Summer Coming and Goings

 

Back in the early 80's our family lived in SoCal enjoying the beach community of Ventura a few miles of north of where we are now. We drove up the coast and visited enjoying old haunts. We went to the beach where our children loved to play. Here were children still enjoying the warm sand and cool waves. The Pacific is notoriously cold water and we remember our young children running down into the water to splash for a minute or two and then run up onto the beach and lie down in the sand to warm up. Back and forth all day long. We took a family photo in the marina back then and visiting that same marina took a photo again. We visited with John Overton. We were close as Mel was his teachers and priests quorum adviser. Chuckling about time passing, the young man we once knew is a retiring math teacher. Our memories are sweet visiting the chapel in that city. In those formative years, some amazing leaders fortified our testimonies and coached us on how to organize activities.  We are grateful we learned the skills we are certainly using on our mission now.

We have our schedule of sports night, institute lessons, discussion groups and parties that keeps us busy six nights a week. It is a joy to see the YSA's joining and our numbers are growing for social events as well as Sunday meetings. The pandemic was hard on this group of people. Schools closed and jobs went online. Like the scattering of the tribes of Israel they packed up and retreated to parents homes and parts unknown. Some just stayed put and endured the isolation of staring at a computer all day with no real social contact and a disconnect from the church. The gathering of Israel is in full swing here as we have promoted, cooked for, taught lessons, and organized social events. We have been reading a book on how to help YSA's. It says “ Our job is to catch these souls. The Savior will clean them up for us. . . getting them to be with us is the key. Once they come, once they see that there are other peers coming, once they experience the sweetness of the Spirit which is associated with our meetings and our activities, they have a remarkable ability to begin the process of changing their lives.”

Manny was at an activity when Brother Jeffery talked to him about life and his future. He is looking for something better, so we suggested Pathway. This program offers a path to a college diploma and it's quite inexpensive. A few days later Manny called in a panic. He wasn't connecting with other leaders and he needed a job right now. After a few phone calls we found the Development counselor who could get him a job immediately, but he required Bishop's approval. He received it, but in the process we learned that even that bishop wasn't aware of the Development Counseling services. We served in a Self-Reliance office in New Mexico with a Development Counselor for a year and a half. Thankfully we have experience to offer.

Our Tuesday night class is learning about the priesthood and how all callings in the Church use priesthood authority to do God's work here on the Earth. A student, Renee, has a calling as a Primary leader, that is she serves the children of the Church. She consulted with Sister Jeffery regarding where to obtain materials to make a set of banners. Of course paints for such are at the dollar store. Evidently, Renee went to the store and while doing so she received an idea to use sponges rather than paint brushes for her project. Not a big thing, but she's convinced that as she serves God, as she learned in our class, He directs and helps her.

Jacob has seen us put together food for sports night for a month now. This week we turned it over to him. He decided on peanut butter and jam sandwiches with veggie munchies. Knowing how much to get for a fluctuating crowd is tough enough for us even tougher for someone new to the game. We now have sacrament bread for five weeks and mini carrots to eat up for quite some time.

Our weekly party, scheduled for here in Santa Monica on July 3rd was likely to be poorly attended. Many of the YSAs left to be with family and friends for the holiday weekend. Santa Monica 1st ward members have been inviting us to get to know them, but it just hasn't fit. So we invited the ward to come to join the party. We asked the bishopric how many to expect and they said 6 to 8 people. We planned accordingly. Julie cooked up three of her famous pizzas and we pulled out a little salad. When the party started though it quickly became apparent that we had been misinformed. Julie gave everyone a penny then each introduced him/herself and told of a significant event from their lives that happened the year the penny was minted. This activity took 20 minutes while Mel started cooking with haste. Every vegetable in the houses went into the salad, a shepherds bread loaf became garlic bread, two types of pasta were reheated and root beer floats saved the day. We were too busy cooking and entertaining to count, but attendance was over 40. A fun time, but we've learned to be prepared. We enjoyed playing "It came to pass" and the 'Happy Game'. It's not a party unless we have games!

The weather reports of excessive heat in the west are discouraging but living here a mile from the beach we have the static weather of 70 degrees every day. We did manage to get up to 80 degrees one day and the locals were really complaining. We turned on the ceiling fan and smiled.