Let's Have a Look Around

Well, the most important part of this mission is the people, and we met the finest group of warm, friendly people you could ask for on Sunday.   Unfortunately, I have no photos of them yet (that seemed a bit awkward to ask on a first meeting!).   So for one more week, you will get to enjoy some shots of our area...which is magnificent.

So here's the road in to our little home.   Maybe I'll try adding
a video of our drive up 'Old Priest Grade', which is the way to our abode.

It's about five miles long, but takes about half an hour.   The speed limit is 25, and you wouldn't want to test that.

The Groveland 'city center' is about two blocks long, but it has a grocery mart, post office, fire station, two pizza places, and a Mexican restaurant!  Oh, and there's more!  There's also the Groveland hotel, a barber, a library... we're set!













So here is our street:   Our home?   Nope.

This would be our sweet little missionary 'rental', right next door!

It is the perfect size for us, and it has three bedrooms.   President Palmer says we are welcome to host friends who come through to Yosemite.  Yea!  Of course it's still about 35 miles in from us, but hey, that's nothing to folks around here.







Today Fred decided to try to entice some hummingbirds our way.   And he also bought some bird feed for the back deck.   (like birds around here would ever be in need of MORE food sources!)

                                       

But here's my favorite thing that Fred has started doing here!   He took loaves to our Elders at District meeting and a loaf to each couple at our Senior Dinner.   Now I'm trying to convince him to make some to leave HERE!   It sure makes me feel like home with the smell of his bread wafting down the hall.   It almost makes up for the fact that he has to 'reboot' our water heater every morning to get hot water for a shower! 

Oh, and here was a fun experience from today.   Our Relief Society met at Two Guys Pizza for their monthly birthday (no host) luncheon.  It was a great time until we looked out the window and saw an oak fall and splinter all over the road!   Luckily it was the road INTO Groveland and not the way back to our house.   The fascinating part to me was that within two minutes there were workmen with chainsaws beginning to clear it.  If it hadn't taken some wires out I think the whole thing would have been history within half an hour.   It did make for an exciting luncheon, though!   

Okay, I'll end my entry for now.   I tried to add a fun video of the trip up Priest Grade to our house.   But the file is evidently too ginormous.  So you'll just have to come see us to experience it for yourselves.  Amazingly enough, we understand several tour buses climb it each day in the summer.   I think I'd ask for a front seat....  Have a good week, dear family and friends.   We love you all. 

Our cabin in the Pines (literally!)

Our first assignment - Groveland Ward.   It's at the 'top of the mountain' - a little community thick with pine trees and its own private lake.   We live in a little gated community where I watched four deer play around under our deck yesterday.   We also have two walking sticks to carry when we walk to scare off bears and cougars.   No, that's not a joke.   But they said it's rare if you walk during the daylight hours.  (Rare?  I'm looking for 'non-existent'!!)

Now let's talk about the path up here from Modesto.   The last eight miles is called 'Priest Grade' - totally winding, blind corners, steep.   (Think Farmington Canyon, but steeper)  As there are not many ways up here, I'm sure I'll adapt!   I sent Jodi a video; that may have been a mistake.

Here are pictures of the two best things we've seen so far in our area:  the wonderful little Groveland chapel, and our branch president, President Whitmer.   According to President Palmer, they don't come any better than this man.   And after one meeting with him Tuesday, we'd have to agree.

                                                                                  The branch has around 140 members with 30+
                                                                                   attending...which is a lot better than the first
                                                                                   statistics we were quoted.  

Okay, so let's talk about the technology issues with our area.  We can make calls, but we have to 'stand on our head and hold a coat hanger with our feet' to get good reception.   I guess you sort of pay a price for being in this thick wooded mountain terrain.   We can also text.   And that's where it stops at the moment.   No email, no internet, no news, no TV reception that we've figured out yet.  

But hey, we have great hopes!   One company said they are sending up another satellite and should be able to add customers by April.   And Fred is pretty resourceful; if there's a good carrier in sight, he'll find it!

Meanwhile we are enjoying some very quiet nights!   Oh, and I have a key to our own post box, a Groveland Library card and my own pass to make the 'little arm' go up on the road to our cabin!   What more can you ask?  

And we're off!

Well, family and friends, here we go again!    Once you 'press the button' on submitting your mission papers, the process is in motion.   And after what seems like an eternity, the call arrives and things begin to move rapidly.   And soon, your home is entirely cleared out and it's time to leave for the MTC!   And time for the traditional 'here's where we're going' shot from the map in the front lounge.  So, 'here's where we're going': the California Modesto Mission.

We met 55 other wonderful senior couples who came in on our Monday.  One third of them are about to serve 'home based' missions, being assigned to work within their home stakes.   The rest of us were going everywhere!   The couple below were the most interesting, serving their third mission to Ghana.  The first was by assignment, the second by choice (each two years).   This time they've been requested to return because the Church is forming the first Stake there; he can hardly wait to get back and help.  They LOVE the people there.

The most interesting part of our training were the two mini-sessions where they taught us to use our 'apps'.   They did a great job walking 111 'seniors' through Gospel Library and LDS Media Library.   We were encouraged to use talks, videos, music, etc. in our lessons.   The only reasons the seats in back are empty is that they took all the Android people to another room to teach (smart).

Just one more MTC shot - our 'district'.   These are the people you sit with, role play with, and get to know pretty well after five days together.   They were great people.   Our teacher, Brother Echo Hawk, is Elder Larry Echo Hawk's grandson!

No, just one more shot after this, because sometimes you meet people who are 'kindred spirits' during the week.   We were asked to find out about one of the other couples during the week and prepare to teach them according to what we have learned about them.   We absolutely connected with the Gowers from the moment we met them and had two wonderful times alone with them in a classroom teaching each other short lessons.   I'm going to try to write to them, since the MTC gave us all an email list of our seniors.

Well, that's it for the beginning.   I may try to make one more entry before we go back to our house, because we are at the Sonora Chapel where they have internet.   But that's another whole story!!