Grateful to Be Here

We had a very gratifying experience on Monday morning.  One of our marine wives recently told us about a friend of hers that had been asking her some questions about the Mormon Church because her church had offered a class on Mormonism which  had some very interesting concepts which were very interesting, but very far from what we believe. The marine wife asked if we would talk to her because she was not sure how to answer all of her friend’s questions.  So we did.  We prepared as best we could and loaded up our bag with pamphlets, books, and our scriptures.  She turned out to be a very, very nice lady.  She was not hostile or confrontational at all, just curious.  She told us all sorts of outlandish things she had been taught in the class about Mormonism, and we helped to clarify what the real story is inside the church.   We were pleased that we were able to answer all of her questions and we realized how much we have learned on our mission.  She was anxious to hear our story of converting to the LDS church.  We gave her a Book of Mormon and some other things to read, and she said she would read them.  Although she was just  curious rather than interested in joining the church, we felt that we taught her truthfully and represented the Church well.  It was a very good experience and we had a very pleasurable discussion about religion in general .  We told her we would be glad to meet with her again if she wanted.  At least we know that she no longer believes we are a secretive, cultish people that worship Joseph Smith and do not allow anyone in our meetings. We also got to go out with our young female friend  from Richland that is here at the FBI Academy.  We ate at a Bahama Breeze restaurant, which was a new one for us.  It was great fun with excellent island music and delicious Caribbean food.  She just completed her FBI certification as a Forensic Scientist as a fingerprint specialist.  It is fascinating to hear from her how they do their work.   Her certification program was really long and hard, which is as it should be since the FBI is the best.  She is a great gal and we have really enjoyed getting to know her better here. 

We worked a long shift at Navy Marine Corps Relief Society this week.  It was an interesting day.  I had a case with a retired Navy woman like I have never had before.  She had numerous loans for thousands of dollars from NMCRS, and had recently defaulted on two loans.  Her story about her needs did not add up and she had no documents to prove it.  So I had to sit down with her one-on-one and tell her no.  She was very angry.  It was one of the worst cases I ever had.  But my main feeling for this young woman was sadness.  She blamed everyone else for her troubles but did not want to do the real work needed to help herself.  In contrast I had a very nice young male marine from Montana.  He did not want a loan but just wanted to work through a budget so that he could figure out how to save some money.  He was pleasant, respectful and grateful.  Quite a contrast from the lady I dealt with.   Today we got a copy of the performance statistics for our NMCRS office.  We are proud to be a part of this office and we think we did some good work over the past year.  So here is our data:  Total cases – 829, loans given - 609, grants given – 78, and total amount provided $498, 604.  We helped a lot of marines this year.  

We got to teach another Temple Preparation lesson to our friend from the ward.  He is always a joy to visit, and we had a nice time.  We will be excited to see him go to the temple.

On Thursday we attended a Zone Conference.  This is the zone meeting when our Mission President and his wife attend and give training.  This one was a little different because it involved two zones.  So instead of 40 missionaries we had about 80.  We had some very good training, especially from Sister Wilson who taught us to be happy in our work.  One of the Sisters that works in our ward sang a sweet version of I Believe in Christ.  It was pretty spectacular and the feeling of the spirit was obvious.  When she finished there was absolute silence.  President Wilson paused for a moment before he stood up to speak and it was a delicious moment.  The strength of the spirit was enormous.  Some women from one of the local wards prepared an excellent lunch for us – various soups, salad, rolls, and brownies with ice cream.  As is traditional we all stood in a semicircle around these sisters and sang Called to Serve to thank them.  It is pretty overwhelming to have 80 missionaries surrounding you and singing with zeal (see pics).  All of the ladies were crying as the missionaries sang.  It was pretty touching.  In the evening we fed dinner to our two elders in the Quantico Ward that are also our zone leaders.  We love these guys and really enjoyed feeding them and getting to know them better.  The senior companion has been here for six months so we know him well.  He has been here for dinner several times.  The other Elder is a new zone leader.  He is the black Elder from Louisiana that we have mentioned before.  He is a very bright and articulate young man and we have enjoyed being trained by him very much.  It is always a delight to feed the missionaries and we had a good time

Friday was Stake Temple day so we spent a long afternoon and evening at the Washington DC temple.  We traveled up to the temple with the other senior couple here in Woodbridge, the Andersons.  We have come to be good friends with them and love to spend time together.  We attended a nice temple endowment session and then had some time before a special stake meeting was to be held.  We had barely enough time to leave the temple to go out to eat, or we had plenty of time to go to the vending machine cafeteria in the basement.  We chose the latter.  Although it sounds bad, the vending machine cafeteria is pretty nice.  They have packaged dinners, pizzas and sandwiches with several microwaves.  The nice thing about eating there is that it gave us plenty of time to just sit and visit.  We greatly enjoyed getting to know the Andersons better.  They are interesting and accomplished folks.  He was an agriculture professor at BYU-I and she was a nurse.  I don’t know if we mentioned this before, but in one of those amazing coincidences we discovered that our daughter Carrie and their son Seth were on a program together in China about 10 years ago.  Carrie dug into her scrapbook and found this picture of them together in China (Seth is 2^nd from the left and Carrie is on the right).  And to think that these many years later his folks and us are serving together as senior missionaries!  Pretty remarkable!  After our delightful chat with Andersons we attended a stake meeting held in a special assembly room on the top floor of the temple.  It was a beautiful room and we had some powerful speakers.  It was great to see so many people we knew from our ward at the meeting.  We finally journeyed home via a Wendy’s for some ice cream.  It was an excellent temple day. 

