Reeves Family

2009-07-26T22:51:00.000-07:00

Former Sister, Michelle Carter, came to visit some of our Sisters at the Mission Home.

Three of our Elders at the Redlands Temple.

The Mission Presidency with our AP's Elder Best and Elder Bringhurst.
(President Plocher - left - President Reeves and President Bishop.)

Re-discovery of a picture from the Christmas Zone Conference

2009-07-26T22:38:00.000-07:00

All of the Sisters with Allyson and Valerie back in December 2008

Beginning of Ryan's Track Season

2009-07-13T12:32:00.000-07:00

2009-07-13T12:08:00.000-07:00

Our AP, Elder Brown, going home to Texas (May 4)

Allyson, Valerie and Ryan with cousins at the LDS Prom held at the Gene Autry Museum in May

Ryan's friends from Bountiful came out during spring break
and loved going on exchanges with our missionaries.

2009-03-26T20:35:00.000-07:00

Cleggs, Reeves, and Office and President's Assistants

Rick and Anne Clegg from Bountiful came out to visit the mission,

they will be presiding over the Spain, Bilbao Mission.

Zone Leaders having lunch at training meeting

Missionaries arriving from the MTC at the beginning of the transfer

2009-03-22T20:02:00.000-07:00

Valerie and Allyson with Sister Wilkey and Sister Carter

At the beginning of March Ryan, Valerie and Allyson were able to go up to North Ridge and see a former Elder, Futi Tavana, play on the BYU volleyball team.

Visits from Family

2009-02-15T17:54:00.000-08:00

We were able to Celebrate Greg's birthday with family while he was here.

Greg and Valerie at the Huntington Pier.

Valerie, Greg and Ryan went on a tour of the Russian Scorpion at the Queen Mary sight.
Greg came out from NYC just a week after Carrie left.
He lives right in Manhattan and is loving it.

Caden and McKenna

At the beginning of February Carrie came out from Colorado with her children.

6th Group of Outgoing Missionaries

2009-02-15T17:42:00.000-08:00

I would give all the names, but we had 20 Elders go home, so I think I'll pass this time. :)

Sister Tan had to go back to Temple Square after two transfers in our mission.
We miss her a lot! She's an incredible missionary.

New Missionary Couple from the Mueller Park Stake!

2009-02-01T17:32:00.000-08:00

Elder and Sister Christensen, from the Mueller Park 5th ward arrived in January.
They are our first proselyting couple!

Mom's Newsletter #6

2009-01-19T15:08:00.000-08:00

Our dear friends and family,

I haven't written an email in many weeks. I tried to send out a few Christmas cards to some of those who don't use email or didn't yet have our new home address. We have been anxious to keep in touch with all of you and hope you had a WONDERFUL holiday season! Thank you for the many wonderful cards, letters and photos we received! Several of our cupboard doors are full of your pictures! We loved reading about your families and all that is going on in your lives!

One by one, each of our children and grandchildren, except Greg and Carrie & Brian, were able to come out and visit in December. Carrie and children will fly out in February while Brian is involved with tax season. We can't wait to see 5-month old Tanner, whom we have never seen! Almost 5 month-old and 20 lb. baby Nathan came with Mike, Jenny and girls in December! The twins played for the high school choir Christmas Concert. I told their former teacher, Jean Messick, how great it has been to see the fruits of many years of piano lessons! Eric leaves for Nicaragua in a few days. He will be helping farmers increase their crop yield and nutrition. Ryan has been running, practicing up for track, though he misses lacrosse and his friends terribly. The bishop of our ward here has challenged all of the ward members to reread the Book of Mormon starting January 1st and complete the reading in 90 days. We are enjoying it so much and can already feel an increasing great spirit in our home because of it.

