BUILDINGS IN CALIFORNIA

 Hi everyone,
       Last week we were able to see all the sessions of General Conference either on the big screen at the Visitor's Center or on our computer.  It was wonderful to see live the leaders of the church and hear their messages. And then to see our grandson, Lincoln in the choir at the Priesthood session.

Stained-glass windows and stenciled walls in the Stake Center 

      Today was Stake Conference which was held at 2 different buildings:  the Stake Center yesterday for the adult evening session and the Vermont Building today, which is much larger and can accommodate more people and more parking.  They are very distinctive architectural designs; the Stake Center has high cathedral ceilings with stained glass windows and looks like a Catholic mission.

Courtyard at Stake Center

Inside the chapel of the Stake Center

We carpooled with other missionaries.   In the meetings today, the hymns have 3 numbers listed in the program so they could be sung in Spanish, Korean and English.  Elder Packer, our Area Seventy spoke along with President and Sister Weidman of the mission, and Stake President Bragg and his counselors.

Vermont Avenue Meetinghouse

   
For our day off, it rained for the first time since we have been here.  We went to the Newport Beach Temple which is small, but very beautiful.  Inside the doorways are arches and there is a mural of the beach in the session room.  The outside fits well into the surrounding area and is reddish rather than white.  As with all temple grounds, there are beautiful flowers and trees.

Newport Beach Temple

Mary at the entrance to the Newport Beach Temple

Max at the temple grounds

     A week ago last Wednesday we went to the Getty art museum and gardens.  We must have walked miles up and down steps and got a great view of the city from an upper balcony; we could even see the spire of our LA Temple in the distance.

Max and Mary on the tram to the Getty

Mary at the gardens

   

One of the museum buildings from the gardens

View of the city and the ocean with the gardens in the foreground

     We continue to be well and healthy, and work most days in the Family History Center.  Sometimes we come back and help with visiting wards that need instruction in the evenings.  One Sunday we helped the members of the Jewish Genealogy Society who had come in and needed help.   Max has been asked to teach some classes and Mary is thinking of doing a class in British research.  But that will not be for awhile.

Love,
Elder and Sister Evans

CATCHING UP

Dear family and friends,

Pool at the Getty Villa

We have had a busy two weeks. On our P-day, Monday September 16, we went to the Getty Villa. This is not the more well-known and larger Getty Center, but is at the site of J. Paul Getty's Pacific Palisades home. As it filled with his private art collection, Getty opened an adjacent gallery. Quickly running out of room, he built a second museum, the Getty Villa, on the property down the hill from the original gallery. The villa design was inspired by the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum near Pompeii in Italy and incorporated additional details from several other ancient sites. It opened to the public in 1974. After the completion of the newer Getty Center, the Villa was remodeled and dedicated to the exhibiting Getty's collections of Greek, Roman, and Etruscan antiquities. The Villa is a wonderful work of architecture, with marble floors and walls done in the classical style, gardens, courtyards, and a wonderful ocean view. It is very peaceful and beautiful. The collections are priceless and are exhibited in ways that make the museum both educational and interesting. It has a very nice restaurant where we had lunch, and a Greek Theatre. It was a nice day.

At the Villa

Mary with the statue of Mercury

In our stake are three Spanish-speaking wards; we were invited to the Hollywood building where they had a Spanish fiesta on a Saturday night.  The food was from Ecuador, Peru and Mexico and was delicious. The entertainment included the members wearing beautiful costumes as they performed in typical Hispanic dances. The emcee spoke only in Spanish.

Mary with Peruvian dancer

Work in the FH Library continues as before. We still enjoy helping people and teaching them the basics of family history research and of the FamilySearch family tree on the Internet. That week our stake had a temple day. We did baptisms, confirmations, initiatory work, and sealings for some of the people in Mary's line that she continues to find, and attended a chapel meeting. 


We also follow the directions received in a recent zone conference to read the Book of Mormon again and mark it with colored markers. We have a study schedule indicating which chapters to read every day (about 1-4 each), and to finish before Christmas. We are to mark the passages that relate to faith in Christ, faith in his atonement, repentance, baptism, the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. We have kept up with the schedule so far and find that the focused approach helps to increase our understanding and testimony of the gospel. 