Our Saturday morning we attended a very pleasant baptism.  A sweet young girl, about 12, that has

Down ’s syndrome was baptized.  In cases like this the Bishop does a very careful interview to make sure the person is capable of understanding what they are doing and what they are accepting.  He did so in this case and determined that this girl was capable of understanding what she was doing.  She was very happy and smiley the whole time.  When she came up out of the water after the baptism she had a huge grin and let out the most joyful laughter possible.  Everyone was moved by it.  At the end of the service she bore a short but very sincere testimony that she was happy to follow Jesus.  Every baptism is good, but this one was very special.  After that we traveled to Mt Vernon (George Washington’s home) where we met Jerry Hong, father of Matt Hong, our daughter Carrie’s husband.  Jerry was in this area for a business trip and called to ask us out to lunch.  He is staying near Mt Vernon so we met there and ate in their cafeteria. We had an excellent time discussing our children and grandchildren.  It was fun to share some stories about Danny, Kaylee and Abby that the other had not yet heard.  We very objectively agreed that we have the smartest, kindest, most beautiful grandchildren in the world.  After Jerry left we took advantage of our season passes and did a short tour of the Mt Vernon museum.  We scoped things out so that we can be all ready to take Anne and all her family through when they visit us at Thanksgiving.   It was a quick but enjoyable tour.  What an amazing man – George Washington.

Sunday morning began with a service on the base for our dear Officer Candidate School students.  We do love being able to meet with them.  We had a good discussion today about faith.  We only had four females today, and they are all still worried about finishing.  Even though they have only two more weeks there still are some hard things left.  We talked about having faith in themselves to accomplish this hard goal.  Our one LDS gal is quite worried because she has had trouble with academics.  She has not scored well overall on her written tests so she has an academic board this week.  She asked for a blessing and of course we gave her one.  She cried but we know she left feeling better.  Although there were only 4 young ladies there today they ate almost every bit of the fruit and muffins we provided.   One of the best times during these meetings is the last 30 minutes when they have eaten their fill and are just sitting and talking with each other.  They share their triumphs and challenges at OCS and buoy up each other’s spirits.  It is wonderful to see.  We feel so grateful that we get to work with this wonderful group of young people, and we are continually inspired by their dedication and effort.  After OCS we have to go directly to church for our regular meetings.   Today the speakers all followed the topic of gratitude.  A young marine couple that is new to the ward spoke, and they gave exceptional talks on this subject.  We have visited them and they are in a tough situation right now.  He had some sort of injury so cannot do his regular marine job.  He is being evaluated by a medical board for discharge.  They were transferred here from Japan and they have not yet received their shipment of household goods.  So their home is almost bare and they have only a suitcase full of clothes.  But they stood there and talked about how grateful they were for their family, their health, prayer, the earth, and their faith.  It was very heartwarming and moving.  We were so glad we were there to hear this humble marine family show such tremendous examples of faith and gratitude.  It made us remember how grateful we are for our many, many blessings.  Right now we are grateful for our mission here in Virginia.  We are also very grateful for all of our family and friends that have been so supportive of our mission.

Halloween week

We wrote about our fun Senior Missionary activity last weekend.  One of the other sisters sent us this nice picture of the group.  The man on the far right of the top photo is our mission president, President Wilson, from Minnesota. Unfortunately Sister Wilson was taking the picture.  There were about 8 senior missionaries that did not make it to this activity.

We have done a lot of baking recently.  Pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal no-bakes, peanut butter, chocolate brownies.  Whew!  We did make it to the base and delivered our Halloween treats to 6 marine families.  All were happy to see us and we had some good talks with folks.  We also saw our ward friend Will to whom we are teaching the Temple Prep classes.  We had an excellent lesson with him and a good discussion.  He is a good man and seems to just soak up the things that we are discussing.  

Tuesday we attended a Navy Marine Corps Relief Society training.  We drove the other 4 attendees down to Patuxent River Naval Air Station, about 90 miles.  It was an all day training session so it was a long day.  The big event was our talent performance.  The theme of the meeting was about talents, so during the lunch break they had a mini talent show.  Ahead of time they had asked the various groups of volunteers from different bases to perform or display any talent.  Our director had remembered our bells from last Christmas.  So we dusted off the bells, and Lezlie wrote down the notes for the Marines Hymn and Anchors Aweigh.  We had a few minutes of practice in the car but that was it.  But we did pretty good considering there was essentially zero practice.  At least everyone recognized the songs.  The training was okay but a little irrelevant to Lezlie and me.  But we enjoyed visiting with new folks, getting to know the other volunteers from Quantico a little better, and supporting our director.  We also had our The Basic School family home evening and our 5 faithful attendees were all there.  We had a superb discussion based upon a recent General Conference talk, “Which Way do you Face.”  It is basically about the choice between facing God and obeying His commandments or facing man and doing what he wants you to do.  We had a wonderful discussion and the spirit was felt strongly.  Those young people are so smart and in tune.  It is a delight to spend time with them.

