Today we had a gentleman come into the office and tell us in broken English that he had packages for us.  So, I asked him if he wanted to use our dolly and he said no - many packages.  So, I asked if I could help and he said no - many, many packages.  So I propped open our door and went out and it was a postal truck filled with our packages.  He had 4 hampers in the truck and he said they were all ours.  He said, "this is unbelievable". I told him about our 240 missionaries and that they are away from home and they are between 18 and 21 years old - and he said "unbelievable" - again.  Sister Truman and I were the only ones in the office - and he kept hauling in the hampers and Sister Truman and I kept unloading them.  Then he had to scan each package - you will see him in the pictures.  You will also see some - not so pretty pictures of me trying to get packages out of the hamper.  Elder Ruse walked in to a complete mess - so he decided to take pictures.  Here they are:

 

Along with the 185 packages, we received 400 pieces of letters and cards that had to be labeled.  We held the packages in the office and Elder and Sister Truman will go to San Luis Obispo and take zone 1 and 2 packages tomorrow - Christmas Eve and Elder Ruse and I will take zones 3 and 4 and the Assistants will take zone 6, 7, and 8 and head to Simi Valley.  We live in zone 5, so the zone leaders for 5 will come to the office and pick them up.  We will do this as soon as the mail comes tomorrow and we get it sorted.  President Castro said that last year most of the mail came on Christmas Eve.  If that happens this year - we will never get everything out by Christmas day!  I started putting labels on the letters we received on Saturday and then right into getting today's mail done and I didn't finish until 4:45 p.m.  I will let you know what time the mailman comes on Christmas Eve!

These sisters are in our area and they dropped by to carol to us one day while we were in the office and it was wonderful!

The Christmas packages are coming.  Elder Ruse put up a table for me because it was killing my back to bend over on the floor and put labels on the packages for forwarding to the missionaries.  We are now collecting the packages and will take them on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday this week to the Christmas devotionals.  We will take the truck and pull the trailer with all of the packages.  I am assuming that if we get any on Christmas eve, we will need to deliver them that day so that everyone will get their packages in time.  Actually, it will be fun to do that!

Elder Schwitzer gave a talk April 2010 Conference, entitled, Developing Good Judgment and Not Judging Others.  This talk has meant a lot to us lately, as we can relate to Martha.  We are learning not to be so hard on ourselves because we aren't the "Mary" in the mission.  In his talk he talks about needing both the Mary and the Martha, and that Martha isn't just always in the "kitchen".  She does have a spiritual side which we see evident in the scriptures.  We know the mission needs someone to do the Martha work and we are happy doing that.  It has been very hard on Elder Ruse to be the "Martha", but he is getting better.  Go and read his talk as it is very good.

Here are a few more pictures.  My other blog showing the Green family visit - was too full, I guess.  It was so windy on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, that we were glad we did as much as we could on Thursday.  When we went to the beach on Saturday, Jana was with us, and the wind was sooo bad that the kite boarders had to come in because it was too windy.  At one point, one of our buckets blew all the way across the beach to the houses behind us and so when we left, I asked Nate to drive around by the houses - and there was our red bucket - just blowing around in the street!

Here are the girls at the American Girl store lunch.  They even let Ava choose a baby and then they had baby seats for the babies to sit in at the table.  Ellie had her Kit and she even got Kit's ears pierced!

We have a really nice mall in Ventura and they had a train that the kids wanted to ride in.  You can see Nate in the caboose with the kids - he had to go because Ava is under 3, but Ava didn't want him in their car, so he had to go to the blue car.  This picture was taken before Ava kicked him out.

And, here is the windy beach scene.  I can't tell you how windy and cold it was.  I sure hope the kids come back when it is warmer on the beach.  However, don't anyone come in June because apparently here in June they call it gloomy June because that is the month that is foggy all month!

Here it is the 15th of December already and we can't believe it.  Came, Nate, Ellie, Ashton and Ava visited us the first part of the month and it was wonderful to see them!  The first night they came, we watched the news and they said the "big chill" was hitting Southern California and it would be 40 degrees.  They looked at Herriman's weather and it was 0 degrees!  They thought that was really funny.  We walked over to where we walk among the boats, and the kids played on the playground.  Of course, they were the only children there.  We see lots of dogs, but not many children.