We left here Friday afternoon to fly to Salt Lake City for a quick weekend to attend Nicholas Gillen's funeral. It was sad, but hopeful, knowing as we do, and as Nick's family does, of the plan of salvation, certain of our faith in a life after this one, in the resurrection of the dead, and that we will all again be together again.

We went to church in our home ward on Sunday and had dinner at our house with David and Becky, Joe, Laura and Jared, Emily, and the grandchildren that could come. We flew back to LA on Monday, our last P-day. We arrived early enough to do the laundry and go to the grocery store. We started again at the library on Tuesday and learned that our P-day has changed to Wednesday. Now we can visit the Getty Center, the Griffith Observatory, and the Newport Beach Temple, all of which are closed Mondays.

We went to the Temple again this week and on Saturday attended a Mission zone conference at the Westwood building here next to our apartment house. It was the last of three zone conferences in our mission and the last of seven days touring three missions by Elder Kent F. Richards of the Seventy. Elder and Sister Richards taught the missionaries important, fundamental lessons about how to teach the gospel: keep it simple and brief. Teach President Hinckley's four essential truths: (first) faith in Jesus Christ, (second) the first vision, (third) the Book of Mormon, and (fourth) the priesthood. They left early to catch a plane back to Salt Lake City and President Weidman took over. It concluded with the vision for the stake by our stake president, then with a lesson on the "eye of faith" by Sister Weidman. It was all very well done and inspiring. We ended with lunch with the missionaries in the cultural hall. Since Max has a cold, he spent most of the rest of the day relaxing and resting. We did take a walk in the cool of the evening.  

Elder and Sister Hurley, Elder and Sister Chandler, Sister and Elder Evans, Sister and Elder Dorius

Also on Saturday, Mary went to the Visitor's Center where she could view the Women's Conference on the big screen.  It was very inspiring to hear the Relief Society leaders, the message from President Monson, and the wonderful sister missionary choir.  Today was fast Sunday in our ward, because of General Conference next week and our stake conference the following week. It is also the fifth Sunday, so we had a lesson on families from our bishopric. We have been resting the rest of the day, hoping Max will feel better tomorrow.

The ancestor we want to focus on is Edward Lisle, Mary's mother's grandfather on her father's side.  He was the developer of the Star Motor car in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, England in the 1890s and 1900s.  He started out designing bicycles and tried his hand at airplanes, then settled on a touring car.  Most of his children worked in the business (He had 12 children).  

Edward Lisle

1920 Star Car

1922 Gold Medal winner

Love you all,
Elder and Sister Evans

  

OBSERVATIONS

The Observatory

We had a busy P-day Monday. We cleaned the apartment, Mary got her nails done, Max got a haircut, and we went out to lunch (at Subway, of course). Then we headed for Griffith Park, a 4,300 acre nature preserve in the middle of Los Angeles. We went to the Griffith Observatory, but it is closed Monday's. However, we got a great view of the entire LA megaurb and the famous Hollywood sign. It was quite hazy that day. We learned that the Los Angeles Zoo, the famous Autry Museum, and the Greek Theatre are in the park. Definitely a place to return to. We took the long way home, through the San Fernando valley, then did our grocery shopping for the week.

Mary - Hollywood

Hollywood - Max

A small slice of a very large city

Downtown LA. LA invented the word SMOG

Beginning Tuesday we had three additional days of training in family history research and using FamilySearch.org, so we can help the patrons who come in. The young sister missionaries who work in our ward and in the Visitors' Center, our next-door neighbors, came for dinner Wednesday. One is from Saratoga Springs, Utah, and the other is from Barcelona, Spain. And, as is our routine now, we went to the temple Wednesday evening.

We had very sad news from home Thursday night. Mary’s sister Ann’s son, Nicholas died on Wednesday. It is all so very devastating. He had just started a new job that took him and his young family to Kentucky. We are praying for Ann and Darrell and her children and especially for Nicholas’ wife, Brita and their three young daughters. We are very sad and distressed about this.

We took time off from our assignment on Friday, at President Weidman’s invitation, to attend a zone conference with the young missionaries. He has two zones meet at a time. This conference was with the Downey and International zones and was held in Downey, about 40 minutes from here. The International zone has missionaries who teach in five languages: Chinese, Korean, Tongan, ASL, and one other, French, we think. The President said that more languages will be coming with the next group of new missionaries. The other ten zones teach in English and Spanish.

