Dear Family and Loved Ones,
We had a great week: beautiful weather (though it’s very rainy today), good training with our newest missionaries, interviews for Ted, a surprise visit from the Trythall family and Ben’s first time blessing the sacrament.
It is definitely Winter in Southern California, there are a few leaves falling, the mornings and nights are cool and the days are shorter. I’m glad for the subtle changes because it motivates me to get ready for the upcoming Holiday. I love the sunny, warm afternoons, perfect for a walk or eating lunch outside.
Tuesday we gathered 50 of our missionaries for lunch and some training. The missionaries at the training were the ones who have arrived in the last two transfers as well as our sister missionaries. We served Stove Top Stuffing and chicken casserole with all of the Thanksgiving trimmings (sweet potatoes, cranberries, etc). Missionaries are fun to feed, they seem to enjoy everything and are always grateful.
This is the transfer for interviewing each missionary. Ted travels to each Zone and finds a room in the closest chapel where he can talk to each missionary individually. Each interview is at least 10 minutes but sometimes a missionary will need more time to work out a concern. It takes three weeks (three days each week) to complete the interviews. This is one of the times we think about how blessed we are to have a very nice, small, compact mission. In most of the large missions interviews are done on the same day as the Zone Conference.
Friday night we got a phone call from our niece, Tara. She, her husband Tom and their four beautiful, little girls had missed their connecting flight to Sacramento and they were stuck at the LAX airport. There were no more flights leaving that night and the it was unlikely that they would all get on the same plane the next day. They decided to rent a car and make the drive from Los Angeles to Sacramento where they would be spending Thanksgiving with Tom’s parents. It took some arm twisting to convince them that they needed to spend the night at the mission home so they could get a good night’s sleep before making the seven hour drive. We told them we were concerned about them but we also had selfish motives. It had been eighteen months since we had seen them and we couldn’t stand the thought of them being less than 30 minutes from the mission home without a visit. The Trythall girls are growing so fast, they are beautiful, sweet and so well behaved. We are so proud of Tom and Tara, they are great parents! They left the next morning for Sacramento and arrived that evening. We are hoping the flight home to New Orleans will go smoothly :)
Ben blessed the Sacrament for the first time today. Our ward has a tradition of having the father of the deacon or priest who is participating in either passing or blessing the Sacrament for the first time serve alongside their son so Ted was at the Sacrament table too. Ben added one word to the prayer which has to be word perfect so he had to repeat the prayer three times before he got it right. I was glad that Ted was there by his side to help him through. Everyone was very encouraging telling him that he did great and that next time he won’t be so nervous and will do even better. It’s wonderful to see Ben grow in his Priesthood responsibilities!
We are so excited about the upcoming Thanksgiving Holiday. We will have a lot of our family gather here and we can’t wait! Of all of the many, many things we have to be grateful for our wonderful, supportive families are on the top of the list!
I really love a talk by Elder Hale that was recently posted at lds.org. He said: “In some quiet way, the expression and feelings of gratitude have a wonderful cleansing or healing nature. Gratitude brings warmth to the giver and the receiver alike.”
“Gratitude, expressed to our Heavenly Father in prayer for what we have, brings a calming peace, a peace which allows us to not canker our souls for what we don’t have. Gratitude brings a peace that helps us overcome the pain of adversity and failure. Gratitude on a daily basis means we express appreciation for what we have now without qualification for what we had in the past or desire in the future.”
“We [should] express thankfulness for what happens, not only for the good things in life but also for the opposition and challenges of life that add to our experience and faith. We put our lives in His hands, realizing that all that transpires will be for our experience.”
A sweet sister in our ward shared her testimony about the importance of gratitude today. About two years ago the sister’s newborn daughter went into liver failure and without a liver transplant she had just a short time to live. The young mom said that one of the things that helped her get through their trial was to be grateful for everything and everyone. She said, “When my heart was full of gratitude there wasn’t room for fear, anger or bitterness.” Their adorable baby received a living donor transplant from the mom and is now healthy and doing great.
We have so much to be grateful for but our greatest blessings are each of you!
We love and appreciate you,
The Long Beach Buberts
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