Lots of lasts.....

During the course of our mission here in San Diego California, we have had the chance to tour an aircraft carrier, a hospital ship, and now we have toured a cruiser with its destroyers.

Chaplain Luckesen is an LDS Chaplain on the USS Princeton and we had a personal tour.

Below is a picture of one of the destroyers.

Below is a Phalanx 20mm/6 barrel gun that fires 4000 rounds/minute!

We were lucky enough to have President and Sister Baird accompany us for our last new recruit "pick up" on Friday.  While we were there, Col. Jones came by and had us stand on the "yellow footprints" that every new recruit stands on as they arrive in the middle of the night for their boot camp training.

Thankfully, we were just pretending :-)  I am sure we would not survive real boot camp!

We have been wanting to update our display boards for months and finally did with the help of Sister Bullick who designed all the displays we use at our family day reception for those Marines who are graduating.  We wanted to recognize those LDS Marines who were the Honor Men in their platoons.

We recently calculated that we have graduated 577 LDS Marines, had 54 graduations we attended and had over 90 baptisms during our service here!  We have been so blessed and will always cherish the memories, friends made and love shared.

These are the AP's we have worked with most recently.  They are fabulous in seeking out those visitors that come on Sundays and making sure they are taught the gospel.

As we finish our mission, it is bitter sweet.  We have grown to love all we serve with as well as those recruits and Marines that we have served.  We have been strengthened in our faith and have seen so many miracles here that we go home knowing that the gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored to the earth in its fullness and the Lord's love for us is tangible and infinite.

Thank you all who have followed this blog and prayed for us while we were here.  We have felt your prayers and appreciate your love and support.

Finally, we must pack and see if it will all fit into our car :-)

With love, Elder and Sister Hodges

Graduations, weddings and visitors...

We had a very exciting graduation for Lima Company.  Elijah Fields obtained the highest in the company and was selected as the Company Honorman.  We were very excited for his accomplishment.  The other exciting part came the day after graduation when he was sealed to his fiance in the San Diego Temple.  We got to share in this special occasion with him and his family.

We are very excited to welcome back Brother and Sister Lawson, who shared their time as military relations missionaries with us at the beginning of our time here.  They helped us every week on family day with our reception.  We shared lunch and caught up on news and will go to the temple together next week. We love them!

Finally, we will be returning home in three weeks and are trying to gather and figure out how we will get everything home.  We are shipping some boxes home and Camden is storing them.  Jim keeps saying that I should not have bought anything while here, but, it was a year and a half after all :-)

I mentioned months ago how I was assisting President's Schmitt's wife with her memory quilt for all the Elders and Sisters that have served in the California San Diego mission.  I didn't want to leave without at least completing the quilt top for her.  President and Sister Schmitt will be here until 2017 and the blank squares will be filled in at every transfer for those who are returning home.
Now she just has to find someone to put it together and quilt it once they return home.
I am so happy I could help her. It brings me joy to have something I can share.

 
We have given our farewell testimonies to two different groups now and it makes us realize how much we have gained through serving here.  We give our final talk to the recruits in one week and I am not sure how I will be able to keep from crying because we love these young men so much.
It will be hard to leave all the people that we have served with in the MCRD branch too.  I am already planning to come back for a visit later in the year and this gives me some comfort knowing we will see them again soon.
I know that the gospel has been restored to the earth in these latter days and I rejoice in the knowledge of our Savior's love for us and know no matter how much we mess up, we can return and find the joy the gospel brings.
We are very excited that soon we will be able to visit our children and grandchildren and share the love that we have for them. Families are forever!!!

A Lovely visit with Friends... (lots of pictures)

We had a visit last week from our good friends Greg and Susan Talley from New York.

They enjoyed the great weather and we enjoyed having them here.  We shared some touring with them. Jim gave them a tour of the Midway and showed them his A-6 Intruder on the deck.

 After our Midway tour we went to the Maritime Museum which was just down the street.  We got to go inside a submarine as well as several old sailing ships. We really enjoyed it.  I wanted to take pictures of some of the paintings we saw and share them (especially for Becky :-)

 I loved the old ships. Below is the Star of India.

Wednesday we went to the Air and Space Museum in Balboa Park and they had a special exhibition focusing on Leonardo da Vinci.

 I did not know he was such a prolific inventor.  I only knew about his paintings.

 Leonardo's Robot!

The rest of these pictures are from the air and space museum also.  Jim was a great tour guide with his knowledge of the various aircraft.

 A model of the A-6 Intruder.

We had a wonderful week with great friends and great fun!  We are so blessed!

Turnovers and rain!

We have lots of senior missionaries going home in the next couple of months. During our FHE with the seniors we always have the couples both coming and going say a few words.  This is Elder and Sister Barnes.  They were the directors of the Mormon Battalion for two years and did a wonderful job.  We always enjoy going to the battalion especially when we bring some of our new Marines. 

We had an enormous amount of rain two weeks ago and because of that on Family day the Marines that attended our cake cutting reception had to wear their utilities just in case.  It turns out it did not rain on graduation and they were able to wear their Bravo uniforms.  This was the first time they were not in uniform for the reception, but their commanders did not want them to ruin their Bravos before the graduation ceremony.  They are still looking good!

The Marine farthest left in the picture above plays the flute and played for us on Christmas day. It was wonderful. Sister Baird rented a flute and he played without any practice. "Oh, Emanuel"  He will be part of one of the USMC bands.

These are four of the San Diego Elders who serve at MCRD and they come to help us with our reception. The boards are on display for the families to see what their sons have gone through and also where we have church.

On this board I have to update the pictures and the name of the company that is graduating each week.

This is our Christmas gift from Brother and Sister Bullick.  It got so tall and finally bloomed!

We have been preparing for leaving this mission by packing boxes and shipping them back to our home in Texas. Camden and Eric are taking them and storing until we get there.  It is amazing how much more we have in 18 months here and we only have our car to bring stuff home in.

We have very mixed emotions about returning home. We want to see our family and spend time with them, but we will miss the young men and all who have served with us at the branch.  We have had a glimpse of the love our Heavenly Father must have for us as we have grown to love all we have served here.

We know the Lord loves each of us and will always love us no matter what mistakes we make or failings we may have. He never closes the door; all we must do is reach out to Him and he will bless us for our wanting to be better.  These young men have shown us that prayers are answered and angels are always there to help if we but ask.