It built our faith to see these 18-21 year-old missionaries speak and to respond to the challenges President Weidman gave us all. One challenge is to re-read the Book of Mormon by Christmas and to look for, and mark, evidences of faith in Jesus Christ, faith in His atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. We have a daily reading schedule that we each use to accomplish this. We are having good discussions of these principles in our daily companion study. President Weidman is truly inspired and most kind and loving. It truly lifted our spirits, which were in much need of lifting.

In honor of Nicholas, we would like to tell about his third great-grandfather, Nicholas Wood:

Nicholas Wood (1795-1865)
Painted by Hermann Schmiechen

Born: 24 April 1795, Ryton, County Durham, England
Died: 19 December 1865, Greater London, England
Nicholas Wood was a well-known English steam railway pioneer.He was born and educated in Durham and joined Killingworth Colliery as an apprentice, rising to be manager. The colliery engineer at Killingworth was George Stephenson and the two men worked closely together on the development of a miner's safety lamp and the building and testing of early steam locomotives. He wrote an influential book called "A Practical Treatise on Rail-roads" based on his experiments and experiences which advocated the benefits of steam locomotives.He was one of the three judges at the Rainhill Trials in 1829 where the locomotives for the new Liverpool to Manchester Railway were selected. He became very influential through his many investments in local mines and railways. His interest in mine safety and education led him to be elected first President of the North of England Institute of Mining Engineers and to campaign for a College of Science in Newcastle. In 1865 he was created a Fellow of the Royal Society.

All our love,
Mary and Max Evans

TWO LIBRARIES

Hi everyone,
        It was so good to Skype with the family in Utah earlier on today.  Alex has lost a few more teeth and we wish we could have seen Hallie stand alone and hear Julia's piano piece she played for the Young Women to sing in church and taste those donuts Becky made.  But everyone looked good to us.  Amazing world we live in to view each other like we are in the same room.  I hear it's been pretty hot in Utah.  I hope you have air conditioning in your school classrooms.  We talked with Katie and Jennifer on the seventh, Katie's birthday.  Walter is becoming a football dad and was the emcee for Joshua's game.  And Jennifer wishes she could become a cheerleader.  Walter is gearing up for when he will be the coach for Carolyn's softball team in the spring.  Meanwhile Carolyn is under a mountain of homework for seventh-grade. The family went out to P.F.Chang's Restaurant for Katie's birthday. I remember going there when Matthew was baptized.  Well our family is just great!  And Emily, we wish we could be there to help you can those peaches.  I'm sure they'll be delicious.  And thank you, Jared for fixing the garbage disposal and the sprinkler in our Utah house.  We love you all.

        Well, what have we been doing here in California? You might think that we are on an extended vacation.  But we mostly go out and about on our one day off. The other days we work from 9 to 5 in the Center--helping patrons who want to find our about their family history.  Some people don't know how to use the computer very well.  You grandchildren are so much more technologically advanced.  Do you know there are family history games you can play and activities for children from ages 3 to 11 and teenagers from 12 and up--go to family search.org, click on search, then on the WIKI.  Type in "games and activities for children".  There are also a lot of videos you can watch on lds.org also.
        Other people we work with don't speak English very well, and their family comes from another country. Sometimes Grandpa spends so long helping people that he forgets about lunch. So we decided to take our lunch rather than coming home.  Then we can visit while we eat in the lunchroom with other workers or people doing research.  It always surprises me when the people we work with during the week attend our ward for church on Sunday or are in the hall.  (There are 4 wards that meet in our building, so it's a busy place.)  Bindy is one lady who comes to the center and also attends our ward Relief Society.  She wanted me to help her find a name to take to the temple, but try as we might her family members have done them all.  So she decided she would just continue to work on her PAF program.  She is here for six weeks at a time, and lives in her car.  She belongs to a gym, so showers there.  Sounds a bit strange, wouldn't you say?  There's also a couple of black people who are deaf and sign to each other.  They wear very lively colored clothing.  And there are groups of people who come once a week to meet with their buddies, eat lunch and exchange information.  A lot of people are regulars.

