22 Departing

10 Sisters
Sister Etherington, Hegstrom, Hermanas Brown, Brown, Smith, Newman, Sisters Xayadeth, Snow, Higgins and Morrison

12 Elders
back:  Elders Crandell, Nalder, Eggleston, Wallace, Sebaske, Hall, Kleinman and Watts
front:  Jensen, Smith, Larson and Crapo

The missionaries had subway sandwiches at the mission home.  President did interviews with 12 of the missionaries the week before.  That meant he still had 10 more to interview.  

I find that the missionaries who are waiting at the mission home for dinner have a hard time sitting around.  Hence, a project for them.  They are helping me with packaging rolls for the Christmas devotionals next week.  It went so fast with their help.

Wednesday morning all the missionaries met back at the mission home so a bus could pick them up and take them to LAX.  Planning wasn't the best in that all of the luggage wouldn't fit in the bus.  Elder Ruse came to the rescue and drove the truck with the excess luggage and two elders.

It's never easy saying good bye.  

Don't they look good?!

Transfers

Uncle Jay shows up to all the transfer meetings.  He is so kind to bring treats to give out to everyone.
Hermanas Jeronimo and Soriano

Elders Corbridge and Boyce

Elders Trujillo, Goad, President and Fridal

Hermanas Griffes, Cuevas and Gilchrist

Sister Boring

front to back:  Hermana Wixom, Elders Young, Bailey, Toa, NewMyer, Comin and Jones

Elder Clarkson

Elders Lewis and Barlow

Sisters Dearden and Clark

Arrived 12/15/14

10 Missionaries arrived on December 15.  They are from: New Jersey, Idaho, Virginia, 2 from Utah, and 2 from Texas, Wyoming, California and Washington.  Three of the missionaries are visa waiters assigned to Brazil.  We get to have them here in the California Ventura Mission until their visas come. Hooray for us.

Hermana Soriano

Elder Campbell

Elder DuPlessis

Elder Carpenter

Elder Hokanson

Elder Johns

Elder Martineau

Elder Levitz

Elder Peterson

Hermana Garza

Sister and Elder McIntosh picked up lunch for us from the Santa Barbara Chicken Ranch restaurant.  Due to the BREEZE and it being a bit chilly, we had lunch at the Institute at the Unversity of California at Santa Barbara.  We did note that there were no seagulls (always seagulls at our lunch at Goletta Park). 

A beautiful view on the other side of the cross.

The missionaries are making the committment to have both feet in and to be anxiously engaged in the work.

Elder and Sister Stewart have joined us from Idaho.  

Felix Christmas tradition

Our family has a tradition that comes from a story we read years ago.  One year a wife did something special for her husband, Mike, as he didn't like the commercialism of Christmas.  That year their son was wrestling and there was a non-league match before Christmas.  They played a team that had no uniforms, sneakers without shoestrings, and no headgear.  

Mike loved kids and had coached many in different sports.  The wife had an idea and bought an assortment of wrestling gear and sent them anonymously to the team.  On Christmas Eve she placed an envelope on the tree, the note inside told Mike what she had done and that this was his gift from her.

He loved it.  

The trandition was followed and the envelope became the highlight of their Christmas.  

Our family in their own little families find a service they can do at this time of year.  Their experience is written down and then we share on Christmas day what we've all done.

Our daughter, Brooke, called us and said for their white envelope she would like to cut the missionaries' hair.  Could we make it work?  We knew it had to be on a P-day.  President sent out an email to the English missionaries in the Ventura zone (since many from the Spanish zone had Thanksgiving dinner with us).  The missionaries called me and I gave them time slots.

Last Monday, on P-day Brooke cut 18 missionaries hair, including us.  She did it on our deck. 

Elder Rosenlof

Elders Collard, Hortin and Wilson

Elders Hidalgo and Jensen

Sisters Platt and Rasmussen

Hermana Winn

 Probably the funnest cuts were for the two Hermanas who had Brooke change their styles. 

Hermanas Griffes and Winn

Sister Kemp

Sister Draney

Elders Toa and Welker