May 25th and before

Brother and Sister Sturdevant are military relations at Fort Sam

Well Church was good today.  Sacrament meeting was the missionaries assigned to the ward speaking.  They both did a good job.  Sister Beckstead a missionary from Bountiful Utah spoke first about the things that you can do to prepare for a mission.  She mentioned that you should take Seminary and learn the scripture mastery scriptures.  She mentioned learning to serve others before you come out into the field.  She also mentioned that we read Preach my Gospel and that we need to be member missionaries.  Sister Medina spoke next and I really liked the talk she gave.  She talked about the responsibilities and blessings of missionary work.  She pointed out that it is a privilege and blessing to be able to teach people about Christ and that one of the blessings of the restoration was that the ability to find Israel or God's people.  It was a dynamic talk pointing out the blessing we are bringing to people when we present them with the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Nathan and Larry visiting

Brother and Sister Eslick are a second marriage like us

 I have to admit that in Utah I felt like there were not that many people that would accept the Gospel and I often felt like I was pressing people to do something they did not want to do but here I hear so many stories of people that have found the Gospel and it has been the thing they have been looking for all their life.  We baptize about 50 a month in the mission and the missionaries give out about 33 boxes of Book of Mormons a month with 40 Book of Mormons to each box.  I realized that I have had the wrong idea of the importance of the work although I know how important it is.

The kids came home from church with us and we had a family home evening with them from the Friend and then we went for a walk.  Sara had sent several Liken the Scriptures videos up for the kids to watch and so they watched those while they built with legos and ate popcorn and soda or chocolate milk.  For a while they wanted to go out and walk through the forest behind our apartment but soon came in when they found there were many mosquitoes.  Sammy must be sensitive to them because his swelled up quickly and we had to put caladryl on them to calm the itch.  Sara came to get them about 6:30 just as they were getting hungry again.

Brother and Sister Adair are MLS at Georgetown, Texas

Brother and Sister D.Williams are originally from Vernal

Last week in the mission they had Zone Training meetings at a different zone each day.  We did not have to go for the whole time but we went to each one in the afternoon for an hour and presented some things to help the missionaries in the areas we cover.  Tuesday was at San Antonio North Zone and met in the Stone Oak Chapel which is close by the temple.  Wednesday was Hill Country Zone and we drove up to Bulverde, Texas to the chapel there.  The chapel is a beautiful chapel but it is out in the middle of a field about a half mile from the road and the road to it is a very tight two lanes.  We wondered if someone donated the land there to them as I have never seen an LDS chapel so concealed.  The San Antonio West Zone had their meeting in the University of Texas San Antonio Institute building.  Larry and I got stuck in a traffic jam and so we were about 10 minutes late getting there luckily Elder Williams got there before us so he could start on time.

Brother and Sister Magonigil are Military Relations also.  They knew Nathan in Alabama

Brother and Sister Page are MLS on the Border at Eagle Pass, Texas

I talked about needing to update referrals in the system so that people referring others know if they have been contacted.  I also talked about who the head of household is on the Baptismal and Confirmation Records they fill out.  On the record the first person baptized in the family is the head of household for purposes of keeping the records together for a family and many were using the standard definition of head of household and putting down non-member fathers for the head of household. 

Larry talked about how to fill out the mileage reports he needs and what the gas cards can pay for.  Elder Williams has been teaching them the importance of budgeting and what they can use their personal use card for.  They don't have a lot of money for the month because basically it should be only used for food and personal items.  Elders get $135.00 and Sisters get $150.00.  Sisters get more because they need to buy hairspray and make-up and things.

Brother and Sister Sandquist are MLS at Shoal Creek, Texas

Monday night they had the Senior's Family Night at Mamacitas in San Marcos.  Nathan went with us and we had a fun night of talking and learning from each other.  That usually starts at 6:30 so we had to leave by 5:00 p.m. from the office so we could pick up Nathan and get there on time.  I took pictures of all the Senior Couples that were there.  I think that they were all there.