 

 Ellie and Ava decorated our little Christmas tree.  They brought us a Christmas tree skirt that the grandkids put their footprints on, Christmas balls they had painted, and our Christmas stockings for our fireplace.  Ashton was so tired - he was asleep.

 

Here we are at the beach.  Ava insisted she not have any clothes on and the kids were playing in the water in their clothes!  It was cold to us, but the kids loved it.  At least it wasn't below zero.

We had one good day to enjoy as much as possible because the wind was going to get really bad.  Here we are driving a duffy boat.  We went to Subway and purchased sandwiches and ate on the boat.

 

We even saw a sealion out in the channel!

We were headed out for a walk and the kids spotted the swimming pool right behind our apartment and they insisted on getting in.  This is the hot tub - because the swimming pool was toooo cold - but they loved it.  Of course, the neighbors thought they were nuts.  It was so warm in the hot tub, that they had to keep getting out to cool down.

 

Our ward - via Rita Penix - sent us Christmas trees she had made for all of the missionaries in the ward.  Then the young women and young men made Christmas ornaments and wrote endearing things on the ornaments.  Thank you Lindon 16th Ward!  We also received a large box of frozen food from a very, very nice neighbor.  It complete filled our freezer and our hearts!  Thank you!!

Here is Elder Ruse showing how much we love the tree.  It was a great idea!  Below is our little decorated apartment.  While Cami and family were here, our TV went black!  We thought we just had free TV and we were getting just a few channels.  Now we had nothing.  However, Cami brought us a DVD player for Christmas with a few hallmark and Ephraims Rescue and so we finally called Time Warner and got the 19.00 cable so we could get the news!  Now we just get about 5 channels.

Today is fast and testimony for December 2013 and it was a great meeting.  I love this humble ward and its diversity.  I was reading in the Deseret News that there are some women who are spending their time making the news by starting another "pants at church strike".  If they were active members in the Church, they wouldn't waste their time with this cause - and try to do something more Christ-like.  We have some women in our ward in Oxnard who wear pants - and no one says anything to them - because we don't care.  We are glad that they are where they should be on Sunday!  In fact a sister in pants bore her testimony today and it was from her heart - and it was beautiful.  We have members from Hawaii, all countries in Asia, India, Mexico and those who are Native American.  It is a great ward and we are loving being amongst them.  My message to everyone today is stop the striking and just become a member of the ward and serve where you can and live the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

First let me apologize for not blogging sooner.  And, Happy Birthday Andy.  We also had Emma's birthday in the month of November.  She and Rich went to India for two weeks and it is great to see her pictures.

This has been a very busy month - in fact, the time in the mission is going really fast.  We found the "rhythm of the mission".  It is two transfers (which are every 6 weeks) and then a zone conference; two transfers and then a zone conference.  We have transfers tomorrow, Monday December 2, 2013, and therefore, spent the day yesterday getting 7 new cars washed and ready for the missionaries to use.  They are Chevy cruises.  I have to admit that one of my favorite parts is being able to drive the new cars.  Friday we picked up 5 new Ford.  I like how they drove.  However, Elder Ruse didn't like them.  Here is a picture of what our parking lot looked like yesterday.  In the background you can see all of the cars along the bushes.  The ones closer are the ones we had to wash and get ready.  Luckily, the High School across the street was having a car wash and so Elder Ruse and I drove them one at a time across the street for them to wash.  The kids thought that was great - because, they refer to us as the "Church will all of the cars".  In the beginning, they thought we were bringing 32 - but we just took them 7!

The holiday mail has begun.  There is a picture of what one day looked like when the mail before thanksgiving came and the missionary supplies came.  It was crazy:

Here are pictures from our first zone conference.  The mission is divided into 4 conferences and they were on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.  You won't see pictures of many missionaries, because I took one and then they caught me and told me that I am not to take pictures at zone conferences.  We were outside inspecting all of the cars until lunch - so here are the cars:

This is the picture I took of the missionaries and then I was told that I can't take pictures.  OOPS!

 

 

Our Stake, the Camarillo Stake was having Temple day - which isn't associated with Stake Conference and we were given permission to go to the LA Temple.  We were married in this Temple 42 1/2 years ago and we don't think we have been back to this Temple since 35 years ago.  It was great to be in the Temple.  A little bit awkward because we aren't used to the way this Temple does the logistics.  It was beautiful!

 

Here is Elder Ruse again by the boats.  Wanting a boat will be his "thing to deal with".

 

A picture of our favorite walk at sunset: