Interviews and views North and South and the airport

This was interview week. Our second round this time. Mark was able to interview on a faster pace. But admittedly the sisters take longer (more to say and like to talk) The missionaries are now telling us our predecessor took 1/2 hour or longer on each person and so this is going really nice. Mark averages about 15 to 20 minutes each.  Some take longer. I sit and talk to the missionaries waiting for their turn and Mark and I compare notes at the end of the day. This time around they are much more relaxed with me present and once as they were all talking about themselves I actually said, "You do remember I am here? Right? And you want me to know this?" They laugh and keep talking. Apparently they feel comfortable with me. I learn a lot sometimes. I am learning names better now too.
We caught a cold last Friday and both of us got laryngitis. By Saturday night when we were suppose to speak at Penasquitos Stake conference with Elder Cook I had kind of gotten my voice back and we made it through.  After the Saturday night session we met Chris Carr's sister who is in the stake and her husband and one son. Then we went to Nathan and Nicole for a dessert before heading home.
By Tuesday this week with interviews and phone calls Mark had totally lost his voice by afternoon.  So I said we are taking some down time and doing something on our own. We changed clothes and drove to La Jolla Cove to see the sea lions and seals and the ocean. It was really beautiful and the sea lions are fun to watch.

La Jolla is beautiful to just walk along the coast and watch the ocean and then to drive around. We found the chapel in the area as well. Then we just drove roads to kind of get to know the areas and even ended up driving by Sea World. We are kind of getting the feel of the area.

We have gotten really good at the airport drive. We have missionaries going home early for school and for visa reasons and we had one missionary returning from a medical leave.  We picked up a missionary returning from a medical leave on Tuesday. We took 2 missionaries this morning to drop off. We drove home through National City area which is a lot of apartments and even just looking at it from freeway you can get a small feel for the area and what the missionaries are working in. There is a lot of harbor area filled with navy vessels. It is pretty impressive.

Mark got his counselors set apart on Wednesday night and had presidency meeting.  They are really great men and it will be so nice to have them to delegate things out and work on in the mission. We are starting to get a feel for things and make small changes to fit what we do and what we think.

Randy and Penny have received their mission call to our mission. We are doing a happy dance. They will arrive in February. Penny will help in the nursing area and office and Randy will be a huge asset for us in the office as we loose our current office staff in March. I hope they are as happy as we are. We did request them and they said that was ok. 

Thursday we were in El Centro in the Imperial Valley. We drove to Calexico to see the town and get a feel for where the missionaries serve.  That is where the border with Mexico is.  Mexicali on the other side of the border is huge and the missionaries get very frustrated because their investigators all go to Mexicali on the weekend and they can never get them to church.

 The Wall with Mexico. There are border patrol cars parked all along the wall

Mark in front of the border wall. It is about 107 degrees outside here. That is cooler weather for here.

On Friday we had interviews in Poway which is really pretty area north and west of San Diego and is kind of a posh suburb to San Diego. After interviews we drove on to Ramona and up into the mountains to Julian (4600 feet above sea level) which is kind of a very very small resort area know for its pies. We have a small branch up there. So we took pictures of the chapel and had some famous Julian apple pie with caramel ice cream. Julian is the north end of our mission. We saw the southern point and the northern points of our mission this week.

The chapel in Julian

We had a senior couple stay with us last night at the mission home. They were trading out with  their replacement couple who had moved into the apartment and they needed a place to stay. They had stayed long enough to meet the new couple and show them things and how it worked at the institute where the served. They are the Van Dykes from Kaysville and are very nice people. The couples give such great service in the mission. They took off for home early this morning before we went to the airport.

Tomorrow we speak in Santee Stake Conference. Actually Mark speaks tonight as well in their Priesthood meeting.  Then tomorrow night we speak at the Mission President's Devotional in El Cajon. So Mark has three talks to prepare and I have two.  Keeps you hopping.

But I am going to go get some grocery shopping done, drop off clothes to the dry cleaners and plan my sister leadership trainers luncheon I am having next Friday here at the Mission Home with all my sister leadership trainers. They will actually be training me as well as I figure all this out. Any suggestions for my missionary daughters for them would be appreciated.

That is about it for this week. Love you all very much