We experienced a busy, busy Wednesday, leaving the house at 10am and returning home at 9pm.  We first attended the Para Chapel meeting, which is a get together of all the religious service volunteers on base.  We got to hear from the head chaplain and talk about our programs.  We then had a few minutes to deliver some Halloween goodies to one family before our next meeting.  This was a family with 7 children, and the mom’s sister, who has 3, was visiting.  So we had 10 kids bunched around the front door oogling the plate of cookies.  But it was great fun.  We attended a chaplains briefing at The Basic School, which is the time when we get to introduce ourselves to the new TBS class.  But we did not have any LDS in the class.  Boo!  We next had our Officer Candidate School family home evening, and we had 30 attendees.  I know we have said over and over again how wonderful it is to be a part of this group.  We get to be one of the bright spots in their week, and it is supremely rewarding to give them encouragement, advice, and a shoulder to cry on.  It is so humbling to be with them.  We try to cheer them up and encourage them in any way we can.

Today was another day to deliver Halloween cookies and visit several families.  Our main focus today were our off-base families in Stafford, which is a bit farther away than the base for us.  We were able to visit 3 families and found that a 4^th family was on vacation in Oregon.  But we had some very nice visits with some excellent marine families.  We also had an enjoyable lunch with our single female marine.  This is a young lady that works as a security guard for the president’s helicopter airfield.  She is from Southern Utah and had not eaten much seafood before.  So we took her to Tim’s Crab Shack, a very eclectic restaurant on the Potomac River near us.  We only found it through a recommendation because it is way off the beaten path.  We had a great lunch of hard shell crabs, crab cakes and clams.  She really enjoyed learning how to get the good crab meat out of the shell and she ate a dozen steamed baby clams like a veteran.  It was great fun and we had a really good visit with her.  We finished our evening with one last visit on the base as we headed back home.  There is a new family that is in kind of a sad situation.  The husband had some kind of accident and is injured.  He has to use a cane to walk.  He is undergoing a medical board, which is a long drawn out review of his situation.  The medical board is important because they decide whether or not he will can stay in and have limited duty, be retired with full or partial pay, or just discharged because the accident had nothing to do with the marines.  So he is in total limbo status right now.  And the worst thing is, they moved here from Okinawa and their furniture and stuff will not arrive for another month.  There house is almost bare except for a small kitchen table and their beds.  But they are doing their best to be optimistic about it.  We felt very blessed to live as comfortably as we do when we saw this young family struggling with medical issues and living in a bare house.  It was another long day of visits and talking with marines and marine families.  It was great.  We feel so grateful to be here.

We had a good zone meeting on Halloween day.  Lots of good training and testimonies.  The other senior missionaries and us decided the young elders and sisters needed something for Halloween.  So we made tangerine jack-o-lanterns and they made tootsie roll pop ghosts.  The elders and sisters seemed to enjoy them.  After finally getting all of our riders delivered back home we finally got back about 2:00pm.  We had many chores to do at home so we just stayed in the rest of the afternoon.  After delivering about twenty plates of Halloween cookies in a week it was good to have some down time.     

Our big activity on this Saturday was to take one of our bachelor marines out to lunch.  After a few problems finding a place for lunch, one was overcrowded and another was closed, we ended up at Ricky’s Chicken.  We had driven past the place before and decided it would either be a dive or a hidden gem because it looked a little sketchy.  It turned out to be a hidden gem.  They had Peruvian style rotisserie chicken, and it was excellent.  Our marine found a drink he liked, something like “Horchati.”  It is a Mexican rice  milk drink that has a cinnamon flavor.  He had been looking for somewhere to get it so he was pleased.  So our chicken sandwiches were excellent as was his steak and cheese sandwich.  We were so pleased to be able to chat with this young marine.  He is our guy that has had two major intestinal surgeries and has one more to go.  He has really opened up to us and was talking about all kinds of things.  He even was joking and poking fun at us, something new and enjoyable.  In the past he has been pretty quiet.   He talked about what will happen after his last surgery, which is a full medical board or evaluation.  That will determine whether or not he will be able to stay in the Marine Corps.  We greatly enjoyed our time with this marine and felt like he enjoyed it too.   In addition to our nice outing with our bachelor we were able to visit one marine family that we missed Halloween week.  Except for two families that were on vacation out of state we delivered Halloween treats to every one of our marines and families. 