We had a very exciting December in that we had so many dear people who were baptized--74 throughout the mission. Our missionaries worked so hard to bless the lives of many people. It was the most wonderful way to celebrate the birth of our Savior.
We are still trying to attend as many baptisms as we can. Last month we had several unique experiences. A family of six (the parents and four children, ages 26, 22, 18 and 14 got dressed in Sunday clothes one Sunday and set out to find a church. They felt prompted to stop at one of ours and walked in. Over a period of two months, they were taught by our missionaries and decided to all be baptized! At the baptism, the youngest, a son, taught us all about Lehi's "tree of life vision" from the Book of Mormon. They are an outstanding family! We have also had several baptisms of people in the 80's this month! Our college-aged group seems to be the most interested. It is so wonderful that a large number of them end up deciding to serve full-time missions. We currently have about 12 missionaries serving in the California Riverside Mission that are between 24 and 27 years old! It is amazing to see the desire they have and love for the Lord to leave everything they are involved in and pay for themselves to be missionaries for two years at these older ages! Many of them already have their college degrees and have certainly had many opportunities to date. Isn't it something to put all of this on hold and devote two years to service to the Lord? We love it!

It has also been amazing to us to see how many people the Lord is preparing to hear the fullness of the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. It seems that almost every companionship of our missionaries (each set of two) has in the last month or two had what we call a "self-referral"--a person, who on their own, feels prompted to call the church, search for missionaries, walk into a church meeting, or go onto the church's website and request to have missionaries come and visit and teach them. Others, seeing the good example of their neighbors or friends ask how they can find out more about the church. We are grateful for our good friends in many other religions who were very grateful when they saw our stand on families with Proposition 8. (We were so grateful to them for all that they did to support Prop 8!) We love that the relationship between our church and our other church-going friends seems to be improving. As most of you know, we often join forces for humanitarian work as well.

Have we mentioned before that Valerie and Allyson attend a club at school called "GLO"--Girls Living Obediently two lunch periods a week? The group studies and discusses the Bible, among other things. They even have a darling Jewish friend that attends. Last month, some music videos were shown at an assembly at school that were not at all appropriate. The GLO group ended up writing letters asking that this not happen again at school. We are proud of the twins and the GLO club!

We can't help mentioning again how much we are enjoying the climate. We did have three very cold and rainy weeks in December, but almost every day in January has been between 70 and 83 degrees. There has been enough wind to blow all smog away. The grass and plants are all green and it is gorgeous! (Still pretty rocky and brown in our more deserty areas!)

Please know of our love for all of you. We miss you all, but are kept extremely busy all the time and time is speeding by at an amazing pace for us! We can't believe we've been out nearly seven months!

We love you! Linda, Mel, Ryan, Allyson, Valerie and Eric

5th group of Outgoing Missionaries

2008-12-30T20:58:00.000-08:00

Ryan and Elder Fromm (Elder From was AP for our 1st three transfers on the mission)

Top row (L-R): Elders - Fromm, Walser, Shumpert and Bair
bottom row: Elders - Marks, Reyes and Sandavol

President and Sister Reeves with Elder Stewart
(Elder Stewart went home a couple days before the others, because his brother was leaving on a mission).

Christmas

2008-12-28T14:55:00.000-08:00

T-B/L-R: Mike, Ashley, Jenny, Nathan, Sadie and Megan Reeves

Mandy Stacey wishing she had received a toy instead of a dress (:

Kate London

Cambria London with her new Barbie, Mariposa

Valerie and Allyson's (Christmas) Choir Concert

2008-12-19T14:47:00.000-08:00

Valerie and Allyson
We each accompanied 3 different songs for the school choirs and a soloist.

Our choir (Treble Choir) singing Santa Baby. Valerie and I got together
with two other girls in our choir to choreograph this song. It was fun!

Lights at the Mission Inn

2008-12-14T14:26:00.000-08:00

Palm Trees with Christmas Lights!

The Trupp, Reeves and McKell families

L-R: Valerie, Annie McKell (our YW President's daughter), Allyson and
Rebecca Trupp - Our very close friend from school

The Nativity

2008-12-12T21:20:00.000-08:00

Brennan as the Donkey, Audrey and Mandy (Angels), a friend (Shepherd) and Bradley (Lamb).

Shelby and friend as Mary and Joseph. Aidan, Maddie and Valerie as the 3 wise men.