        We did have an interesting outing to the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley.  They have the Air Force One airplane he and his staff used to fly around the country.  We walked through it.  The displays in the library are very well done and document Reagan's life.  Max and Mary went with the Livingstons.

Entrance to the Reagan Library

Looking over Simi Valley from the entrance

 

With Elder and Sister Livingston

Looking toward the Pacific from the grave site

Sarah Louisa Hobson

        We thought we would focus on one ancestor so you could get to know them better.  Sarah Louisa Hobson is Grandma Mary's father, Wilfrid Wheatley's grandmother.   She was born in Barton Mills, Suffolk, England on July 17, 1843.  Her father was a Baptist minister and they lived in London. Her mother, Sarah Maria died when she was 4 years old, so she was raised by her grandmother Gamble, her mother's mother.  Her mother's only brother, Henry Gamble was a Congregational minister who went to divinity school with Sarah Louisa's father, Jesse Hobson.  When she was 31 years old, Sarah married Edmund Wheatley on August 12, 1874.  They were married by her father in Salters Hall Church in London where he was the minister.  Sarah must have had a lot of courage because they went to live in Ningpo, China (near present-day Shanghai) where he was the harbormaster.  They would hold meetings in their home for the sailors to try to get them to stop drinking and believe in a spiritual way of life.  She had 3 children; one of them was Edmund Wilfrid Wheatley.  Edmund, Sarah's husband got sick and died; so, in 1880 she brought the children home to England and raised them there.  She not only raised her own children but also her grandchildren.  She died at the age of 94 in Worthing, Sussex, England on February 23, 1938.

Love to all.
Elder and Sister Evans

NINE to FIVE

Our mission has us working in the Los Angeles Family History Library Tuesday through Saturday from 9:00am to 5:00pm. Here is a summary of what we do each day:

• Arrive at 8:45 for prayer meeting (except Tuesdays, when we arrive earlier to help with a "deep cleaning" of the library). Someone gives a thought, we review the scheduled visits by groups for the day, discuss any issues, and have a prayer.
• Next we check our assignments. Mary and I are assigned mostly to the "help desk" or to "help," meaning to be aware of people who need help or to consult with people as they come in. Mary is sometimes assigned the cash register (The center charges for copies, thumb drives, and registration for classes) or reception. The receptionist answers the phone and counts people who come in, determining whether they are non-members (visitors) or if they are members of the Church. If so they are asked what stake they are in. We also note if this is their first time in the library. All of this is recorded. We both have been assigned to the film desk where we help people with microfilm, including helping with scanning a few frames.
• Helping people is very rewarding. Max thinks it's fun. We have people who don't know anything about family history and others who know nothing about using a computer, and a few who know nothing about either. Others come with various levels of skills and experience. Some need no help at all. Yesterday Max helped a couple whose daughter was at the temple doing baptisms. The wife knew only a little about her grandparents and wanted to know more. He helped her get into FamilySearch. She was shown how to do records searches and found her grandparents in the census. She was thrilled. Max also helped a mother and daughter from Peru get the mother's sister's name for the temple and showed a brother how to find work to be done and to get cards printed. Mary has had similar experiences, for example, helping a sister who attended our ward today get names for the temple. When she saw Mary in church today she hugged her and said that she and her husband had done all the work this week, except for one endowment.
• Max is part of a team of people working on getting the books in the library that belong to the Jewish Genealogical Society of Southern California into the the Family History Library. Cataloging is something he hasn't done for many years, but he is the only one on the team who has done it for before the mission. We use the Church History Library's web-based catalog system. This is part of a larger project to identify and catalog the books in all family history centers, so we get instruction from the catalogers in Salt Lake City. This is what he does when not "helping."
• We both work on our own family lines when we are not otherwise busy. Max and Mary are both finding sources for their ancestors and adding them to the family tree. Mary is extending her line by searching for additional sources, either online or on microfilm. She was able to search the microfilms for St Peter's Church in Wolverhampton because the films are in the cabinets in our library here in Los Angeles.

We have been praying for the ability to be better helpers and to extend our own lines. We believe our prayers are being answered.

