Newsletter #3

To all our dear family and friends,

I am finally finding the time to sit down and write another update on the mission. I will ask the twins and Ryan to put this letter on the blog this weekend along with several new photos.

This has been a very significant month:

*Jenny (Detton) and Mike Reeves gave birth to baby #5 on August 4th. Baby Nathan James was born 16 days short of a year from the birth of baby James Michael, who lived for 11 days and passed away on August 31st, 2007. We are soooo grateful for the birth of this beautiful, healthy baby boy--truly a miracle baby! Baby Nathan has proved his healthiness by his strong vocal cords and alert eyes--always looking around and now focusing in on faces.

*Grandpa Bob Pike (our children's grandpa, step-father to Linda and husband for 23 years to Linda's mother, Barbara) passed away on Thursday evening, August 27th from cancer of the pancreas at age 90. How beloved Grandpa Bob was for his kindness, love, gentleness and devotion to our mother, Barbara. How we all loved and admired him. What a great and faithful man. He will be sorely missed by us all.

*Because of the funeral on Saturday, August 30th, all of the Reeves children were able to come to Arcadia, CA, except for Carrie, who is close to delivering her baby son anytime. All of Linda's siblings and spouses, as well as almost all 42 grandchildren were able to be together (including Linda who was grated permission to leave the mission to attend; President Reeves remained in the Riverside Mission with the missionaries!)

*School started at the end of August for Valerie, Allyson and Ryan who are attending Martin Luther King High School in Riverside. The girls are involved in Choir and also have the chance to accompany the choir for some of their performance numbers coming up. They are all making new friends at school and church. They have a great seminary teacher, which is helpful since seminary starts each weekday at 6:15 a.m.! Eric returned from his 5 week visit to Nicaragua and left for school in Cedar City, Utah to attend George Wythe College. Greg graduated in April from BYU and will live with Jon and Leah Reeves temporarily in the New York area, while he has interviews and plans to settle there.

*Jessica (Reeves) and Reid Anderson leave in two days for a month in Kenya, Africa, where Reid served his mission and next to Uganda where Jessica lived last summer for humanitarian work. They will be helping build and supply a school.

*Jennifer and Nyall continue school and nursing work at the U of U.

*Laurie and Sully, Julie and Brett continue to live with their families in Fontana, close to Mel and Linda, but don't see them very often because of the busy mission life.

Update on the California Riverside Mission Life:

*Mel and Linda just completed their second round of Zone Conferences this week, as well as the "one-week-into the mission" training of new missionaries and their trainers.

We loved being able to teach about obedience and the love of the Savior and His atoning sacrifice. We were privileged to be able to view Elder Bruce R. McConkie's final General Conference address on the life of the Savior, as well as his closing testimony of the Savior.

*We spent much of the month in interviews with the missionaries,(this takes 10 weekdays to complete our twelve zones) attending baptisms, and going on "splits" with one set of missionaries each day following interviews. We love the time we spend with individual companionships teaching and visiting new members, less-active and investigators. We have had the opportunity to speak at three stake conferences and a multitude of other meetings! Amazing that our missionaries seem to stay awake through all our training!

*We LOVE being able to attend the Redlands Temple with our missionaries. Mel has arranged our schedule such that we are able to attend five out of every six Friday mornings with different zones of our elders and sisters. This has been a unique and incredible experience for us and for our missionaries. We are so grateful for the chance to have this beautiful temple in our midst! What a blessing for our missionaries; how it increases their testimonies and helps keep them worthy of this great blessing.

*The most difficult thing was sending home (after two faithful years) three of our zone leaders, an office assistant and one assistant to the president (eight missionaries altogether). These are remarkable young men who have proven themselves so faithful and worthy, with such outstanding leadership qualities! They will be sorely missed! We received 11 new missionaries, including one sister. We now have seven sisters in the mission (and 148 elders). We have been told we will increase to 186 over the next five months.

*This Monday, Mel and Linda will attend an annual mission presidents' training seminar being held this year in San Diego with all the mission presidents from Alaska down to the California/Mexico border in Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon and California. We will be barely over our mission boundaries, since three of our stakes and zones in the California Riverside mission actually are in the San Diego Temple district. We are very much looking forward to this--especially the chance to be with our dear friends and Mel's former business partner, Dave and Susan Clark from the Spokane, WA mission.

*Mel has many opportunities to speak Spanish with our missionaries. We attend branches and baptisms at least once a week in Spanish wards or branches. This is a great blessing. We love these dear people more than we can express. Linda finds she slips if she does not practice every day (and listens to a fair amount of Spanish radio!) .

*We had hoped that we might have some time on occasion to get together with many of our dear and wonderful friends from our Duarte and Arcadia Stake days, as well as other dear neighbors and family members. What were we thinking??? Please forgive us for our lack of time, but know that we feel so unbelievably privileged to participate in this wonderful and holy work. How we miss all of you and long to spend time with you. We also very much miss all of our wonderful and loving Bountiful friends, who also mean soooo much to us. The mission is speeding by at an amazing rate! We wish we could hold back the clock!

Please know of our love and gratitude for your love and friendships! Thank you for the many emails and letters that you send! Please forgive us if we have not responded! We appreciate hearing from you so much!!!

All our love, Linda, Mel and all the Reeves kids!