We had a small but excellent sacrament meeting with our Officer Candidate School marines this Sunday morning.  We had 5 attendees, which allowed for lots of good discussion.  They are undergoing such challenging trials, mentally, physically and emotionally.  So they really have to dig deep to find strength and resources to get them through.  That makes them so open to talking about things like courage, hope, confidence, leadership, and so forth.  We had a great talk.  Also, they have only three and a half weeks left, and graduation is starting to seem real to them.  They actually are starting to believe they will make it.  One of our gals, is very worried about her academics though.  After half of the written exams she has a 72 point average, and she needs an 80 to graduate.  So we did what we could to encourage her and help her feel more confident.  We have to rush from OCS directly to our ward meetings, which were very good today.  Our lesson is the High Priests Group was especially good today.  It was based on a talk Elder Holland about pursuing happiness.  He said, “The best chance for being happy is to do the things that happy people do.  Live the way happy people live. Walk the path that happy people walk. And your chances to find joy in unexpected moments, to find peace in unexpected places, to find the help of angels when you didn’t even know they knew you existed improves exponentially.”  I thought that was pretty good advice.  We have found that this chance in our lives to spend most of our time focused on helping others has brought us great happiness. 

We mentioned before that we got to visit Shenandoah National Park and see some beautiful scenery.  Although it was wonderful there we have decided that our heavily wooded Quantico Marine Base has just as beautiful Fall colors.  Here is my favorite tree, one that we drive by almost every time we are on the base.  

Blessings Aplenty

We are tired today (Wednesday) catching up on our rest from our long trip.  Although a 3 hour time zone change is not much, it still is tiring to fly all day and shift your bio-clock back to Eastern Time zone.  We spent most of the day on the base at Navy Marine Corps Relief Society.  We worked a long shift and had several cases.  It is always rewarding to help out at NMCRS.  These young marines do not get paid a lot and sometimes they really get themselves into money problems.  Today we took a few pictures at our NMCRS office so you could see what our offices look like there.  

 

        

We again had a large crowd for our Thursday OCS family home evening, 34 people.  We had a lesson about achieving your full potential.  One of the points I made is that you have to remember why you initially wanted to reach a certain goal and what motivated you to seek it.  Sometimes we forget that initial desire, excitement and anticipation of pursuing a goal and thus become bogged down or stagnant as we seek it.  I asked them all to remember why they initially wanted to become marines and how excited it made them to think about it.  Afterward several of them said that it was good to hear that because in the trials and tribulations of OCS they had forgotten those initial reasons why they wanted to be here. Heavenly Father always guides us to say the right things there.  We also got to cheer up several of them that were worried about getting dropped.  It is the middle of their course and a lot of folks are getting dropped for not passing physical or written tests.  So we tried to reassure them and encourage them.  We absolutely love working with this group of young marines and feel blessed that we get to be a small part of their journey through OCS.

Friday we baked our first round of Halloween cookies to deliver- black cat cookies and pumpkin spice chocolate chip cookies. We also had the Sister Training Leaders over for lunch and a family history lesson.  We then went to Dumfries, near the base, and delivered our first 3 sets of Halloween Cookies to some military families that live off base.  Only 16 more to go.  But we love doing this!

Then on  Saturday we had a wonderful Senior Missionary activity.  We met in Charlottesville, Virginia, which is a two hour drive from our apartment.  We had a great visit with the other seniors.  We just love these folks and it was great to catch up.  The primary activity was for each senior couple to talk about some of the most special activities that occur in their area.  We all sent in a few pictures ahead of time to show some of the things we do.  It was just amazing to hear all of the wonderful service that is being provided by the thirty plus senior missionaries herein Virginia  – volunteering at a senior center, teaching lessons to shut ins, driving folks to and from church, serving in branch presidencies, providing activities for Young Single Adults, teaching institute, driving folks to the temple and to doctor appointments and on and on.  We were overwhelmed and amazed at what is being done here in our mission by seniors.  We told about our amazing OCS marines and how wonderful it is to work with them.  After the meeting we had a great lunch of homemade soup in bread bowls and got to visit with our friends some more.  Then we headed to a very cool mansion called “Swannanoa” near Charlottesville.  Almost a year ago we toured a mansion in Richmond called “Maymont” that was built by a man who became rich buying, building and selling railroads after the Civil War.  The mansion we saw today (see pics) was his summer home.  It was huge and had gorgeous marble columns, scrollwork, magnificent marble stairways, and intricate fireplaces.  It was built in 1912 for $2 million.   But the place was really run down.  The current owner is trying to make it into a bed and breakfast, but it will take millions of dollars to refurbish it.  Nevertheless, it was amazing to see.  It was on the top of a hill at the south end of the Shenandoah National Park and the views of the forested hills and valley were beautiful. 

After our visit to the mansion we drove on the Skyline Drive through a portion of the Shenandoah National Park.  It was spectacular.  We saw splendid fall colors on the forested hillsides and some incredible views down into the Shenandoah Valley.  It is an amazing park and we greatly enjoyed seeing it.  But we did make a comparison with the scenery in our beloved Washington State, and we realize we live in one of the most beautiful areas of the whole USA.  Shenandoah is awesome, but it is not any better than Snoqualmie Falls or Mt Rainier.