We usually have lunch around noon for forty-five minutes, unless we are in the middle of helping. Sometimes we take a sack lunch or on other days we walk back to the apartment for lunch. Evenings are free to do what we want. This week, as last week, we went to the temple one night. We also went to the Hammer Museum of UCLA one night and saw beautiful art by some of the European masters and a great exhibit of the work of A.Quincy Jones, an LA architect who helped create a local style. We went to the public library branch one night and signed up for a library card. And we sometimes do P-day stuff in the evenings so we have more time on Monday. We went to the grocery store last night and did our laundry here in the apartment building one other evening. We also enjoy cooking together.

Our mornings are settling into a routine. We arise and say our individual prayers; then Max goes for a brisk walk and then reads the scriptures. Meanwhile Mary showers and gets ready for the day. We have breakfast together, then Mary reads while Max showers and dresses. We have prayer together, then walk to the library. We also study together Preach my Gospel at night and read and study the scriptures associated with its lessons. Sometimes we do "tai chi" in the morning and sometimes at night.

We attend the Westwood first ward that meets here on Temple Hill from 10:20 to 1:20. Tomorrow we are going with Elder and Sister Livingston to the Reagan Library in Simi Valley. It's outside of the mission, so President Weidmann gave his permission. Last Monday P-day we went to Santa Monica and walked on the beach.

Amusement Park, Santa Monica Beach

Mary on the board walk, Santa Monica Beach

Pacific Ocean waves, Santa Monica Beach

We are having a wonderful time together and enjoying our mission.

We love you all and miss you.

Mary and Max

TRAINING TIME

Monday is our regular P-day, but since the LA-FHL was closed for carpet cleaning that day all the senior missionaries decided to have an all-day activity. We drove in two vans to Long Beach harbor for a 45 minute harbor cruise, a visit to the Aquarium of the Pacific, and lunch at Bubba Gumps. The visitor's center was also closed so their missionaries had the same idea, but they chose the three-hour whale watching cruise. We had a good day. Not much to see in the harbor except the Queen Mary, the second largest shipping docks in the country, and some man-made islands for oil wells. All pretty industrial. But the day was nice, as it is every day, and we got a nice view of the the Long Beach skyline. The Aquarium was very well done. We had been to the Scripps aquarium in June and this one compares favorably. The food and the service at Bubba Gumps was very good. It was a good time to get better acquainted with the other missionaries.

Our group on the harbor cruise

With the Queen Mary in the background

Near the aquarium

We had what our library director calls intensive training for three days, from 8:00 to 5:00, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. These classes are for library staff and for anyone else who wants to sign up. We had two classes each morning and two each afternoon, taught by our director and a couple of part-time missionaries. It was very good, but a bit much to absorb in three days. However, we will get the beginners' training later and then will repeat the intensive in a few months. One of the classes was repeated on Saturday and Mary took it. We are learning a lot and enjoying it.

Friday and Saturday were spent working in the library. In the slow times (Friday) we can work on our own research, practicing what we learned in the training. But when it is busy (Saturday) we help the patrons. Max spent a couple of hours with one man in the morning and then just before lunch started another couple on searching FamilySearch and Ancestry, and came back with more help after a quick lunch. He found it very stimulating and a lot of fun. One researcher wanted to find more about Jewish emigrants from pre-war Austria and about his Norwegian ancestors. The couple wanted to trace their ancestors back to the antebellum slave plantations in Louisiana and Tennessee, and to post Civil War Texas. Max helped them find and use the US census slave schedules.

Max has been able to get up early and walk around the neighborhood for two or three miles each morning this week. Mary and one of the single senior sisters have started doing Tai Chi together. We went to the temple on Wednesday.  It is beautiful, even majestic.  We went to a farmers' market in Westwood Thursday evening and found a lot of nice, fresh produce. We walked back to Westwood, about a mile away, on Friday evening to visit the public library branch, but found it closed.

We did our laundry Saturday after our shift so we can be unencumbered tomorrow, our P-day. We attended church this morning. Great speakers and lessons. And we went to a "Why I believe ..." fireside at the visitors' center this evening. The sister missionaries sang and played hymns, and we heard from a professor from Pepperdine University who is a convert to the church about his conversion and mission and how he came to have his testimony.

We are both well and having a good time.

