Missionary Adventures and Spiritual Insights: February 2016

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!!!

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 :-)