Concerts, touring, change of commands...

 We were invited to go to Balboa park on Monday night for a free organ concert.
Apparently there are lots of free concerts here all summer long.
I am really excited to go on August 31st for the "100 years of Broadway" Concert!
A great FHE activity.

Elder Hodges has been looking at this building every time we drive on the highway and said we should go see it. It required climbing a lot of stairs but it had a wonderful view.

Right after we were there, we drove a little further up the hill and discovered Fort Stockton were the Mormon Battalion stayed.  There were several plaques and a statue.  We did not even know it was there. We have been to the Mormon Battalion visitors center many times, but never heard about this site.

Elder and Sister Pett, who were some of our trainers for our military relations mission, came to visit and meet with all the military missionaries and chaplains stationed here.  We were very happy to meet LDS chaplains and gain an understanding of how we can help each other.

Sister Storrs planned a nice lunch for after our meeting.

  

Last but not least, we have had the opportunity to go to three change of commands.  One was the arrival of a new colonel for Headquarters and Service Battalion who is a member of the church and served as branch president in Okinawa, Japan for the last two years.  We invited him to come to speak to the recruits on a Sunday and he said he would love too.

 Part of the ceremony is passing of the flag from one
leader to the next.  

It is such and honor to meet some of these fine leaders and get to know them and their families.

They always make us feel welcome and appreciated.

We are thankful to be serving here and feel the blessings both personally and for our families.

Flag Day and strawberries!

On Friday we had the opportunity to celebrate Flag Day at the Mormon Battalion.  This year african americans were honored.  We interviewed two of the four who were honored.

The children pictured below sang "You're a Grand Old Flag" and were so cute. They are the grandchildren and great grandchildren of President Bennett in our MCRD Branch.

Sister Storrs is pictured here with the re-enactors. They represented: the Tuskegee Airman, Union Army and the Patriots with George Washington.

These are the four who were honored.  The two on the right are the ones we interviewed.  They both have amazing histories of service.

Our super Military Relations missionaries!
Over the next month, two of these couples will have their last transfers to home!
We will be alone until two more couples come in the middle of August.

We will miss them so much.  They have been here since we arrived.

We had so much fun together as you can see when we went and bought strawberries in Carlsbad!
They were the most delicious strawberries I have ever tasted!

We continue to serve the recruits and marines and love it!  We are invited to two change of commands next week.  One involves a colonel who is coming to MCRD and is LDS.  We look forward to meeting him.

Family Home Evening for 30 Senior Couples.

This week Elder and Sister Storrs were in charge of the Senior Missionary FHE for the month of June.  Since it was the month of Flag Day, they decided that all the Senior Military missionaries should explain what we do with the troops.

Elder and Sister Hussey work with the ships and keep track of all the LDS members and make sure there is a lay leader for the LDS group on every ship.

The poster on the bulletin board shows all the ships in San Diego!

The sword on the table belongs to Elder Hodges and is his officers sword. It is used for the Marine Corps cake cutting ceremony.  He talked about the ceremony and that it is representative of the passing of the USMC traditions, history and sacrifices from the oldest marine to the youngest.
Since he was the oldest marine there and there were no young ones, he gave the first piece of cake to President Schmitts' youngest son.

Sister Storrs created display boards with all of our various jobs and also volunteer service we render.

The red boards are the ones we use for the family day reception we have for the graduating marines. They depict all of the various training they have to go through in boot camp.

I thought I would take a picture of everyone taking pictures of the boards :-)

Recently, one of our new recruits was a returned missionary from the Irvine mission.  He served at the School of Infantry(SOI) for over a year of his mission working with the Chaplain on Camp Pendleton.  The picture below is his companion who he told us to say "hello" to.

We go up to SOI every other Sunday to visit with our marines who have graduated from MCRD and go there after their ten day leave.  We enjoy visiting with them and following their marine careers and seeing if they are attending church and hopefully strengthening the testimony they gained while in boot camp.
It is interesting to us that all of the newly baptized seem to attend at SOI and the marines that were not active before boot camp sometimes go back to inactivity.  Elder Hodges thinks it might be because they can have all of their electronics back once they get to Camp Pendleton.  We call MCRD-"Mormon Church Rid of Distractions"  because the recruits have nothing in boot camp except pen and paper.

We pray for our recruits and marines all the time and are grateful for our opportunity to serve them.  We know Heavenly Father loves all of his children even when they fall away or sin and has provided our Savior so we can return to live with Him again.
This is a wonderful gift for all!