Love from

Elder and Sister Evans

FIRST WEEK in LA

To family and friends,

Max and Mary are here in sunny Los Angeles. The weather has been beautiful. Not too hot. Our apartment is small, but cozy. We live within a few minutes walk of the Family Search Center where we spend our days: helping patrons, attending classes, and learning what is expected of us.  There are 4 full-time couple missionaries (including us) and 3 single sisters, along with some church service missionaries. The temple has been closed for cleaning and will reopen this Tuesday, so we will get a lot more patrons then.  There are also missionaries serving in the Visitor's Center, in Public Affairs, and as Ordinance Workers in the temple.  One of the couples serving in the Visitor's Center is Donna Jensen and her husband who used to live in the 37th Ward.  We learned today while talking to one of the missionaries serving in Public Affairs that part of their job is to work with foreign consulates located in LA to secure visas for missionaries.

Visitors' Center from the back. This building also houses Public Affairs, the Mission Office, and the FHL.

LA Temple from the back

We live in the housing provided for temple patrons and missionaries.  We have a walk-in closet for only one person at a time, so we have to take turns.  It also is the hallway to the bathroom.  There is a kitchen and a small balcony where I'm going to grow herbs and other plants.  We bought a small table for our computer, but we don't have any room for a TV.  Today we are going to have the senior sister missionaries from upstairs come to dinner, so they will have to bring a chair.  Our bed is in the living room.  At night it is very light, even with the curtains closed, because there are security lights.  We love the cool breeze that comes in through the windows and balcony door.

Our new parson's table for a computer desk

Our sleeping area

Mary in the kitchen

Our sofa with an Afghan made for us by one of the missionaries.

One evening we walked two miles round trip to Ralph's which is associated with Smith's and uses their rewards card.  It is a good grocery store, and we like to pick up food for dinner from their deli.  Below Ralph's is Target. Parking is at a premium in this city, so you have to get a validation.  If we're getting a week's groceries, we take the car.  But the day we were on foot, we stopped to see a small cemetery which has graves of many celebrities: Eva Gabor, Merv Griffin, Farrah Fawcett, Ray Bradbury, Truman Capote and Marilyn Monroe, to name a few.  Marilyn had a beautiful bouquet of fresh flowers on her crypt.  Other of the graves had cute epitaphs.  Peter Falk's said "I'm not home. I'm home with Shera".  Billy Wilder's said "I'm a writer, but then nobody's perfect."  Rodney Dangerfield's said "There goes the neighborhood."  Jack Lemmon's said "In".  Merv Griffin's "I will not be right back after this message." and one other, "Finally under par."

Last night we went to an all Tschaikovsky performance of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in the Hollywood Bowl. It seats 18,000 people.  It was great; they played movements from Romeo & Juliet and Swan Lake and at the end they played the 1812 Overture, along with two visiting Drum & Bugle Corps, with fireworks. The way they park the cars is called "stacked," that is jammed next to each other.  So we had to wait a long time for cars near us to get out first. (Max went exploring the area while we waited and said the barn next to us was the site of the first film made in Hollywood, directed by Cecil B. Demille. Then we saw a real live skunk on the porch and we moved away fast.) We didn't get home until 11:30 and the gates all around this compound were closed and locked.  We had to call Security to let us in.

We attended the Westwood First Ward this morning at 10:20. It is part of the temple complex and has a large softball/soccer field next to the building. It is very close to our place. The people are very friendly. We can attend any ward we want and may decide to go to one of the needy branches in the area.

We send our love to all of you.

Mary and Max

THE MTC

We arrived at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, UT, on Monday at 9:30AM as planned. The first thing we learned, before we parked the car, was that we would be housed in the Marriott Hotel in downtown Provo for our five days here.

After getting our card keys, which double as ID cards and meal tickets, and our black missionary badges, we had several orientation sessions, went to lunch in a very large cafeteria with a few thousand young missionaries; young men and not a few young women. There are a lot of choices, to suit any taste. We had a meeting with the MTC president and learned that the 128 senior missionaries is the largest group ever to come to the MTC at the same time. We were also each assigned to a mission district, in our case, consisting of four couples from Oklahoma, California, and Oregon and going to the Philippines, Delaware, and Australia. We then came to the hotel and unpacked, then got ready for the next day.

