We just finished our first week on our mission– which is so hard to believe!  Everyone in the office went with Elder Ruse to pick up 5 cars each day – except for on one day we just picked up 4 cars.  There are 14 new cars waiting for the missionaries who will be arriving in October.   It was fun to have a “field-trip” out of the office.  I always liked the “field-trips” at BYU.   Here are the pictures of the cars – I had to do it in 2 pictures:

Yesterday (Saturday), we used the day to become better familiar with the area and do some shopping.  Emma and Rich gave us a gift card for Trader Joe’s and so we spent the morning walking around there and getting some food.  We called Emma to find out what their favorite things are and we purchased a few of those.  Then we were on the hunt for a small barbequer so that we could have hamburgers and hotdogs.  We finally found one at Lowes and then had to put it together.  We also went to Costco for a few things and boy was it crazy!  Crazier than the Costco at Draper.  However, this Costco had a car wash and so we got in the long line and washed the car.  We think a supersonic car wash like the one in Orem would do great here!  Costco charged $7.99 to wash the car – but no free vacuum.  Someone should tell Brother Roberts that there is a huge business down here just waiting for him!

Then headed home to put the barbequer together – which was only supposed to take 30 minutes – but it took us about 2 hours.  We needed those teenage grandboys here to help.  Then we finally had our bbq hamburger and that was great.  Then it was time for me to go to Camarillo to our Stake Center for the RS broadcast.  I thought I had the right address and looked it up on map quest, but after driving around for 45 minutes, I soon realized that I didn’t have the right address because I was on top of a hill and I knew the Church wouldn’t build one in that area.  I finally pulled over, and looked it up on my ipad and sure enough I had the wrong address.  I had 5 minutes to find the building so I prayed that I would be able to just drive to it – and sure enough I found it – a great answer to my prayer!  It was just a few blocks off of the off-ramp!  It was a wonderful meeting and it was great fun to see the sisters from the MTC provide the music.  In fact the older women who were singing with them were some of the MTC leadership.  They sang the songs that I mentioned in my blog – where the words had been changed to be about missionary work.  It was great and the speakers talked about covenants and the blessings we receive from making and keeping covenants.

Here are a few pictures from the week:

Elder Ruse told me to say that we are getting used to the area and that we are enjoying walking on the beach and meeting people – we are exercising and “opening our mouths” like we were taught to do.  We met a man named Albert from the Philippines and he was fishing from the shore, so we stopped and talked to him.  Because we always have our badges on, he asked us if we were Mormon after we introduced ourselves and we told him we were and asked him how he knew about the Church.  He said that he is retired now from the Government but his sister lives across the street from a Mormon church.  He then hurried and told us that he is Catholic.  We hope to see him again on the beach because he was a very nice man.

We had a great testimony meeting today and our ward is very diverse and we really enjoy it.  We had a great Gospel Principles class – which is always full.  In Relief Society today, the RS president was giving the lesson and she introduced her lesson by telling a story about how we need to get to know the Savior.  Then she had 4 gifts on the table that she was going to give one gift to each group.  Each group had to open the gift and determine from the gift a scripture, song and message about The Savior.  It was a great object lesson.  One group had a bottle of water, one group had a candle, one had a rock, and one had a stethoscope.  It was incredible what the sisters in each of the groups talked about – because you could talk about different things with each of those gifts.  Anyway, it was a great Sunday.

The Mechams from Idaho Falls, are the couple that is leaving the mission to go home after 18 months and so President and Sister Castro have invited us to their home tonight for dinner, along with the Mechams and the Trumans.