After lunch at the Friday Zone Conference, all of the grandkids who live in California came to act out the nativity story for the missionaries while Grandpa/President Reeves read from Luke.

Thanksgiving

2008-11-28T14:09:00.000-08:00

Laurie and Brennan

Shelby and her aunt Lana

Cousins, aunts and uncles

Sister Hughes and Sister Needham

Sister and Elder Morris (Office Couple)

Most of our Cousins who live in California - and those who were visiting - came to our
house for Thanksgiving dinner. The office staff also came and Julie and Laurie's families,
along with our brother-in-law's family (The Staceys) joined us for dessert!

4th group of outgoing missionaries

2008-11-18T16:35:00.000-08:00

Dropping off Sister Vehikite at LAX

Headed to the airport at 3:00 in the morning!

L-R: Elders Reed, Lenk, Keys, Anderson, Wood, and Sister Vehikite

Newsletter #5

2008-11-15T18:42:00.001-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. We are so grateful for all of you--our beloved friends and relatives. We just completed a whirlwind week (and 4 1/2 months in the mission)--finishing up three weeks of interviews, having a "mission tour" on Friday and Monday, and three stake conference speaking assignments all on one weekend. We love being able to train and meet with each missionary individually. President Reeves does the serious interviews and Sister Reeves gets to see family photos and find out about the lives of the missionaries.

We were so proud of our missionaries when we had our annual (and first for us) mission tour. Elder and Sister Paul Johnson spent two and a half days here with us and our missionaries. We were so proud of our missionaries! They were so good to make sure they looked great and were on their best behavior. Elder Johnson was an incredible teacher (being head of church education) and tried to inspire our missionaries to be "low-maintenance, high-yield" missionaries. Elder and Sister Johnson were so full of love and interest for each missionary. We all loved having them here.

Valerie and Allyson just celebrated their 18th birthdays yesterday on November 14th! They are so grown up! They had a fun party here at the house last night with many new Riverside friends and some cousins. Valerie and Allyson got to celebrate last Saturday with Ryan and our Jessica and Reid who drove down from Utah for a three-day visit with us.

Tuesday morning, six of our missionaries will go home (always so hard on us!) 16 new missionaries will arrive on Tuesday afternoon, which is always a great thrill! We just received a sister from the Temple Square mission (from Singapore). This brings our total of sisters to 8! (Compared to 162 elders! Needless to say, our sisters are very precious!)

We were thrilled with the outcome of Proposition 8 and what we saw happen with the people here. At first, there was hesitancy to get involved, but as leaders and organization fell into place, people really stepped up. Doors were knocked, donations given, pamphlets passed out and a huge effort was made to stand together on street corners holding signs. As most of you know, there have been continuing demonstrations throughout California and other states by those opposed to the marriage amendment. California's governor Schwarzenegger has publicly applauded and encouraged the demonstrations and encouraged doing whatever it takes to overturn the voters' decision in this democratic process.

We can't keep ourselves from mentioning the 80-90 degree weather every day, in case any of you want to join us down here! It is a huge perk for us, we admit! We are so grateful for the many cards and emails you send that mostly go unaswered. Please know how much it means. We wish we had more time to respond; thank you for being patient with us. We truly LOVE being here with these wonderful young men and women and are thrilled to be part of this missionary effort. We continue to see many miracles in the lives of people here.

All our love, Linda, Mel, Ryan, Allyson and Valerie

P.S. We hope to have our Blog updated by Monday.

Valerie and Allyson's 18th Birthday!

2008-11-15T12:50:00.000-08:00

We made the boys play the nylon game: they have to put nylons on
while their eyes are covered, with socks on their hands and feet.

Playing the Laps game

About ten kids from our stake/school (and a couple of cousins)
came to our Birthday Party - we had a Blast!

Opening Presents

Zone Conference with Elder Paul Johnson and his wife

2008-11-12T13:54:00.000-08:00

Elder Paul Johnson from the quorum of the 70, and
his wife came to tour the Mission during November 7-10

Slide Show! (finally figured it out)

2008-10-24T17:21:00.000-07:00

RM visit

2008-10-20T18:02:00.000-07:00

Elder Henrie went home with the second group of outgoing missionaries and he brought his parents down last weekend to tour the mission. The Henries came over to meet the family and have breakfast with us.

