Week 27: Camarillo, CA

This week was so busy that Dad and I had to be very careful to eat and rest so that we could do everything that we planned. We are getting old. 

We began on Monday with our typical office meeting where we go through the schedule and assignments for the week. Then, we met with our friend, Abelino. He was exhausted from picking strawberries all day. We thanked him and told him that we were so impressed! When we feel tired, we try to think of how hard our friends work. On Tuesday through Friday, we attended four zone conferences in different parts of the mission. The couple who took care of cars in our mission went home so we helped with taking care of the cars. We arrived at each conference at 8:00 AM and we taught each missionary how to measure tread depth on tires, refill engine fuels, clean their car, and stay safe. We loved all the one-on-one time with our missionaries. I think we worked on half of the 62 cars. 

Our first conference was in Santa Maria, a 2 1/2 hour drive north from Camarillo, so we decided to spend the night there and have less driving for the next day, which was 1 hour north of Camarillo. We helped some missionaries move furniture into a new apartment, and then we drove out to the ocean at Morro Bay. We saw sea otters up close, and we were amazed at their antics. We felt so lucky to see them! We had a fun dinner in town, visited the Madonna Inn, and we were fast asleep by 9:00 PM. The next day our conference was in Goleta, just north of Santa Barbara, and after our conference, we ate tacos outdoors in our favorite restaurant. Our last two conferences were closer to home, so we were able to drive home at night and rest here. In the evening, we taught our friend Everardo about the temple, and he asked us about a female spirit that hangs around his home. His children have seen her, but Everardo has not. She seems to be pretty nice and harmless, so we eventually recommended just living with her and not worrying. (?!?!) This was a new one for me. 

On Saturday, we took our friend Abraham to the Los Angeles temple to do baptisms for his father (who was murdered when Abraham was 4 years old in Honduras) and his grandparents and two great-grandparents. He baptized me for the women and Dad baptized Abraham for the men. The sun was shining and there were beautiful roses everywhere and we had a beautiful day. Both Larry and Abraham wore a temple pin on their suit jacket to commemorate this special day. Afterwards, we asked Abraham for his favorite place to eat, and he suggested Pollo Campero. It is actually a chain of restaurants, and the food was delicious. Chicken with platanos and beans and fresh corn tortillas. That night we attended a baptism. It was supposed to start at 6:00. The room was packed with people. The leader announced at about 6:10 that we would wait for the parents to arrive before we started and that they were only 3 minutes away. Finally, they arrived at 6:40 and we started. There were about 15 children there, and they were all so tired of waiting in that tiny, crowded room and they were very noisy during the baptism. But that is the culture. And we may never get used to it, but we try to be patient.

By Sunday, we were starting to be a little tired. We forgot things like turning our heater off and bringing our water bottles. But we arrived at church in one piece. We saw that a gang had tagged our church with gang language. Do you think this was a result of the blessing Larry gave to a gang member inside that church? We do not know. We are so safe and protected in Laramie. As Dad and I sat in the front and led the music, we looked over at our favorite little family. They have seven children, and they sit in the front row every week. I wish I had a picture, but all seven children were active, coloring, fidgeting, etc. And BOTH of the parents had their eyes closed, their heads tilted, and were fast asleep. That's how we felt, too!  After this first meeting, we drove to our second branch, and there, Dad and his friends Everardo and Jose joined the men's choir to sing a hymn. The conductor was another man from our branch, and I was so proud of all of them. Music is not something that our friends can learn growing up in Mexico. Finally, when we visited our friends with two cute little girls, during our lesson, the girls snuck out, went into a storage room, and they came back with two bottles of water. They wrapped these in paper towels, like a present, and they brought them to us. We loved it so much! The simple ways people show love have taught me so much about showing love to others.

And that's our week. One in which I learned a lot about loving and being patient. One in which I gave a very short surprise talk in a church meeting - in Spanish, of course, and one in which we learned to pace ourselves so that we could do everything we wanted to do in order to help our friends and fellow missionaries. We feel so blessed.