Nathan had to go to the VA on Wednesday for two appointments so he scheduled them to pick him up and it worked very well.  He was able to go by himself and do what he needed to do without our help.

Some of the yummy food at Bingo Night

Thursday night was Bingo night again.  We got there a little late again because of the traffic.  We turned off the 410 freeway and went a different way or we never would have made it. Lately the 410 is clogged where you transfer to the 35 South and it makes it hard to get there on time.  It was fun thought because the Recreational Coordinator at Warm Springs had two new people to bring and they got there late also so we were in the back room with them and part of the fun is being with the people we know.  No one ever wins bingo lately but the food is good.  This week it was wonderful.  They had some mini cheesecakes that were so good.  The BAMC Auxillary brought the food but I saw a Hilton chef running around so I think that they may have got the food there.  It was some of the best we have had.  I have a hard time staying on my weigh watchers there.

Brother and Sister Antur are from Australia.  They teach CES in Austin, Texas

Brother and Sister M. Williams are the other office couple with us.

Friday Nathan had his friend Reed come and pick him up and they went shopping for the supplies he needed for a bar that he needs for Therapy.  The therapist that introduced it to him said that they do not make them anymore and suggested that he could make them out of PVC pipe with sand inside.  Then Nathan instructed Reed how to make the bars and Reed built them.  They got three of them done that day.  A one pound, Two pound and Two and a half pound.  I was impressed.  Nathan is showing people that he can do things for himself more and more now he has the chance to do things himself.

Nathan's kids came over on Friday night to spend the night.  We bought pizza from Little Ceasar's and got the movie "The Nut Job". We had a good time eating pizza and soda.  We all went to sleep after the movie because we had signed up to clean the church in Nathan's ward on Saturday at 8:00 a.m.

David doing thumbs up with his swim noodles

Saturday we got up early enough to actually get to the church on time.  I was surprized to find that Nathan's kids were excited to clean the church.  We each had a different job, even Maggie who dusted the pictures with a duster.  Because Nathan's ward is about 20 minutes from where we live we stayed in the area because David was invited to a party in Cibolo which is close to Converse and we didn't want to drive home and back. 

Larry and I with Nathan

Nathan had promised the kids that they could get some swim toys for the pool here at the apartment.  We went to get those at a 99 cent store.  Then Maggie decided that she wanted to go to Chick-fil-a to eat.  even though it was only 10:30 a.m. we decided to look for a Chick-fil-a for lunch.  We found one on google that was close to Cibolo where David's party was so we drove to that.  When we got there however it was closed for remodeling so we decided to go to Freddy's Frozen Custard and Steakhouse.  I learned that it didn't matter to Maggie where she ate really although she had insisted we go to Chick-fil-a she just wanted to eat and was hungry.  The food at Freddy's was good but I spent my whole 26 points and more on one meal there.  David's party started before we all finished eating so Larry took David to the party while we all finished eating.

We came home and Sammy and Isaac wanted to go to the pool and Maggie did not so Nathan stayed with Maggie and I took Sammy and Isaac to the pool.  Larry went to see about our car because the transmission had not been shifting. They swam for almost three hours and still did not want to quit when I suggested they needed to.  Maggie fell asleep on the floor watching "The Nut Job" and slept all that time.  As I didn't have a swim suit yet I talked to Kirsten and Erick and some others on the phone while they were swimming.  I think Nathan was doing things in his Ipad all afternoon.  Larry came back happy but frustrated because the car worked fine when he took it in to the transmission place.

Sara came and got the kids about 6:00 p.m.  We were all tired and ate and went to bed.  The next morning we got up early enough to be ready about 45 minutes early.  Larry had thrown some bird seed out to the birds and we were able to watch them as they ate it through the Living Room window.  They were pretty cautious about watching our movements so I scared them off when I went to get the camera.  Larry was able to get this video of them eating the bird seed.  Sometimes they have squirrels out eating with them.