3rd group of Outgoing Missionaries

2008-10-20T17:51:00.001-07:00

Office Staff and AP's with President and Sister Reeves and outgoing missionaries

L-R: Elders Rahlf, Alvis, Stinson, President and Sister Reeves, Sister Foliaki

This group went home October 7 (but I could not get the pictures to download until now).

Mom's Newsletters

2008-10-19T16:20:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, I was reading through mom's newsletters and she mentioned that she would ask me to put the emails on the blog. I didn't know she had thought of that and I realized that there are many, I'm sure, who don't receive the newsletters, so they are now posted on the blog - if you haven't read any of them and would like to get an update just click on the archives and look for "Newsletter #1, #2..." and so on. Enjoy!
- Allyson

Newsletter #4

2008-10-04T16:18:00.000-07:00

Dearest Friends and Family,

Our children are doing a great job keeping the pictures on our blog up-to-date, if you have time to take a look at melreevesfamily.blogspot.com

Thank you to so many of you who have emailed us!!! You are so kind! We so love to hear from you and wish we had more time to respond! Some of the highlights this past month:

*Our daughter, Carrie and husband, Brian Warnick gave birth to Tanner on September 15th. He is beautiful and adorable, of course! We are so happy for them and anxious to see him!

* We enjoyed the mission president's seminar in early September in San Diego. We were instructed by Elder Perry, who is currently the head of the Missionary Department and was so amazing at age 86! He had a bad cold, but it didn't stop him from being powerful and full of energy and testimony. We are excited for the new program he and the Missionary Department is putting into place with "Ward Area Books", which all of us will hear more about soon in our wards.

*It is amazing to us to attend many of the baptisms that our missionaries have and realize how many wonderful people the Lord has been preparing for the Gospel. About a year ago, one sister ran across some small snapshots of some of her ancestors. She became obsessed with enlarging and framing the photos and putting them up all around her living room and dining room. She started to read all she could about their pasts. A few months later, two of our missionaries knocked at her door. She invited them in and was thrilled as they told her all about eternal families and the plan of salvation. She was baptized two months later and is "on fire" with the Gospel.

*Ryan, Valerie and Allyson are surviving getting up for early morning seminary and have some wonderful teachers at the high school! They are making new friends; they are trying hard to be good missionaries at school!

*Daughter, Laurie Stacey ran the St. George Marathon this morning! (Ryan drove up to Utah with her and Eric drove down from Cedar City and got to watch her run over the finish line.) We are very proud of this little mother of four. We think part of her "madness" has been the willingness of her good husband, Sully, to watch the kids (sometimes for several hours) while she has prepared for it. We mothers know how great it feels to escape when we can!

*We send home four great missionaries on Tuesday morning and pick up 14 more in the afternoon. This is Linda's "big" cooking week. ( It's kind of refreshing, since it's been pretty difficult to downsize of late! She's having withdrawals not needing Costco every week!)

*Daughter Julie Bourgeous has been trying out homeschooling her three oldest children (of five). It is challenging, but exciting.

*Mike & Jenny's new baby is so healthy and darling. We are all so grateful to our Heavenly Father. Jen & Nyall's preemie, Kate, turned one.

*We don't mind still having 108 degree weather two of three days in October so far!

*Greg's enjoying staying with Jon and Leah in New Jersey and interviewing.

*Jessica & Reid have had the time of their lives back in Reid's mission in Africa. Reid loved being able to introduce Jessie around the mission. They'll be back to Utah next week.

