First week in the mission!!

First day walking into the mission office

Wow.  What a first week it has been!!  We hit the ground running!!  We left Alpine on Friday, stayed overnight in Reno and then arrived in Santa Rosa Saturday afternoon.  The drive from Reno to Santa Rosa was so beautiful.  We have never seen Napa Valley before and the endless rolling hills covered in vineyards is amazing.  Upon arrival we unpacked our things into our apartment and noticed a beautiful note written to us by Elder and Sister Lemon whom we replaced.  We love the Lemon's!!

                                                      Napa                               Letter from Elder and Sister Lemon

Once unpacked we had dinner with Elder and Sister Ritchie (mission nurse) at their apartment which is next to ours.  Along with the Ritchie's we had dinner with Elder Grambo and Jackson (assigned to a ward) and Sisters Curtis and Grose (tech missionaries responsible for all social media, phones, email, etc.).  Sister Grose is from .... Alpine!

President Quinn assigned us to attend the Foothill Park Ward in Healdsburg which is about 30 minutes north of Santa Rosa.  Healdsburg is a beautiful little town which has a nice farmer's market on Saturday's.  After Sacrament we met Bishop Ginn and the stake president, President Johnson.

On Monday we were greeted at the mission office with a welcome sign.  In the office are Elder Nate (finance), Sister Nate (mission secretary), Sister Ritchie (mission nurse), and Elder and Sister Frodsham (vehicles).  The mission office is located in the Santa Rosa stake center.  

This past week: 

• Started visiting apartments in Santa Rosa and surrounding areas.  
• Met with an apartment manager who was complaining about our missionaries flying a drone (which turned out to be a styrofoam plane you toss into the air).  
• Cleaned mold in a couple of missionary apartment's bathrooms and made minor repairs
• Answered a number of texts from missionaries who need things from cooking pots to water filters.
• Started working on plans to tour the mission 
• Started a plan on how the senior couples can help us with inspection efforts.  
• Held several lunches with missionaries (which is the highlight of our day!) - we LOVE our missionaries!!  We want to spoil them. 
• Worked on our own apartment; groceries, putting things away, ordering furniture and trying to get our internet and TV to work.
• Answered emails from property managers (for various things)
• Dinner with the mission leaders  - The Quinn's are beautiful and amazing people!  

We decided that each time we visit an apartment we will leave the missionaries with a little gift of some sort.  For this first round we are giving them each a little plastic Jesus with the message to take Him wherever they go and to think of hymn 1004 "I Will Walk with Jesus" and He will walk with me.   We take their picture holding our mission leader.  😁

                 

                                  Our Mission Leader         Sisters Musashino, Ashton, Knotts and Dunlap

Sisters Haroldsen and Nix, us, and Elders Allen, Robinson, Judd and Becker

                 

                        Elders Willhite and Farnsworth      Elders Averett, Ockey, Brown and Mecham

Hard at work in the office - first day!

Today for Father's Day we took a drive out to Bodega Bay which was absolutely beautiful!  The woods are thick almost right up to the ocean.  While there we spotted the building that was featured in the movie, The Birds:

Bodega Bay / Building in the movie, The Birds / Woods near the bay

On Sunday evening we held a family Zoom call.  We love our family and it is so fun to hear what everyone is doing.