After putting 250 miles on the car we arrived home from Shenandoah tired but happy, which is how we often arrive home.  But our night was not done.  We attended an 8pm baptism at our ward for a young woman.  It was a sweet baptism.  We almost did not go because we were so tired from our long drive.  But we love to support baptisms, especially new converts.  We were glad we went.  One of the Sister missionaries that we know well sang a solo of “I Believe in Christ.”  It was wonderful.  We did not even know she sang and she had a beautiful voice.  Her testimony came through clearly and emotionally in the song.  So nice! 

What a wonderful Sunday.  It began in one of our favorite ways, with our dear OCS group.  Today we had four females attend our sacrament service.  The guys all had liberty, and our one male member told us he was going to church with a friend in town.  But we had a delightful morning with these amazing ladies.  Our lesson was short and as they were sitting and enjoying refreshments they all began talking about their worries and hopes concerning OCS. They compared notes with each other about what classes were hard, who was the toughest Gunny Sergeant, and which physical test was the most demanding.  One was a runner and loved the 3 mile run but hated the pull-ups.  Another hated the run but loved the pull-ups.  Still another liked all of the physical stuff but hated the written tests.  It was incredible just to hear them describe the difficult training they are going through – a 5 mile hike with full gear and carrying a rifle, and a great deal of it uphill; a 9 mile hike at 4am with a blistering pace; a double run through the obstacle course; a comprehensive test over the history of the marine corps.  It was exhausting just to hear about it.  But they are almost over the hump and are starting to get a little bit of confidence.  After our wonderful OCS service we attended our own ward and had excellent meetings.  It was the primary program, a Sunday service in which all of the children under 12 read parts, sing and give talks.  We have a huge primary and it was excellent.  Lezlie taught a great lesson on Temple and Family History work.  We are already starting to realize how hard it is going to be to leave this ward and we have grown to love the people here so much.  After church we had 3 outstanding phone calls.  First, one of our dear marine friends, Melanie Roy, called us from North Carolina just to say hello and see how we were doing.  She was one of our original group that we met with for about ten months.  She went on our Annapolis, Temple, and Marine Parade field trips, so we got to know and love her well.  She is doing great in her advanced school and is excited about starting her real marine job, logistics, soon.  She is one of the people that will make sure all the marines in California will get what they need when they need it.  It was so delightful to talk to her and she thanked us for our support during her difficult training here.  Second was a great call with Aaron.  Although he is still having back problems he said there has been a little improvement.  He is doing okay otherwise and is busy as ever at work.  Finally my sister Karen called and we had a great visit.  All is well in her world.  She recently had an excellent trip to visit her son Nathan in Minneapolis.  Her other son Ian visited there at the same time, so she got to have a few nice days with both of her boys.  It was a huge blessing to have all three of these great phone calls.  Speaking of blessings I need to tell about another one we have recently received.  We  expect to fund everything regarding our mission ourselves. Recently however, we have talked about money and the fact that we may need to cut back a bit on some or our refreshments or trips because we have been spending a lot on food.  We contemplated, prayed, and discussed some ways we could spend a little less.  And within a period of two weeks we received donations for our mission work from two different friends that were a total surprise.  Both friends, neither members of our church,  said that we were doing good work and they simply wanted to help.  So we feel that we have been blessed and have been given a message from Heavenly Father that we are supposed to keep doing what we are doing.  We are so grateful for this tender mercy of these additional funds we were not expecting.  But it is typical of the blessings we have received while here on our mission.    Doctrine and Covenants 11:3  “ … assist to bring forth my work according to my commandments and you shall be blessed.” 

Vist Hongs in Seattle - Danny's Baptism

Tuesday means District Training meeting most weeks.  So we got our little district of 6 people together and had some good training.  These young elders are amazing.  They teach as if they have been Sunday School teachers for years.  We will be gone on the next transfer day since our trip to Seattle overlaps next Tuesday.  So we said goodbye to these good young men just in case they get transferred.  We will especially miss our District Leader, Elder Holloway.  We have really enjoyed getting to know him, a kind, smart, and dedicated young man. (Editorial note: Elder Holloway did not get transferred away but rather was made a Zone Leader here).  We also had our The Basic School family home evening tonight.  We are covering several of our favorite talks from conference as our lesson material.  We had a good lesson on Elder Klebingat’s talk about being spiritually ready.  We only had two attendees, our marine wife and her friend. But it was a good discussion and we greatly enjoyed being with them.

Since the Director of Navy Marine Corps Relief Society is out on vacation, she asked us to work a long shift today.  We have been volunteering for over a year now, and we actually are some of the more senior volunteers at this point.  We both have check signing authority, and the other volunteers working today did not.  So we were at the NMCRS office from 9am – 3pm.  It was a bit slow, but we did help out a few marines with some minor loans.  After dinner on the base and a little shopping at the Exchange we attended our Officer Candidate School family home evening.  It was lucky we made a lot of refreshments because we had 39 attendees.  Wow!  That is a new record for us.  I tried to capture the size of the group with a few pictures.  Lezlie gave her PowerPoint presentation on finding inspiration and spiritual insight in nature.  It is a great presentation and the lesson went exceptionally well, with lots of good discussion and interaction.  When the refreshment bar opened it was like a shark feeding frenzy.  There were not even any crumbs left from about 90 brownies, 8 dozen cookies, and $20 worth of fruit.  But it was a joy to see.  I had a heart-to-heart discussion with one young lady that is having doubts about whether she wants to become a Marine officer.  We have had a lot of OCS candidates go through those self-doubts so I was able to give her some objective input.  I told her that many candidates go through this because it is so hard, but that she should not take anything the drill sergeants say to her personally.  They are just doing their job when they yell at her.  It was a long but good day.  We are doing last minute travel preps.  We have to leave the apartment at 5:45am tomorrow morning. 

