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 Christmas songs. The missionaries selected the songs and had to say why the song was one of their favorites.  Then he showed two videos; one was a church video of the nativity, which is very well done and lasts about 17 minutes.  I love the expression on the face of the wiseman as he presents his gifts.  It’s worth watching if you have not seen it.

 The second video is a little more lighthearted. The president asked the tech sisters to make a video showing all the missionaries in the mission, which for all the missionaries and their families was run to watch! (I shared it on my Facebook page)

Pres. and Sister Watson getting ready to speak to the 

missionaries at one of the zone conferences this week.

Missionaries gathered in the mission home

 President Watson, our mission president had us all move into the more formal sitting room where he shared a few comments, read part of Luke 2 and read a story.  In his prior life he worked for the Quorum of the 12 and was Pres. Packer’s assistant for a number of years.  He said it was very demanding, and that he would receive calls from Pres. Packer at any hour, day, or night.  His phone had a special ringtone for Pres. Packer, and he would quickly shift back into work mode when it rang.  He often got calls on special days, like Christmas Eve.  He once received a call while he was speaking from the pulpit at a stake conference!  He ignored it, but when he called Pres. Packer back, he asked, “were you speaking in stake conference?”  “Yes, I was.”  “Then you should have answered it!  It would have been more exciting than listening to you speak!”  They had a very tight relationship.  He speaks very fondly of Pres. Packer and misses him intensely, even after all these years.

 Since all the missionaries were at these zone conferences, I asked them to bring their vehicle’s gas cards to the conferences, so I could swap out the cards that expire in January.  We made a pretty good dent in that process.  I also had a few Sim cards that I needed to swap out of their TIWI (a vehicle tracker that monitors speed, location, seatbelt usage and aggressive driving) before the end of the year. The TIWIs will not communicate starting January 1^st without the new Sim card. I think I have them all updated as of Thursday. Whew!

 After the last of the zone conferences on Thursday, Liz and I drove to San Diego.  Sister Noall, one of the sisters we are close to, was being released.  Her parents came from Colorado to pick her up and to visit some families here in Riverside.  Sister Noall began her mission at the Mormon Battalion Historic Site in San Diego, and she wanted to take her folks on a tour there.  We decided to surprise her, and we showed up at 10:00 for her tour.  It was very enjoyable, and she did a great job, even though she had not done it for over a year.

Mormon Battalion with Sister Noall

While there, we met with the “Site” President and his wife, President and Sister Allen, from Washington, UT.  They will be released in mid-January after presiding there for 3 years.  Before going to San Diego, they were senior missionaries in Greece, where he did the vehicle coordination and finances. (He had only 9 vehicles!)  They served there for 18 months, came home for a little over 6 months, and were asked to go to San Diego.  While visiting with them, we learned that she is the sister of Muriel Linton. Muriel is married to Larry Linton, who became bishop of the 12^th ward in Portland when my Dad was released.  Larry was the bishop when I was called to go on my mission, and I was the 3^rd employee at his start-up company, Linton and Associates Power Wash, which morphed into L&A and then finally Landa.  It was good to hear that the Lintons are doing very well and are in good health just outside of Dallas, TX.  The world can be a small place in the church.

 After the Mormon Battalion, we walked around Historic Old Town which is just a few blocks away, and then headed back to Riverside to get ready for Christmas.  We enjoyed our diversion to the Mormon Battalion.

 This Christmas was a little strange. It is the first time we have not had any children with us since 1975.  A little quiet.  We had talked for some time about going and serving a Christmas meal at a homeless shelter, and had looked into that possibility, but our children talked us out of it because Liz is on a medication that suppresses her immune system, and we concluded that it was little risky.  Darn!  We were able to Facetime with all of our children and grandchildren and it was fun to watch them open some of their presents.  Our children gave us a digital picture frame, already loaded with family pictures!  We will be adding some of our own pictures later today.  A perfect gift to remind us of our family, and does make us a little homesick, frankly.

 We have transfer day tomorrow, and fifteen new missionaries will be arriving on Tuesday.  There is a craziness that follows when missionaries move into new areas with new companions.  There will be several training sessions for the new missionaries and their trainers.  I conduct a Driver Accountability Training session for all the new missionaries so they can be qualified to drive a mission vehicle. Usually, I do the training before they arrive, but this last transfer period was a bit hectic with the mission conference, swapping out Sim Cards, vehicle inspections, trip to LA to take a missionary to the French consulate.  I’ll take care of all 15 this Friday and will get their TIWI cards to them the following week.  It’s all good.

 We will start the new year with several trips to the temple with the missionaries.  We have quite a few missionaries leaving to go to their original assignments in January. Our daughter, Christine will visit us with her family in January.  Actually, they are visiting Disneyland, and will spend a few days with us.  It’s hard to compete with Mickey!  Julie and her family will visit us for a few days in February.  Liz’s sister and her husband are going to be in California for several weeks, so we will see them a few times while they are here, we hope.

It’s hard to believe, but we will be going home in a little more than 3 months.  What a whirlwind adventure this has been!

The mail for all the missionaries comes to the mission office to be sorted by the office staff into 9 different zones.  Last year the office received about 1,100 packages!  We haven't added up how many we received this year.  We will do that later this week.  This mail truck was 2/3 full of packages for the mission!  We are helping the postal carrier unload her truck and carry it into the "mail room."