Another exciting week!

We had a wonderful opportunity to attend Lamb's Theatre in Coronado with 5 Senior Missionary Couples.  We saw "You Can't Take It With You"  a Pulitzer Prize winning comedy.  It was so fun.

First we all shared dinner together then walked over to the theatre.  We laughed so much.

Those of you who really know me, know I am horrible with plants.  They are very lucky if they survive, much less, bloom.  However, the Bullicks, who serve with us on Sundays gave us an amaryllis plant for Christmas and it not only survived, but it bloomed! Amazing!!
 

The next exciting event was the birth of our 25th grand child on Wednesday, the 25th to Suzy and Taylor Williams. I can't wait to hold her!

 Today we attended the graduation of Echo Company.  This marine and his family visited with us after graduation and thanked us for watching over their son.  He was great, a returned missionary and an asset to the branch.  He assisted Elder Hodges today in conferring the Melchizedek priesthood on another marine graduating today from the same company. Wonderful and exciting day!

I was struck today with a story one of the grandmothers told about her grandson.  Apparently, he had been offended when he was a teen attending seminary and mutual and stopped going to church.  His father was catholic and gave him a cross necklace to wear. He wore it to church and one of his mutual leaders grabbed it and said he should not be wearing it!..I was so sad to hear this young man stopped attending because of this act.  He attended every week while he was here at boot camp and hopefully he has felt the spirit and regained a testimony of the gospel.  It helps me to realize we need to be very loving and kind to all who come to church and always say positive, Christlike words because we never know how we can hurt someone even unintentionally.

I know our Heavenly Father loves ALL his children and wants us to earnestly strive to be more like Him in all we do.  I also know none of us are perfect and the need to repent is a daily event but, our Savior, Jesus Christ atoned for all.

We love the opportunity we have to serve these recruits and Marines who will serve our country and protect our freedom.

Our Regimented Schedule

Below is the Matrix we use every week to follow our recruits through bootcamp.

The letters to the left represent each company as they arrive.  You can see that at the top we will pick up Foxtrot.  We meet our new recruits almost every Friday except when you see an open come around.  These usually represent that there was a holiday either the week they were suppose to enter or a holiday the week they would be graduating.

On the far right you see the 3 phases.  We have the recruits for phase 1 and 3.  During phase 2 they go up to Edson Range at Camp Pendleton. This is also part of the MCRD branch, but there are other senior missionaries there.

If you enlarge the picture, you can see what they are doing each day in boot camp.
We shift the letters down every Sunday and prepare for the next week, pick up, Cake cutting and reception and graduation.

In the meantime we are doing most everything else on Sundays ....There are weeks were we will go and visit recruits in Balboa Hospital. This happens rarely, and I only mention it because last week we were there 3 times :-(

It is amazing when your barely know one of the recruits and then something happens and you are worried, losing sleep, and praying everyday for their recovery.  I think this immediate feeling of love and caring comes as we serve.

I have also continued to create baby quilts for the military families. I am now up to 10.

I try to keep them very simple now so I can produce more in a shorter time....
I did create this quilted pillow this week for one of our dear senior military couples who will leave us soon.  They have helped us every week with the reception and cake cutting for the graduates. We will really miss them!

We recently found out from the Military Relations Group in SLC that the amount of Senior Missionaries is declining.  That is ALL Senior missionaries, not just military, so many of our Seniors will not be replaced when they return home.  This makes me sad, as I have seen how many older missionaries offer so much to all that they serve.  They have many gifts and a year or two out of our lives is nothing compared to the blessing and amazing miracles to be seen.

So to those of you reading this, please pass along the message that more Seniors are needed!!

The gospel is so true and the Lord blesses all of us as we strive to do his work!

Volunteering and Outstanding Marines

This week Lima Company graduated.  Before the actual graduation starts, they form up in front of the theatre to get ready to march onto the parade deck.  

This is a picture of the Series Guidon bearer. He is one of our LDS marines and just recently received his temple recommend so he will return home with his wife and be sealed in the Fresno temple.
We are so happy for him!

 They are instructed to not move as they stand in preparation for marching to the parade deck and even though I stood directly in front of him for this picture, he did not move a muscle, what a marine!

This marine was without family for graduation and we just love when we get to spend some one on one time with them getting to know them better.  We took him out for Mexican food and then to the airport to fly home.

On Friday night the Marine Corps Community Services group held their yearly 

Daddy -Daughter dance. 

I volunteered to help with decorations and also both Jim and I helped at the actual event. We worked at the cake and punch table.  It was very busy with 400 attending.  Jim kept making more punch and I was continuously cutting cake.  We had two cakes donated by Sea World.  They were beautiful and fit perfectly with the theme for the night: "Under the Sea".

I took lots of pictures of the decorations.  The group did an amazing job! I only helped with the tissue flowers on one day for 4 hours, but lots of other work was done as evidenced by the result.

For the centerpieces they had some as pictured below and also some centerpieces were bowls of live goldfish which were raffled off as door prizes. The little girls loved it!

They set up different areas where the daughters could "fish" for jewelry or see "mermaids" inside their caves under water.  It was done in the field house (gym) and all the floors, walls and even the basketball hoops were covered and Jelly fish were hanging from them!
What an extraordinary activity!

Reminiscing and spiritual blessings....

We finally made it down to Imperial Beach this week.  Jim lived there when he was six years old and his dad was assigned with the Navy there.  We found the place where the old house was, but a big new one was built in its place.  He spent time reminiscing about walking as children down to the beach from their house.  He said it was just palm trees then (62 years ago) but, now it is very built up with businesses, restaurants etc.