We love you all and so appreciate your love and prayers. Linda, Mel, Allyson, Valerie and Ryan

General Relief Society Broadcast

2008-09-30T16:20:00.000-07:00

Valerie and Allyson got to go with Mom/Linda and the Sisters to the General Relief Society Broadcast this last Saturday. The Sisters don't get to see each other very often, so they were very excited (especially because Sis. Foliaki is going home next transfer -Oct. 6).L-R: Sisters Brimhall, Foliaki, Mitchell, Carter, Liew, Vehikite, Allred and Valerie and Allyson

After the Broadcast we went to the home where Sister Carter and Sister Brimhall are living. They live in a homeshare with a couple from the Temecula Stake. Most of the Sisters have served in Temecula (except Sister Mitchell and Sister Foliaki) and lived with this couple, so we visited their home and all of the Sisters, including Valerie and Allyson, sang a medley to them.

Welcome to Riverside!

2008-09-22T15:39:00.000-07:00

All of the kids in our stake are really good friends - and they all like to toilet paper each other's houses - so two of the girls from our stake (the next ward over) decided to Welcome Ryan, Valerie and Allyson to Riverside by toilet papering the Mission Home - what a nice complement!

Sorry if you can't see this picture very well - it says "Welcome 2 Riverside!"

Two New Grandsons!

2008-09-11T16:10:00.000-07:00

Tanner David Warnick was born Monday, September 8, 2008. He weighed 6 1bs 1 oz and was 19 inches long.

Caden and McKenna with their new baby brother Tanner.

2008-09-11T15:49:00.001-07:00

Nathan James Reeves was born August 4, 2008. He weighed 7 lbs 11 oz and was 21.75 inches.

Trip to Eagle, Idaho

2008-09-11T15:09:00.000-07:00

Ryan, Valerie and Allyson got to go up to Eagle, Idaho the 2nd week of August to visit their cousins, the Bronsons, and to see Jenny and Mike with their new baby boy, Nathan.

The kids with Ashley, Megan and Sadie and their new baby brother Nathan.
Cousins and nieces: Kelly Bronson, Megan Reeves, Hailey Bronson and Sadie Reeves

2nd Group of Outgoing Missionaries

2008-09-09T20:35:00.000-07:00

Elders: (L-R) Lopez, Warren, Humphries, Tavana, Henrie, Estrada, Lund and Cressall

The family with Elder Tavana - President Reeves's last AP
Ryan and Elder Tavana
The AP's - Elder Brown replaced Elder Tavana, Elder Fromm.

Grandkids at the Mission Home

2008-09-09T20:23:00.000-07:00

Here are the Bourgeous and Stacey kids in what we call the "Baptismal Font" in mom and dad's masterbath. (L-R): Braden, Shelby, Mandy, Bradley, Aidan, Maddie and Audrey.

Julie and Brett (Bourgeous), and Laurie and Sully (Stacey) came out from Fontana (35 min away) for Ryan's Birthday on August 2nd and the kids decided to go "swimming."

Updating

2008-09-09T20:21:00.000-07:00

It has been a very long time since our last post, so I will try to keep it updated from now on, because mom is very busy all the time. (as you all know : )
-Ally

Newsletter #3

2008-09-06T16:17:00.000-07:00

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!

Newsletter #2

2008-08-01T16:16:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-27T18:16:00.000-07:00

The Mission Home

Valerie and Allyson in "California Dreamin'"

2008-07-26T14:27:00.000-07:00

Valerie and Allyson got to perform in the Indland Empire Dance Festival, "California Dreamin.'" Valerie and I are in the middle; Valerie on the left in the lime green dress and Allyson on the right in the hot pink dress. This was our first night performing, the next night went much better, but Valerie and I still had a really fun time. Our group was the Swing Dance (Laurels and Priests) we are dancing to "Barbara Anne/Surfin' USA."
Enjoy! - Allyson

2008-07-26T14:20:00.000-07:00

President and Sister Reeves with (left to right) Elders Heggie, Walker, Torres, and Richardson.

2008-07-26T14:15:00.000-07:00

Our first outgoing missionaries at our new mission home. We had them only three weeks, but we miss them! Pictured left to right: Elders Whitaker, Murphy, Baird, Stucki, and Cutler.

Mom's Mission Newsletter (email)

2008-07-26T12:31:00.000-07:00

To our DEAR family and friends, July 20, 2008

We can never thank you enough for all of your kindnesses to us! What wonderful, loving friends and relatives you are. Thank you for all the help we received in moving and your love and friendship over the years. You are all so dear to us.

