Week Twenty Nine

Sis's Jacklin and Lowry
at the mission office

Sis's Jacklin and Lowry live close to the mission office and dropped in for a short visit last Monday morning on their way to missionary visits. 

3 Mission vans and the truck and trailer waiting in the phone lot at the airport

We spent last Monday morning at the mission office and went to the airport in the afternoon to help pick up some of our 22 new missionaries who arrived from the MTCs in Utah and Mexico City. We watched the airport birds while waiting in the call lot. Took them to the W church for dinner and then to the Mission Home for the night. Tuesday morning picked them up for orientation, admin processing, and then the Transfer Meeting. 

Birds at the Orlando airport

Sis Dunford speaks before departing

At the transfer meeting Tuesday our two departing missionaries spoke and Pres Berry introduced each of the new missionaries and announced their assignments and companions, as well as the transfers of many other missionaries who came to the meeting to make their transfers to new areas with new companions.

Pres Berry speaking

Getting lunch after the transfer meeting

Sis Berry had lunch for more than 200 after the transfer meeting, including all the companions of those getting transferred and local members who brought some of them to the transfer meeting. 

Sis Bevans taking pictures of missionaries

Sis Bevans takes pictures of the new missionaries with their companions for the board in the mission office. She took them in the hallway this time because it was too crowded everywhere else. 

Sis's Day and Allred

Elders Hilton and Despain

Sis's Fisi and Halverson

We took a few pictures too ... Sis Allred formerly in Windy Ridge got a new companion, Elder Despain in our Olympia ward got a new companion, and Sis Fisi got a new companion, Sis Halverson, from tri-cities, WA where we used to live! It's fun to meet the new missionaries, learn about them, and see their enthusiasm to figure out how the work happens and plunge into it.

Missionaries departing after the transfer meeting

Elder Harman and an ibuprofen

Elders Socarras, "Handy",
and Albin at the hospital

I took a couple of "medical" pic's for Sis Nielson. We're hoping and praying that Elder Albin can recover quickly and return to us soon! He's a devoted missionary whom we've become quite attached to. He and his comp created "Elder Handy" from a medical glove, but couldn't apply a name tag without popping him (same problem with giving him a missionary haircut).  

deLeon Springs Park

On Saturday, our senior-missionary Preparation Day, we went to deLeon Springs for breakfast. This is where the Mayacas lived in 1566 when discovered by Pedro Menendez, who founded St Augustine a year earlier. It is the site of Ponce deLeon's legendary fountain of youth, which doesn't appear to work any more, judging from some of the people we saw there and from the way we still looked when we left. 

Blue Spring Park in Orange City

We then went to Blue Spring Park to see the Manatee Refuge, where West Indian Manatees migrate from the St John's waterway to the year-round 72-degree warm springs to bear their young. The waterways are closed from mid-November to mid-March to protect the manatees, which were quite numerous and easy to see while we were there.

Yesterday we went to our new assignment in the Bumby Ward, where they were having their annual ward conference. It was nice to meet a lot of new people! We also saw some of our friends from the Windy Ridge ward, which met there earlier in the same building.