We have returned from our fabulous trip to Seattle to attend the baptism of our grandson Danny Hong, son of Carrie and Matt.  We were gone Oct 16 – 21, and we had a wonderful, wonderful time!  (Thanks Carrie and Matt).  It would be impossible to describe every enjoyable moment we had, so this will just cover the highlights.   After an early but uneventful flight to Seattle we were picked up by Carrie and my dog Joy.  It was so nice to see them both.  We got to go directly to the school and pick up Kaylee from kindergarten.  Shortly after that Abby woke up from a nap, and a few minutes later Danny got home from school.  We quickly got reacquainted and got to see Danny and Kaylee’s new room and new things.  Since we have been gone so long we thought the grandkids might be a little shy or something, but not at all.  They gave us huge hugs and immediately wanted to tell us things and play.  Although Abby definitely thinks Carrie is her best friend, she was very friendly to us, and her smiles and pleasant disposition gave us many happy moments.  Matt’s mom, LaRue, was also there for Danny’s baptism so we got to visit with her as well.  We had a great time visiting and playing.  Friday was a school day. Dan walked Danny and Kaylee to the bus stop. It is hard to believe that they are both getting so old!  It was also the day of Danny’s Harry Potter birthday party.  So after getting the kids off to school we spent a lot of time preparing for the well planned party. Danny was student of the week, because it is his birthday week, and he got to bring something in every day to tell about. He asked if we would be his show and tell Friday, so we went in and Carrie gave out cookies and we answered questions from  the second grade class. Danny put the airplane drawings we had done the night before on the overhead. Then we went home and the party started 30 minutes later.  Here are shots of the Honeyduke Store and the wands  (Carrie made cool wands with small dowels, hot glue, and some paint). 

 

After all the potential wizards and witches arrived we used the Sorting Hat to tell them if they had the correct wand.  I got to be the voice via a cell phone, which was great fun.  They found magical creatures (stuffed animals) in the yard and held a Quidditch practice, including finding Snitches in the yard.  Finally it was time for potions class, and Lezlie was the teacher.  She looked great in her witches outfit and taught a great class.  With some dry ice (angry glacier chips), pop rocks (mini moonstones), vinegar (horsesweat) and baking soda (powdered unicorn horn) and a variety of other ingredients, they brewed potions for Happiness, Good Luck, and Sleeping Well.  They finally chowed down on a Great Hall meal fit for Hogwarts students.  It was all so much fun and Danny had a blast.  Below are some pictures of Lezlie and the Potions Class students, as well as the spectacular Hogswarts birthday cake LaRue made.   

 Saturday began with some wet soccer matches.  Danny and Kaylee both had games in the rain on muddy fields.  Danny’s game was quite enjoyable and he played well.  His team won 4 -0, and the kids were old enough to play some good soccer.  Danny made one particularly spectacular pass to a teammate right in front of the goal.  But alas, his teammate did not make the dramatic shot.  Kaylee’s group had great fun, but it was more of a chase the ball type game.  She enjoyed it and so did we.  But I think she had almost as much fun playing in the mud as playing soccer.  After a quick cleanup and lunch it was time for the baptism.  All of us family members were choked up over how many people showed up.  It was overwhelming to see the support Danny and the Hong family received from so many different friends.  One touching attendee was Danny’s soccer coach, who is not a member of the Church.  But he was there with his son, who is also on Danny’s team, full of good words and smiles for Danny.  It was very nice.  Of course we are not unbiased, but we thought it was an exceptionally good baptism service.  Everything went so well, and there were definitely strong feeling of the Spirit.  Danny was grinning the whole time.   Another highlight was Kaylee and Carrie singing I Am a Child of God.   At home they practiced and Kaylee danced while she sang, calling it her baptism dance.  Mom said she could not dance at the real baptism and asked if she was sure she still wanted to sing.  Kaylee said yes.  And it was just beautiful.  It was mostly Kaylee singing with her mom singing along to help her remember the words.  It was another very touching moment.  Both the Primary President and the Bishop said some encouraging and inspiring words congratulating Danny for his decision to be baptized.  After the baptism all of the family went to Pizza Hut for a feast, and Danny got to open his family birthday gifts.  It was great, great fun!  Here are some pictures of the whole afternoon. Kaylee is wearing a dress Matt brought her back from India. Abby is wearing one of her many cute hair flowers, so people know she is a girl.

Sunday was Stake Conference for Carrie and Matt’s stake so we all attended that together in the morning.  It was an excellent meeting with several inspiring and uplifting talks.  We enjoyed helping keeping the kids entertained, especially Abby.  We had a pleasant walk around the temple while we waited for some of the traffic to clear out.  We got some nice pictures on the temple grounds

In the afternoon it was a glorious, sunny Pacific Northwest day.  Nothing is more beautiful than a sunny day in Seattle.  It was just the right temperature for an outdoor activity, so we went to Snoqualmie Falls and took a nice walk.  The falls and the river were beautiful, and we had an excellent time.  It was one of those days when Washington is at its best, with spectacular mountains views, a crystal clear river, and blankets of evergreen trees dotted with fall colors as far as you can see.  After a scrumptious roast beef dinner we had a quiet evening at home visiting and playing with the grandkids. 
Monday was a school day again, so we saw the kids off to the bus.  We did some packing, catching up and cleaning up as the evidence from Danny’s party was still in plain sight.  We had to close down Honeyduke’s candy store because all of us were snacking on the sweets a little too much.  Lezlie and I each got some individual time with each grandchild since Kaylee got home at noon and Danny did not get home until 4pm.  Building Lego kits, designing and making horses, and playing games with Danny and Kaylee was super fun.  Danny enjoyed trying out his new bow and arrow as well as his new chess set. Kaylee loved doing anything with art. It was so delightful to spend time with them and just listen to them talk about their day at school.  I am sure that this will make us miss them all the more for the last 4 months of our mission, but it was worth it.  Monday evening we had a nice dinner out at Panda Express and enjoyed some good Asian food.  Then we had a fun family home evening about Family Communication, topped off with eating the remainder of Danny’s birthday cake.  All too soon we had to get to bed because of our early morning flight.  We were out to door at 5:15am to catch begin our long but smooth trip home.  So we are back in Woodbridge, Virginia ready to get back to our mission responsibilities, refreshed and inspired by our outstanding trip to visit Carrie, Matt, Danny and Kaylee in Seattle.  Seeing the blessings this dear family enjoys was a very personal reminder of why we are out here in the first place. The Gospel works…

Fitzhugh Reunion

We began our week by presenting our new family home evening lesson on teamwork to a family with seven children.  The marine dad is gone for the week so we took dinner as well as doing the FHE.  It was very successful.  Although seven children under the age of 10 is pretty chaotic, the kids were well behaved, respectful, and responsive.  They helped get things ready for dinner and then did the clearing and cleanup.  They asked us many questions and participated well in the lesson.  They were not grabbing and whining for more when it came time to prepare and hand out the treats.  So we were quite pleased at how well things went.  We believe the mom was grateful too, especially for the dinner.  We used all paper goods so there would be no dishes to wash too.  We felt humbled and happy that we could help her out a bit. 

Our Wednesday Officer Candidate School family home evening was amazing!  We had 29 students crammed into our little conference room that is sized for about 15.  Thankfully we had made plenty of treats.  Lezlie gave a good lesson on “ and out of small things proceedeth that which is great.”  Of those 29 only 3 were LDS, and all the rest came because the LDS trio invited them.  Those three are such outstanding people.  You can tell that they are leaders among the group.  It was just so rewarding to see all of them chatting with each other and boosting their spirits.  They loved the refreshments and thanked us over and over again.   I got to chat with one young lady from Seattle who was a huge Seahawks fan.  Her dad has held season tickets for many years and she said she was missing going to games with him right now.  Two girls told me they had been going to another service but were kind of sad it was so unstructured.  They were glad that we had a song, a prayer and a real lesson.  Once again mingling with these outstanding young people has lifted our spirits.  We are so grateful to be working with them and giving them a little spiritual and physical nourishment to help them through this difficult training.  We are also grateful to them for be willing to become Marine Officers and to serve our country.

 

After working an excellent Thursday shift at Navy Marine Corps Relief Society we pointed the car north and began to drive.  We drove to the Wilson’s home, dear old Naval Academy friends of ours.  Tom and I were in the same company all four years.  They live near Gettysburg and we stayed with them when we toured the battlefield last spring.  Lezlie completed a painting for them, a view of their historic home.  We drove up to present the painting to them and for a short visit.  We arrived just before dinner and Lezlie got to give them the painting, which they really liked. She was able to make a last minute correction with her “paint first aid kit.”  We had a lovely and relaxing evening, not to mention an excellent dinner, and thoroughly enjoyed visiting with the Wilsons.  Their country home is warm, comfortable and relaxing.  We felt like we were in a cozy bed and breakfast.  It was wonderful to retell old Naval Academy stories from out time there.  Of course we both loved playing with their dog Bailey.

