People We Associate With in San Diego

The Grossmont Institute Building is right across the street from Grossmont Community College.  A couple of Saturdays ago, we took a walk around the college.  It is small but is very nice and well kept.  

Keeping up with the young adult pace is a bit taxing, but we are loving our association with these wonderful young men and young women.  Every Sunday, we meet at 7:30 a.m. in a ward council meeting.  Afterwards, we attend our church block meetings at 9:00 a.m.  After church is over, we sometimes have choir practice, which takes us to about 1:15.  So, basically, we have about six hours of church on Sunday.

These are our branch missionaries.  L-R:  Judith, Lovisa, Brent and Buddy.  Brent is the branch mission leader and is a remarkable person.  This group of people are doing wonderful missionary work in the branch.  I love everyone of them.

 
 Here is a picture of Dick and I standing by the Institute Building.

These two fantastic sisters work in the branch.  They are so full of life and are rays of sunshine.  They have so much enthusiasm for the work.  They also work at the Mormon Batallion in the afternoons.  I love these sisters.

Here is our institute director, Marty Morgan, and Elder Dalebout.  Brother Morgan is also the 2nd Counselor to our mission president.  He is such a positive and uplifting man and is very enthusiastic about the institute work.  Sometimes, students who go to Grossmont College will park in the institute parking because it's free.  He puts a tag on their car that asks them to come into the institute to get a parking pass.  The only stipulation is that they attend a class.  He does a short devotional on Wednesdays at noon for about 15 minutes.  If they will come to that and eat a free lunch with the other institute students, they get a free parking pass.  He has had quite a bit of success in bringing students into the church this way.  

On Monday evenings, we have a Family Home Evening with the kids from the branch.  Last week, we had a St. Patrick's Day FHE.  Here is a picture of our Branch President, President Little (left) and his wife, and Brother Cooper (2nd Counselor) and his wife.  We love these people also.

Here is the refreshment table.

Here are Sister Cooper and Sister Little with two of the branch members doing "Just Dance," which is a video game of some sort.  They had a lot of fun.

Some of the kids didn't want to dance, so they played Clue out in the foyer.

Our next door neighbor, Abbas, took us to dinner at an Iranian Restaurant.  A couple of weeks ago, I took him some lemon squares, and he invited us to eat with him.  We thought he was going to cook for us, but instead, he took us to this restaurant.  He is Iranian and has lived in the United States for 37 years.  He isn't a practicing Muslim.  He doesn't seem to be interested in the church.  The people whose house we are living in (the Colemans) gave him a Book of Mormon in Farsi.  He has read it, but I don't think he understands it much.  However, he is interested in learning truth and why things are happening the way they are in the world.  His wife died eight months ago, and he is searching.  Of course, we know what he needs, but whether he will be open to discussing the gospel is another thing.

We teach a Book of Mormon class to about seven students on Monday afternoon.  On Wednesday evenings, Brother Raleigh teaches a class on the parables of Jesus.  He and Dick are going to be alternating.  This is a picture of Dick teaching the class to mostly students from our branch.

Last Sunday, after church, we had a "Linger Longer," in which everyone brings different foods and we eat together.  It was very successful, with about sixty people in attendance.  The kids truly love to associate with each other.

Here is some of the food that we had.  Nachos and Enchiladas were the favorite, in addition to some of the desserts.

Teaching, attending meetings, activities, service projects (cleaning the chapel every Saturday and helping a family of a branch member who passed away), counseling, doing family history and teaching piano lessons keeps us very busy and tired.  When we go to bed at night, we go right to sleep.  We are loving this assignment even if we are lacking in energy.  The kids help energize us.