We started our training on Tuesday. We have large group instruction, small groups with our district, and practicum sessions with volunteers from the community. It has all been very good and useful, even though ours is not a proselyting assignment.

Wednesday was the day for the new young missionaries to arrive, almost 1,000 that day! Our grandson was among them so we went to the arrival place hoping to catch a glimpse of him Sure enough, we got to see him and say hello before he was rushed off for his orientation. His mom got this photo.

Isaac Evans, Max Evans, Samuel Evans, and Mary Evans, at the MTC when Sam arrived.

 We also saw him twice today in the cafeteria. He is doing well and seems happy and confident.

We are getting to know a lot of nice senior missionaries and making good friends. We will miss them when we leave tomorrow afternoon. We will drive back to our home in Salt Lake, finish packing, then load the car Saturday morning. We will drive to St. George Saturday, stay Sunday, and then leave for Los Angeles Monday morning. We expect to arrive in the afternoon.

Mary and Max

GETTING READY

Three months since receiving our call and two days from the MTC! Max retired and we went to Maryland to see Katie and her family. We've been playing, working in the garden, fixing up the house, going out to eat, deciding what to take, and having our portraits taken.

We went to San Diego with our daughter Emily and with our son David and his family and had a nice, relaxing time, seeing the sites and enjoying the beach. Mary and I drove to LA one day to check out the LA family history center and met a few of the missionaries. Its a wonderful facility. We will enjoy our work there.

Emily will be staying in our house and taking care of things while we are gone. So we had some work done. Fixed the rain gutters and added ceiling fans to three rooms. Because we pulled the plug on Comcast TV, internet, and phone, we had to make other arrangements for each and ended up adding an antennae for broadcast digital TV, added a Clear 4G system for broadband, and acquired a Verizon home phone, so we can take our home phones and phone number with us.

We also planted a garden, with Emily's help. We've had broccoli, herbs and raspberries already and Emily can enjoy the zucchini, pumpkins, tomatoes, potatoes, apples, and peaches when the are ready.

Last week we took Emily, David's family and Laura's family to Midway, UT, for a week-long vacation. It was interrupted when we all returned to Murray for a sacrament meeting where David's son, Sam, spoke prior to going on a mission to North Carolina. He did a nice job. He will enter the MTC in four days. In Midway we swam in the condo pool, hiked, fished, flew kites, visited the Homestead crater, played games, watched movies, and ate together. The younger members of the family skateboarded, in-line skated, and rode scooters, while the girls and Max went to the outlet mall.

It was nice and relaxing.

Mary and Mary spoke in our sacrament meeting last Sunday. Most of our children and grandchildren were there. We also had three of Max's sisters and their husbands and four of Mary's brothers and sisters and their spouses.

This week has been busy with dinner and lunches with family and friends, packing for the MTC, and getting ready to pack for the trip to Los Angeles.

We will go to the Stake High Council meeting at 7:00 AM tomorrow, go the church at 11:00, and have the Stake President come to our house tomorrow evening to set us apart. We will arrive at the MTC in Provo Monday morning between 9:30 and 10:00 and stay there until Friday at 3:30. Then we will come home to finish packing and loading the car. We plan to leave here Saturday morning and drive to St. George, then leave St. George Monday morning for the six-hour (depending on the traffic) drive to LA.

Our preparation is guided by a personalized web page that tells us what to do before the mission:

• Have a temple recommend
• Re-read the Book of Mormon
• Watch The District, a six-episode TV program showing missionaries at work
• Complete the Mormon.org profile
• Study Preach my Gospel, the missionary manual
• Read The Missionary Handbook
• Learn about Family History

We will keep you posted.

Love,
Mary and Max

AT LAST!!

We expected our call on Wednesday. Even had a family party planned. When the letter didn't come, we had the party anyway, at least with Laura's family, because we brought Jared home with us.

Disappointed again yesterday; I decided it would come next week. But, no, IT CAME TODAY!

California Los Angeles Mission, with an assignment to work in the Family History Center

Here we are opening our letter.

We are both pretty excited. Looking forward to a great adventure.

Wish us well and pray for us.

Love, Max and Mary

The END IS IN SIGHT!

