From the Redwood Forests - A Wonderful Week
“From the redwood forests to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me!”
Song … This Land is Your Land
Happy 4th of July from Northern California and the land of the magnificent redwood forests!
We have enjoyed seeing the beautiful redwood forests!
We were invited to join the Rincon Valley Ward’s “empty nester” group on Monday evening to celebrate Independence Day. We enjoyed dinner, sang many of the patriotic songs, and listened to a presentation about the miracles that surrounded the signing of The Declaration of Independence. The cute lady, Orlean Koehle, who organized it gave us all a pocket copy of The Constitution of the United States of America, saying you never know when you’re going to need to rely on this reference. Her enthusiasm for the blessings of living in America was contagious and Mark and I both left feeling a greater awareness that this country was really made and preserved for you and me by our loving Heavenly Father.
Kitchen in mission home
It was a wonderful week. We kept busy again with missionaries, emails, and meetings. We were invited to a P-day activity with a district from Vacaville and enjoyed getting to know them better playing volleyball and soccer. On Tuesday the 4th of July we had the office missionaries over to our mission home for a Bar B Que. We so enjoyed getting to know them all better. The young missionaries are Elders Bliss, Colling, Clark, Kreimeyer, Scoresby and Anderson. The senior missionaries are the Wests, the Larsens and Sister Schneider. The Kunzlers were unable to attend. We wore our “missionary” aprons that our children gave to us.
President and Sister Quinn in mission aprons from their children.
On Thursday we met with our mission therapist Denise Hansen. She’s great! We also zoomed with Dr. Mitchell our mission psychiatrists and visited with our mission nurse Sister Schneider. Many of our missionaries are dealing with different mental health issues. I will be working with Denise to help these missionaries. The church has set up a great way of confidentlually keeping track of all of our missionaries and any health issues they may have from headaches, to twisting ankles, to suffering from depression. I will work with missionaries with mental health situations. I am happy to see that the church is very thorough and careful with its records and that they provide many resources to help and support missionaries.
Sister Hall, Sister Quinn, President Quinn, Elder Larsen, Elder Smart, Sister Hebdon
This week Sister Hebdon was bitten by a dog! She went to the ER and was given some antibiotics. The next day we drove an hour south to Vacaville and I went out to teach with her and her companion Sister Hall. We rang a doorbell and a dog started barking. I thought it would upset her, yet she was fine and even played with the dog for a few minutes. I really enjoyed teaching a couple of lessons with these two amazing sisters. Mark went out with Elder Smart and Elder Larsen. Mark also felt like these missionaries did a fabulous job!
The night before we drove an hour north to Ukiah and I went out with Hermanas Diepeveen and Shaw. Mark went out with Elders Phillippi and Raymond. They are also amazing missionaries! We are so proud of all of our missionaries!
Today we were able to go see some redwood trees at the Armstrong National Park. They truly are giants and incredibly beautiful. The senior missionaries taught us how to use the panorama setting on our phone’s camera to get a cool photo of the height of the tree. pictured below we are in front of the famous Colonel Armstrong tree. Its height is 308 feet, diameter is 14.6 feet and it is approximatly 1400 years old. We walked through the forests and then drove to Bodega Bay and then grabbed a hamburger at Sister West’s favorite spot “Sequoia Burgers” The Wests are finishing their mission next week. They are in charge of the housing for our missionaries, a big job! They do a lot to keep the mission office running. We are really going to miss them.
Standing in front of the Colonel Armstrong redwood tree
Mark (President Quinn) has been busy serving our missionaries. As part of his many responsibilities he reads and responds to 70+ weekly letters/emails from our missionaries. He was trained how to use Facebook messenger this week to respond to the missionaries. Thank you to the tech Elders Kreimeyer, Scoresby and Anderson.
Two days after our arrival a situation with an investigator arose that required Mark to contact our IFR - in field representative. This is an individual that is assigned to support mission leaders with unique and difficult situations. Mark apologized for calling this man after being in the mission field for just two days. The man chuckled and said it wasn’t a record! Mark was happy to hear that! Mark is really enjoying working with and serving our missionaries.
Elder & Sister West, Elder & Sister Larsen, Sister Schneider, Sister & President Quinn - Roots from a redwood tree.
Love to all of you! - Elaine
