Newsletter #2

Dear Loved Ones and Friends,

We have added quite a few email addresses that we somehow missed on our first email. It has been so great to hear back from so many of you these past two weeks!!! Thank you so much! We loved hearing from you! We are grateful for all the updates.
For those that might be interested, we now have a BLOG! You can go to melreevesfamily.blogspot.com which has some photos and the first email. My sincere and heartfelt apology goes out to our son, Jon and daughter-in-law, Leah, who got left off our list of children! (Be assured that you are still in the Will) The lesson learned is don't write an email at 3:00 a.m. when you can't sleep, without checking it over in the morning!) Jon and Leah live is Hoboken, N.J. where Jon is completing his 3rd year of law school.
We have now been in the mission for 5 weeks! We can't believe how quickly the time has gone! Every day just seems to get better! Last weekend, the twins danced in the multi-regional dance festival at the University of Redlands football field. They had so much fun! It was quite a spectacular event! The LDS Church in this area had not put on a dance festival in 23 years! A total of 2700 youth, ages 12-18 danced on the field. Dances from many countries were performed and the costumes and music were wonderful. One hundred of our missionaries in addition to missionaries from the San Bernardino mission helped behind the scenes.

We completed our first set of zone conferences last Wednesday . What a great experience! We were pretty nervous (or at least I was) to see how it would all go. The missionaries were so great! They seemed to enjoy our lessons Mel got a big boost with his attention getter/visual aid during his lesson at the Tuesday training--a 5.8 earthquake!! (We were less than 10 miles from the epicenter!) The elders were very impressed! Many of our missionaries were scared to death! We had all the chandeliers in the chapel swinging and one broke and started to fall over one of our Florida missionaries! He could hardly sit back down when all was calm again.
We began interviews with the president on Thursday and Friday. Mel has interviewed three zones and has nine to go. (Each zone has between 10 and 14 missionaries) What fun to get to know all the missionaries in personal interviews. They are such outstanding young men and women! I have been able to sit with each one and talk with them too, as well as do some teaching and training. We LOVE them all so much! Mel and I have continued attending baptisms and have been going out on splits with some of our missionaries. (We accompanying them on their lessons or track with them.) What a GREAT experience this has been! (challenging, but great!) Our missionaries love having us go out teaching and seeing investigators with them. We've had some very sweet experiences.

Our Laurie came over Monday to cut my hair (our Preparation Day) and brought our grandchildren. It was the first time we had seen them since the day we moved because of our crazy, but wonderful schedule! Yesterday was Ryan's 16th birthday! He is so excited to start driving! (I am so excited to have him start driving too! That will help this next year) Julie and Laurie were able to come over for dinner with their families to celebrate. Stake conferences are starting in two weeks and we already have a lot of speaking assignments. We can't believe how often we are speaking or teaching! (to missionaries, members, investigators, baptisms or firesides). It is truly amazing that there are this many people who want to hear from us!!! Perhaps it will be short-lived and only our missionaries will be forced to listen!
We love you all and miss you, but LOVE serving our Heavenly Father and Savior here in Riverside, California.

Lots of love to you all, Linda, Mel and family