary returning to our mission after an absence for medical reasons, and guess what?  We are sending our youngest daughter, Kelsey, out to serve for the next 3 weeks.  She will help make the numbers even until the next transfer, when she will return home to Utah and BYU.  Kelsey really wanted to have a real  missionary experience!  She is going to be so blessed to work with the sisters and couples at the Mormon Battalion Visitor's Center in Old Town, as well as have an area to proselyte in!  If you haven't been to the visitor's center, you should go!  It has been totally renovated and the presentation is fabulous!

I will post pictures of our newest Sister Clayton here on the blog tomorrow...

Transfers and New Missionaries

The last 2 days we received 8 wonderful new missionaries and had transfers!  We love our missionaries, young and not quite as young!

Here are some pictures! 

The Mormon Battalion Visitors Center. What wonderful missionaries we have there!

Our newest Elders and Sisters...

Elder Johansen

Elder Lloyd

Elder Douglass

Elder Evans

Elder Ward

Elder Perkins

Sister Crump

Sister Newman

President and Sister Clayton and our 8 new missionaries!

Meet the President Meetings

We're here in San Diego, and we are in the BEST mission in the whole church! We already love these missionaries - young sisters, young elders, and experienced sisters and elders alike! How fabulous they are!

It has been a whirlwind of activity here from the time we arrived on Wednesday morning until this evening. Moving in, meeting all the missionaries, and attending baptisms! Yes, we had 16 baptisms in the mission this weekend!

We feel so blessed to step into the shoes of President and Sister Donaldson! They left this mission in perfect shape! We love them so much, and look forward to our continued friendship with them!

We had the opportunity these last few days to meet all of the missionaries (unfortunately excluding some of the couples) during our "meet the president" meetings. We went to 6 of these meetings, getting to know all 10 zones. It was great to finally be able to meet them in person. These missionaries are incredible, and we cannot wait to know them better, and continue moving the work of the Lord forward with them. Here are some pictures of the zones!

We have been on a "forced fast" for a few days! No time to stop and eat, running from thing to thing and never quite making it in time because there were so many wonderful people to meet and talk to wherever we went. We are so blessed to have incredible support from the members here. They are very missionary minded!

We are happily tired tonight. Our children, Paul and Danielle, and our grandchildren are here for a brief visit. We look forward to our Zone Leader Training tomorrow and fireworks tomorrow night at the Marine Corp Recruiting Depot where we will be able to see fireworks from 2-3 different places over the harbor! We will also go to the Mormon Battalion Visitors Center with them! It is one of the top 10 places to visit in San Diego!

Here are the Missionaries from all 10 zones!

SD North & SD Zones

Still those two!

Yet again... Look at their smiling faces

And Almost to the end here...

That's the crew from zones 1 and 2. We got smarter about how to take the pictures after these zones...

Penasquitos and Poway missionaries

Imperial Valley crew

Santee

Chula Vista and Sweetwater

We neglected to take pictures of the first two zones, the SD East and the El Cajon. Sorry!