After a great breakfast with the Wilsons we headed to Hershey, Pennsylvania, about an hour away.  We visited Hershey’s Chocolate World, which is right next door to the large amusement park.  It was a fun stop.  They have a mock factory tour, which is like an amusement park ride.  It told the interesting story of how their chocolate is made, from beans to wrapped candy bar.  I thought the tote board was cool.  It provided an update on how many candy bars of each type had been made on that day, and it was thousands.  On the recommendation of the Wilsons we had a dark chocolate hot fudge sundae, and it was delicious.  The gift shop had every imaginable type of Hershey’s chocolate for sale.  Did you know that chocolate kisses come in about ten flavors?  I almost bought a 5 pound Hershey bar, but came to my senses before purchasing it.  For me one of the most interesting parts of the day was hearing all about Milton Hershey, who was a great philanthropist besides being such a successful businessman.  He built the Hershey School for boys in the early 1900s.  In his will he set up a large trust fund so that the school would be funded for the foreseeable future.  It is now a private school for needy boys and girls and runs grades K – 12.  The trust fund still finances it, and those in need pay no tuition.  It was a long drive home in the rain, but our visit to the Wilsons and stop at Hershey were both greatly enjoyable.  We arrived home early enough for one more activity.  Meet the Mormons was playing in Woodbridge, so we invited several different bachelor marines.  Only one took us up on it, so we drove to base, took our marine to the late movie, and then drove him home.  It made for a long day, but he was thrilled to see it.  This young man is a fairly recent convert and it was good for him to see the breadth of the LDS Church. 

 

Our Friday began two days of attending the Fitzhugh reunion.  This is one of  the main Virginia families that Lezlie is part of. William Fitzhugh immigrated to Virginia for opportunity and land in the mid 1600s.  He did well, and after a generation the Fitzhughs were very wealthy and owned a ton of land here.  We first toured a beautiful mansion built by one of the Fitzhughs, Chatham.  Although we had visited it before, we got a superb personal tour this time.  The tour guide was very funny and also very knowledgeable about both the house and the Fitzhughs.  It was thoroughly enjoyable.  He told story after story about things that had happened at the house.  It appears that everything about the house was designed to show wealth and power, and it certainly did that.  After his we got to take a luncheon riverboat cruise on the Rappahannock River, another highly enjoyable adventure.  By now we were getting to know some of the Fitzhugh cousins, so we had a nice time chatting with them and hearing their stories.  One very interesting couple were from England.  The man was actually from Texas originally, but he had gone to England to go to grad school and he ended up staying there.  He was an avid Fitzhugh historian, and he gave a wonderful talk after dinner.  I always love boats, so the cruise was great fun too.  I enjoyed watching how the paddle wheels worked.  The headquarters for the reunion was a nice Marriott in downtown Fredericksburg.  After the boat cruise we had several hours to just hang around, so we spent a lot of time in the lobby area talking to cousins and resting.  I found a small cubby that had a television, so I got to watch a good portion of the Oregon – UCLA football game.  I loved it, because I do not have live tv and have really missed watching college football.  Finally we attended the dinner, which was excellent.  The Fitzhugh lecture was very interesting.  We learned about how the Fitzhughs had lost their great wealth and large land holdings in England, which was why William came to America.  Mom had drawn an excellent pen-and-ink sketch of Chatham for the silent auction, which was to raise money for future reunions.  It sold for $55! The dinner and lecture lasted well into the night so we got home way too late for senior missionaries.  But we did enjoy the day with the Fitzhughs.  Our night was not done though.  We had to put together 40 butterscotch rolls, a fruit plate, and a lesson for our Sunday morning OCS service.  But we got it all done. Below are photos of all the Fitzhugh cousins at Chatham and of us in front of the riverboat.

Our Sunday morning began early with our OCS service.  We did a lesson on courage that we have presented before, and it was well received.  They absolutely loved the hot butterscotch rolls and almost licked the pan clean.  We had some great chats with our beloved marines. An LDS candidate and I gave one young female marine a blessing.  It was all good.  By 9am we were on the road to Fredericksburg for part 2 of the Fitzhugh reunion.  We attended 10:00am worship services at the St Paul’s Episcopal church in King George, Virginia.  The church's land and silver communion set were donated by the Fitzhugh family in the early 1700s.  The church was 300 years old but still had a large and active congregation.  They had a reception for the Fitzhughs afterwards with delicious goodies- we felt very welcome. We got to wander around the church and adjacent cemetery after the services.  We saw many Fitzhugh gravesites. Our final reunion activity was to have an outdoor luncheon at Eagles Nest, a historical home of one of the Fitzhughs.  The current owners bought the home about forty years ago and have done wonders to restore it and keep the property up.  They are very generous in letting the Fitzhugh reunions hold a luncheon there.  They actually live in the Eagles Nest home, but they opened the ground floor and just let us wander through it at our leisure. The picture does not do this beautiful home and wooded property justice. It was spectacular. There was a family cemetery on this property, also, where the original William and his wife are buried.  All too soon we had to say goodbye to our new friends and long lost cousins.  It was a good bunch of people, friendly and down to earth.  We wore our name tags throughout the reunion activities, so we had many good discussions with folks about our church and what we are doing in serving the marines in Virginia.  We are now home trying to catch up on things we neglected while taking these excursions.  It was all tiring but oh such great fun.  We are grateful that we are able to have occasional time to explore Virginia and have wonderful adventures here.  We will always have a love for Virginia in after this experience. Below are St Paul's Church and Eagles Nest.