Week 12: Camarillo, Ca

This week has been a little crazy, as you might imagine. The hills around us keep becoming greener and more beautiful by the day with all this rain. There are hundreds of people in the fields planting spring crops, and everything here is muddy. Elder Weatherford and I had the opportunity to meet with a few people who love uplifting messages, sometimes we meet them at the church, and sometimes we chat in the garage because their spouse doesn't really want religion. We are grateful that they like our messages of love. On Thursday, I gave a piano lesson to a sister here. And we found a Catholic charity that is closer to our new duplex that needs volunteers, so we are excited! We will take a fingerprint test in order to protect the people who we will serve, and then we will train, and finally, we will deliver food, talk or read to elderly people, and drive them to doctor appointments. In Camarillo where we live, the population is mostly over age 65, and we enjoy the older people. We have had rain most days here.

But on Monday, the rain just started pouring, and that is the day that the Santa Barbara airport closed. The town of Carpentaria was completely cut off by flooded roads, and even our Oxnard had flooded roads and strawberry fields. There are huge puddles on the golf courses, and many spots on Highway 101 are standing pools of water. Of course, Monday was the day that 14 new missionaries arrived, Tuesday was the day that we transfer about 1/3 of the missionaries to new assignments, and Wednesday is the day that several missionaries finish their missions and go home. Most of these flights and transfers have been cancelled and postponed, but one by one, we are getting them to alternate airports, such as Burbank. Tomorrow morning, Dad and I will take a few to the LA airport, where we will drop them off, one by one, on their various rescheduled flights on Delta, United, Southwest, and American. One more day tomorrow and then we will rest. In general, we are amazed at how well the freeways were designed, and we take the main roads to the airport. Besides driving about 10 miles per hour for 20 miles, the roads are safe.

Our home is safe, too. We have a big arroyo right behind us, and it fills partly with water and provides great drainage. We are doing well, and we love the adventure. Most of our pictures below are from the Reagan Library and Air Force One museum in Simi Valley. Also, our friends, Miguel and Belia Soto, and our friend, Roberto with Elder Bethers playing the piano behind him.