We have been in the mission now for 23 days! It is going sooo quickly! We love it here! The house is very nice and comfortable in a lovely neighborhood. The yard is gorgeous (on an acre) with a lovely view out one direction. It is plenty hot here, but we love it! (108 on Saturday and rising!) I think we were ready to be thawed out! Our NEW ADDRESS is: 16580 Hoffa Lane, Riverside, CA 92504

We have twelve zones in the mission, which spread out over our mission. For those of you familiar with California, our mission starts just east of San Bernardino, includes such cities and areas as, Highland, Loma Linda, Redlands, Yucaipa, Riverside, Corona, Norco, Temecula, Marietta Hot Springs, Palm Springs, Desert Hot Springs, 29 Palms, Indio, Blythe and Borego Springs, by the Salton Sea. Our farthest distance is about 2 hours each direction.

Each day during our first week and a half, we traveled to each area and attended both a 9:00 a.m. meeting with one zone, then a 1:30 p.m. meeting in another. Each zone has between ten or fourteen missionaries. All missionaries are young men who give up two years and young women, who give up a year and half, to teach about Jesus Christ and his restored Gospel. They are mostly between the ages of 19 and 23 years old. Our AP's (assistants to the president) have been fabulous! We can't say enough good about them! They are so mature, both spiritually and emotionally. They have helped us with every detail, have set up all the meetings, conducted them, lead us by driving in front of us, and spoken to and counseled all the missionaries. We can't believe they are both only 20 years old! They are incredible and will be great leaders throughout their lives, we are sure. They are exceptional young men. We feel so blessed.

At our meetings, we get to hear from each missionary as he/she tells about him/herself and tells of a spiritual missionary experience. We hear where they are from, where they have served here and some experiences thay have had. They also get to hear from each of us, Ryan and the twins included and our Eric (22 years old) trains them, as he did when he served his mission in Nicaragua. Mel and I also speak and we show a FASCINATING DVD about our family!!! We think it's the most exciting part! (Our POOR AP's have now seen it ten times and have two more times to go!) We think our missionaries are so terrific! What great spirits they have about them! We love our new ward, which has been so friendly and great to our kids. They have a very small YMYW (Church Youth Organization), so they were thrilled to have Valerie, Allyson and Ryan join them! The ward is very missionary-minded, which we are so grateful for.

Mel and I attended two wonderful baptisms on our second night in Riverside. This was a very sweet experience. We were also able to attend two different baptisms our second Sunday, as well as attend the sacrament meetings of two Spanish units--a ward and a very large branch. We both had the opportunity to bear our testimonies in Spanish, which was a sweet experience. (For those of you that are impressed, I find bearing my testimony is fairly easy, because you don't have to carry on a conversation with anyone and you already know in English what it is you are going to say. I find it MUCH harder to converse in a conversation and even listening to speakers in the meeting is quite challenging. Reading is much easier, as you can go at your own pace. Speakers never go at the pace I want! I will say that it is getting easier, however. We attended another Spanish ward this past Sunday (our third); we were asked to speak again. I am finally starting to understand in Sunday School class. People speak a little more slowly than in Sacrament meeting!

WHERE does the time go! Here I am several days later trying to finish up this email. Actually, we still feel that life is more relaxing than it has been the last six months of our lives, trying to fix up our home, pack everything up to be stored, study Spanish each day and be tutored in Spanish and Preach My Gospel four days a week, Now, we get to concentrate full-time on our wonderful missionaries, our three children still at home, our new wards throughout the mission and our own missionary work. Getting to leave behind "the world" is very exhilarating and so wonderful! Our missionaries, however, are now facing sharing the gospel amid the Church's position on the "definition of marriage" amendment on the November ballot (Proposition 8)--the California voter's decision that was overturned by four judges in the California Supreme Court! We hope that those who oppose the bill will support it for the fact that four judges have tried to overturn this decision voted for by 61% of the California voters in 2000! Amazing that somehow these judges have been allowed this kind of power. For those of you who know me well, this is the kind of challenge I am happy to be involved in for the sake of righteousness and helping the Lord's kingdom to continue to be established here in "now liberal" California.

