Steve & Liz McAllister

  February 13, 2022  " Elder "Cuz", training and family" Arriving missionaries Feb. 8th Since the last time we blogged (is that a verb?) our days have been pretty routine and pretty hectic.   Nothing out of the ordinary.   I am still trying to figure out how a license plate was installed on the wrong vehicle, and then searching for the vehicle that has the plates that should be on this vehicle.   I figure if you have one vehicle with incorrect plates, you have two!   I may need to go to a higher authority to help me find the other vehicle.   I will make a trip to the DMV.   Going to the DMV is not on the list of things I love to do here in CA! Liz is keeping very busy.   She’s been helping to send missionaries all over the world!   This last week alone she sent three to Tahiti, one of whom is a cousin of mine!   He arrived in Riverside and told me his mother is a McAllister!   We did the “find relatives” feature on Family...

  Redlands, California Temple "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…..”  The week after our last blog post was great!   The mission had arranged for each of the zones to attend the Redlands Temple, which is about 30 to 40 minutes away, depending on traffic.   The missionaries have been to the temple so few times that they look forward to going with excitement and anticipation.   The temple asks that the mission provide a couple to serve as the witness couple, so Liz and I volunteered to do that twice that week, which we enjoyed. Then on Friday, we had the opportunity to go to the Newport Beach temple as well!  Our friends from Vancouver, the Zundel’s took their daughter, Rachel, to the Newport temple for her first time.  They went there because her grandfather is the temple president and they invited us to join them.  The Newport temple was less than an hour away!  Three trips to the temple in the same week is good for one’...

  Happy New Year! My parents as missionaries in Bristol, England It’s hard to believe that 2021 is in the books and we are beginning another orbit around the sun.  In many ways, let’s hope that the pandemic begins to abate, that political tensions inside our country will be reduced, that a higher level of civility will begin to blanket all our citizens, and that nations might work together for the benefit of the world.  All these things are possible if we put Jesus Christ at the center of our lives. This edition will be a little different than most.  All the prior entries were about our mission experiences, this will be mostly about an experience my parents had when they served back in 1987-88. With the new year comes yet another birthday. This was a little more difficult to celebrate as the leading digit on my odometer increased.  However, the day started off unexpectedly when I received a very pleasant message from someone I met briefly about 15-20 years...

  Christmas lights are the Mission Inn in Riverside Heading into Christmas was busier than expected.  The mission president wanted to have the missionaries come to his house for a Christmas Zone Conference.  He had 5 of these conferences, spread over 3 days.  He also wanted to feed all the missionaries without breaking the budget.  How do you feed all these people in about 1 hour?   The plan was to do a baked potato bar.  The senior couples prepared the potatoes and delivered them to the mission home, where they were baked for about 90 minutes.  They turned out very well.  But by the end of the week, I think the mission president, his wife and children, and many of the senior couples were all “potatoed out!” Some of the senior couples attended more than one zone conference, to lend support/help to Sister Watson.  It all went very well.   The mission president gathered all the missionaries into the family room where we sang Chris...

    “You are gorgeous!” I can’t let Liz out of my sight.   This is the second time that someone has “hit” on her. The first was while we were in LA at the French consulate, and I was sitting right there!   The man was elderly, pushing a walker, and was on oxygen.   I wasn’t too worried.   He came right up to her toe to toe and told her she had beautiful eyes.   We had a good laugh after he slowly shuffled off. Unlike the “junior” missionaries who must be always with their companion, seniors are allowed to run errands and do things by themselves.   Last week Liz was walking into a store near the office by herself. As she entered the store, another elderly man who hadn’t aged too well, spread his arms out wide as she approached and said, “You are gorgeous!”   Liz just rolled her eyes, and kept walking, and said to herself, “ya, right!”   You’ll have to read to the end to see how this story turns out. (cliff hanger.)   We’ve ha...

   Saying goodbye to Sister Neider It has been a month since I posted something on our blog.  I think this last transfer period…the last 6 weeks…. were busier than normal.  We started with transfers on October 5 th …sending home a group of missionaries and receiving a large group of “greenies.”  The week after the new missionaries arrive is always busy until about Friday when things seem to settle down.    That next week was Elder Pingree’s visit, which kept us hopping.  Over the next few weeks, we had several cars in the shop due to fender benders and Liz was busy gathering missionaries’ travel plans, visas, and other official documents the missionaries need to have with them when they travel to another country…and each country’s requirements are different!  I had to program all our Equinox vehicles with “Teen Driver” which limits how fast the missionaries can drive and how loud they can play their missionary approved church music.  I...