As mentioned previously, I spend a lot of time looking out of the car window. I have been taking note of the animals and the vegetation around us. I thought I would share some of my observations. We live in the city but we are surrounded by untamed properties so we also have lots of critters around. It is interesting to see things we think live in a desert combine with things we think live in a northern climate. As we go walking by our apartment we have seen lizards, cottontail bunnies, a coyote, quail and squirrels. They are everywhere! We have to wait for a family of quail to gather their babies and get out of the way every time we leave the complex. Squirrels are in every neighborhood. We were laughing when we went to the Sisters apartment. We stopped to talk to their neighbor who is growing an amazing container garden by her apartment. She told us that she was sick of the squirrels eating her plants. The next time we went we almost stepped on a squirrel who was staring intently toward her garden. As we got closer we realized she had covered the whole grow box with chicken wire and inside there were beautiful ripe tomatoes. I know that squirrel was trying to figure out to steal those tomatoes. Some of the squirrels have a white collar of fur around their neck. Those are the missionary squirrels who are here to cry repentance, to teach the other squirrels not to steal and plunder gardens. This squirrely behavior was also mentioned in Sunday School today so you can imagine they have a real problem. I have also been trying to catch me a pet lizard. Elder Hardman keeps telling me that I can’t have one. I never have a container handy when the opportunity arises, but someday! One day when we were knocking doors I saw the most amazing lizard! I wanted it! It had a neon blue tail. It looked like someone had dipped its tail in paint. I could have caught it but Elder Hardman gave his little talk about ”What was I going to do with it if I caught it” (I was going to keep it and make it a beautiful terrarium to live in and it was going to be my special friend) I didn’t catch it but I did look it up when I got home and I will try to send you a picture. It is a Great Basin Skink. They are cool! The rest of the lizards I try to catch are fairly ordinary but Elder Hardman says I can’t have them either. As for the flora, we like to go to Rancho San Rafael Park and look at the botanical gardens. Growing next to the Giant Sequoia will be cactus and oak trees. I know it snows here but many desert plants grow in abundance. When we came in April the hills were covered in green grass and it was beautiful. Now all of that grass is brown and dry and the city is constantly covered in smoke from fires here and in California. It is interesting to see the similarities and differences from Utah. This really is a high desert!
We spent the week doing pretty much what we always do. We knocked a lot of doors. We now have our books down to time of day. We have doors we need to knock in the morning, doors we need to knock in the afternoon and doors we need to knock at night. We think we are getting close but then we will have ten new names move in.
We have been on a lot of splits with the Elders. It was fun on Friday. We first went to read with some less active ladies that live in Assisted Living. We read a few chapters in the Book of Mormon and Elder Hardman explained to them about the compass (the Liahona) and they were tickled with that. We then went to give a blessing to an 85 year old lady that isn’t a member but was raised in the church as a child and decided she wanted a blessing. It is a sad story. The lady’s granddaughter was high on drugs and alcohol and beat her grandmother. She had a broken femur, ribs and it almost killed her. She has felt down and decided she wanted a blessing. Her daughter, who isn’t a member and knows nothing about the church is there helping her Mom. As we were visiting and talking about things her Mom knows about the church we were talking about the Book of Mormon. I asked the daughter (she’s in her 60s) if she wanted one and she said, “Yes”. I went and got her one from the car. Elder Hardman was busy bragging that up to the other missionaries. Funny! So if we are keeping track of Missionary Opportunities, I placed a Book of Mormon.
Saturday we attended a baptism for a lady we went with our first Zone Leaders to teach. We missed Elder Short and Elder Baker. They would have loved to be at that baptism. This lady is from Belgium and is fun to listen to. Her name is Astrid Honey. I don’t know how she spells Honey. She is now Sister Honey. : ) She has been taught by several missionaries and was excited to finally be baptized. We took some pictures of the missionaries that came.
Our Zone Leaders sent out an apology last night that mileage allowances have been cut. They lost ten cars in the last transfer and now the mileage has been cut. Good thing our Elders have us, we not only come for splits, we drive. We keep wanting to send them our odos. : )
We will go to the Temple two times on Thursday this week. It is our zone’s Temple Day and we were asked to accompany the two Elders that are going home Friday on their Temple session Thursday night. They always get to go to the Temple the day before they go home. Some will go to places where there isn’t a Temple so this might be their last opportunity for a while.
Always stuff to do and things to observe! The Gospel’s true and we love you!
Love,
Elder and Sister Hardman
As I was Facebook Stalking today this made me laugh,
“The human body is 90% water, We’re basically cucumbers with anxiety.”
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