Yesterday we sent home our first group of missionaries--five of the most outstanding young men! We LOVED hearing their amazing testimonies and experiences from their missions. They left at 4:30 a.m. this morning. We then picked up eight new missionaries at the Ontario Airport at noon! They are great and excited! We felt like parents waiting for their missionaries to come home after two years of faithful service! It was soooo fun! We trained them today and President Reeves announced their new trainers this afternoon. It was so great to see the love and excitement of each elder receiving his "greenie". Pres. Reeves tells the trainers this is the most important leadership assignment in the mission. Mel felt great after completing transfers of missionaries into new companionships this past weekend--a draining experience that took most of last week to prayerfully make the decisions that involved changing nearly one third of the mission! We only have six sister missionaries, so they all stayed in their current zones with current companions. They are all so great!

In the past week, our missionaries have experienced several backing-up car accidents (minor), a broken wrist, hernia surgery and an all-day emergency room visit (which gave me a chance to get to know these two missionaries very well!), stomach flu and homesickness among a few newer missionaries. We LOVED being able to be with two of our zones of elders and sisters in the beautiful Redlands Temple last Friday morning!!! How BLESSED we are to have a temple in our mission!!!

Valerie, Allyson and Ryan have been welcomed with open arms! They have been wakeboarding, to the beach with cousins and sisters, attended a multitude of regional dance festival practices which will be held in two more weeks at the University of Redlands football field and girls camp, and Boy Scout camp meetings. The twins are counselors for girls camp and Ryan is working behind the scenes for the dance festival; the twins will be dancing. We are grateful for all the wonderful people who have loved our kids into the ward and stake. Except for the very first Sunday, they attend Church without us, as we travel around and visit other ward congregations. We loved being able to meet all twelve Stake Presidents and their wives this past Sunday. They were all so great to drive to Moreno Valley to our friends, the Rowley's home, to meet with us. We can hardly believe that we get to rub shoulders with so many wonderful, amazing people! Our new "area authority" is Bill Reynolds, from our old Pasadena days when were were newlyweds. He is a great man and happens to be our Grandpa Bob's doctor, besides.

Our children have been so great to be understanding and supportive. Julie and Brett, Sully and Laurie and their families came to the house the day we moved in and stayed out in the yard while we were being instructed by dear President and Sister Ewer, the outgoing President and wife. Both of their families had to leave, due to work, but got a very quick tour of the house first. We have not seen them since, because of our schedule. Life has been a little on the wild side, but we LOVE EVERY MINUTE!!! The Lord has blessed us so much; we can hardly believe we are having this incredible opportunity.

Thank you to all of you for your influence in our lives. We LOVE YOU ALL and hope all is well in your families.

All our love, Mel, Linda, Eric, Allyson, Valerie and Ryan

Jessica and Reid Anderson are working in Provo, UT. School in the fall and an Africa service trip in September for a month.
Eric left last week for a month in Nicaragua (his mission area) before returning to school (George Wyth)
Greg is in Provo working for the summer and looking for full-time employment. He graduated with a business degree in April.
Jon and Leah Reeves: Hoboken, New Jersey, Jon is attending Rutchers Law School and works for Goldman Sachs.
Jennifer and Nyall London: SLC area. Jen still works as a nurse at the U of Utah, where Nyall attends med school. (2 daughters)
Carrie and Brian Warnick: Brian, as CPA in Denver with their son and daughter and another boy on the way.
Laurie and Sully Stacey: Sully a policeman in Fontana, CA with their four children.
Mike and Jenny Reeves: Mike a Computer guy in Eagle, ID with their three girls. They lost their darling James last August (11 days old) A new baby boy due this August.
Julie and Brett Bourgeous: Policeman in Arcadia; they still live in Fontana, CA with their five children.

New family blog site!

2008-04-19T21:59:00.000-07:00

All we have on here right now, is a picture, but we'll continue to add stuff - just getting it started for the mission...