Our grandson, Samuel, who submitted his missionary application the same day we did, got his mission call last Wednesday. He is going to the North Carolina Charlotte mission. He leaves for the Missionary Training Center on August 7, which is what we put in our application as our availability date. We were on the way home from a short trip to St. George when he called us with the news.

And, our bishop, who monitors these things online, checked today and let us know that we have been "assigned," meaning that we should receive our call next Wednesday, May 1. We've invited family to come watch us open our letter and together find out where, and when, we will go.

The countdown is now about two weeks from Max's 70th birthday; five weeks from his retirement; and ?? weeks from the mission. We are getting pretty excited, and a little scared.

Here's a photo of our flower garden from last week.

The WAIT

What do you do when waiting for your mission call?
Well, we enjoy the Spring flowers growing in our front garden

and our forsythia bush in bloom.

 And we watch General Conference, here in the Conference Center Sunday afternoon.

Max works every day at the Church History Department (eight more weeks). Mary continues to serve as a Church Service Missionary two days a week at the Family History Library. She is also working at home organizing her genealogy papers and documents.

We also tended Laura and Jared's kids Friday night so they could go on a date.

Becky and their children went to St. George for Spring break and used our condo.

The INTERVIEW

Max says:
Our bishop acted quickly and got our application to the stake president. We had a telephone message waiting yesterday asking us to meet for an interview. We got out of church at 2:00 and met with President Mendenhall at 2:20 PM. Together, we went through our application and medical forms and answered his questions. He wanted to know where we would prefer to serve and we told him England or the British Isles. He will finalize the application and submit it soon. We should expect our call in about five or six weeks.

He said he has seen couples come and go and in each case the mission has brought them closer together and blessed the lives of their families. We are looking forward to a wonderful experience, no matter where the Lord chooses to send us.

Mary says:
Today is a beautiful warm day with spring flowers coming up in the yard.  A beautiful Easter.  We will always remember that we were interviewed  for our mission on Easter Sunday, March 31, 2013.  As we wait to hear about our call, we will continue to read the Book of Mormon individually, say our morning prayers and look for ways to serve others as we go about our daily activities.

Max says:

Our Sunday School lesson today was "The Field is White Already to Harvest" using Doctrine and Covenants, section 4 and others.

 3 ... if ye have desires to serve God ye are called to the work;

 4 For behold the field is white already to harvest; and lo, he that thrusteth in his sickle with his might, the same layeth up in store that he perisheth not, but bringeth salvation to his soul;

 5 And faith, hope, charity and love, with an eye single to the glory of God, qualify him for the work.

 6 Remember faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, godliness, charity, humility, diligence.

 7 Ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. Amen.

The SUBMISSION

Max says:
Finally. I finished with my doctor appointments today. We turned the medical forms over to Bishop Wirkus this evening and just now pushed the "Submit" button on the online forms. The bishop will check our application and make his recommendation to the stake president. President Mendenhall will interview us and send the application to the Church Missionary Department. We are told that a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles will, under the inspiration of the Lord, make our assignment. We should receive our mission call in five to six weeks after the stake president submits it.

We are trying to prepare, by reading the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants and saying our prayers. We think we are in for a great adventure. Writing the title of this post made me think: we not only pressed the SUBMIT button to start a process, but by doing so we are to SUBMIT to the will of the Lord. We will go where He wants us to go, and do what he wants us to do. A mission requires submission, in every sense of the word.

On Wednesday this week, we met with the human resources director for the Church History Department and I signed my retirement forms. The date is set: Friday, May 31, just nine weeks from now. Mary will continue as a Church Service Missionary in the Family History Department until the end of July. We should be ready to go on a mission in August or sometime soon after.

Mary says;
I'm not sure what we put down as we answered the questions on the form over a month ago.  But we'll go with our first impressions.  The bishop came over to get our medical papers; he seems as excited as we are.  The Stake President has been talking about this for senior missionaries for some time now.  I'm sure he'll be excited about this too.  I feel like we're on the bandwagon with thousands of young 18-year-olds--not the least of whom is our own grandson, Sam Evans, who is putting in his papers as we speak.  He just needs to talk to his stake president and then the process will start;  wait a minute that's all we have to do too.  I wonder where we will be called.  That's the $64,000 question.  And what kind of a mission will it be.  Your guess is as good as mine.