We went to the beach and took pictures..... 

 This was the old school building that is now a charter school.

Three of our Senior Military Relations missionaries had birthdays last week, so we all celebrated at the Cheesecake Factory!  They are such a fun group!

This marine is very special to us.  He was a character and always confident both in the gospel and his ability to become a marine.  Sorry, about the reflection. This was right after graduation and we were lucky to catch him for a minute to say goodbye.  He will get ten days leave and then return to SOI(school of infantry) at Camp Pendleton.  We may see him there as we go up every other Sunday evening for their fireside.

I am continuously amazed at how the Lord blesses us with inspiration in serving these young men.  Even when I am lax in preparation for my gospel class, I receive inspiration when needed and the recruits feel the spirit. Class has been so good lately.  It is a small group of newly baptized recruits and they feel comfortable enough to ask questions to gain understanding.
I know the Lord loves all of his children, even me!!!

The branch presidency is constantly praising Jim for his knowledge of marine corps life and training. He always says he is just doing what he thinks is right for the recruits and their spiritual training, but the leaders say it is so much better with a marine officer at the helm :-)

Time Flies!

This is one of our marines from Kilo Company.  It turns out he was an Honor Man in graduation.

This means he was picked as the best all around marine from his platoon.  We were so surprised when we attended graduation and saw that he was selected as an Honor Man.  Doesn't he look great?

We took this picture and placed it on our display for our weekly LDS reception. I always ask if any of our marines are picked, but this is the second one and we were surprised about both of them.

We tried to get a picture of the first one, but we could not find him in the crowds at graduation.

These marines are in Charlie Company and will graduate tomorrow.  I took their picture because they all attended my gospel fundamentals class.  The two in the middle are so funny together. I told them they were like "Laurel and Hardy" and they did not know what I was talking about!! They are too young.  So I asked them what comedy duo did they know and they said, "Tom and Jerry!"  Too funny! 

Meet little Lilianna Elizabeth, my newest grand daughter that was born last Sunday. Sure wish I was there to hold her.  She is so precious!

This week Elder and Sister Arnell came to visit.  They were just released from being the Military Relations Coordinators in Salt Lake City.  They gave us our military training before we came out. They are the couple closest to Jim and I.

Heavenly Father continues to bless us in our service.  We know that this is the church of Jesus Christ restored for our day and love to be serving our recruits and marines at MCRD.

A New Year and lots of fun!

 After Camden and Eric left to drive back to Texas.  We wanted to give Suzy and Taylor a little comfort and alone time so we reserved a room at the Navy Lodge on Coronado.

On Monday we picked them up and toured around Coronado.  It was a gorgeous day! Unfortunately, Jim did not feel well and we dropped Suzy and Taylor off early at their room on the beach and Jim came home and slept for two days.  It turned out he had the flu!  We had the flu shot, but apparently he came down with one of the strains not covered.

The next couple of days, I went with Suzy and Taylor to see the Midway aircraft carrier and we also took a whale watching trip.

This A-6 is on the Midway and Jim flew this....I had fun imagining him sitting in the cockpit and landing on the carrier.  I really wished he was there as our tour guide because he knows so much about everything we saw that day.

The pictures above are on the whale watching trip.  It was sunny but chilly on the Pacific.
We did see a gray whale, but it was very difficult to get pictures..Taylor got some on his phone.
It was neat to hear everyone "woo and ahh" when the whale surfaced.

As the new year begins we have had a change in those Elders that are serving with us at the base.
Only the ones whose wards are in the afternoon can serve because we meet very early Sunday mornings.

I found out that my step sister, Zan, who is serving with her husband in South Africa at the Johannesburg Temple has a grandson serving in California San Diego mission and low and behold he is now serving at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot!! His name is Elder Dudley.

We love serving with these young elders and they love serving at the base.  We always have a lot of visitors that they can teach.

I am struck each week as we serve by the spirit that testifies to these young recruits and to us of the truthfulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the power that resides in the priesthood to bless all of us.

Christmas and visitors!!!

Christmas morning we were on the base by 0700 to prepare for a Christmas program put on by the Mission presidency along with about 20 Elders and Sisters.

They sang together, played violin, and some sang solos. One of my favorites is shown in this picture. It is Elder Mylar, an AP and one of the eight Elders that come every Sunday to help us at MCRD.

The concluding speaker was our mission president, President Schmitt.  It was amazing!  He taught about how many times in the scriptures many were told to "Fear Not!" and he had the recruits participate by yelling "Fear Not" every time he came to it in his reading.  The recruits are taught from their very first day in training to respond loudly to their Drill Instructors, so when you hear about 60 of them respond "Fear Not" you really feel it.  He told us that for us we can also interpret, fear not as "Have Faith".  It was a wonderful, spirit filled Christmas program.

Suzy, Taylor, Camden and Eric came to share Christmas with us.  After we returned home from the base, we enjoyed our traditional waffle breakfast.

In the afternoon, we decided to go to the Pacific beach. It was pretty chilly, 65 degrees but Taylor was determined to go all the way in... the rest of us just got our feet and ankles wet.

Some pictures of the gift opening....the traditional pajama pictures, of course!

The picture above shows the air mattress Suzy and Taylor used. We stood it behind the couch when not in use.  This apartment is so small, it is amazing we could all stay together, but it worked out, especially sharing one bathroom!  

Suzy, Camden and I went wedding dress shopping the day after Christmas and Camden found a dress she loves.  Obviously, I can't post pictures yet, but the wedding is March 6th and we will be returning to San Antonio for it!