Past, Present, and Future

 Sister Martin and I attended General Women's Meeting at the nearby South Pasadena Stake Center.  There was a whole cultural hall filled with a variety of service projects to participate in for an hour, and then we ate dinner before the broadcast.  Very great idea, and it resulted in an awesome turnout of women, young women, and girls.
As I walked past the kitchen to pick up my bowl of soup, this cute lady in the kitchen told me I looked very familiar to her.  (I actually get that quite a lot.  I must have a common face, so I thought not too much of it.) As we talked, we finally found out that we had gone to Ricks College the same years, and upon further inquiring, found out we lived in the same apartment complex.  But it only got better!  As we finally exchanged names, she was actually Carol Kauder, my room-roomate the second year at Ricks!  It was such a different year that year without Jogy that I had kind of passed it out of my mind.  And here she was, on my mission in southern CA, at the same General Women's Meeting I was attending!  Talk about the years melting away!  She is the Stake YW President.  How fun to reconnect after 40 years!  A lot of water has gone under that bridge! She was super busy in the kitchen, trying to feed the masses, and I was holding up the line, and she was busy pretty much the entire evening, but as we were leaving, I found her in the foyer, passing out brownies, and we grabbed a quick photo.  It will be fun to put it up alongside a 1976 edition eventually. HUGE BLAST FROM THE PAST!!

PRESENTLY, we have a cute little group of women who meet on occasion.  Some are widows, some are investigators, one happened to be without husband who was at General Priesthood session.  It's a little different grouping each time.  But we met at our apartment this time and had soup, salad, and games.  We laughed and talked and had such fun.  I'm going to come home an expert gamer!  Never have I played so many games!

 From the left, Sister Beck works in housing in the mission office.  Sister Martin is next, sporting her new haircut, then Sister Linda Hacker, a long-time resident of Alhambra.  She remembers so much about old-time Alhambra.  The next sister, Carolyn Johansen, a long-time investigator, and also a lifelong Alhambra resident, tells fascinating and animated stories about old-time Alhambra. She is so funny, and so tall! Next is Theresa Gilliam, my friend who lives in our complex, and last is Jezabel Weeks, also my sweet friend who is always taking such good care of me and my every need.

We PRESENTLY have ongoing Sunday night treats and games with whichever missionaries can come, and sometimes they have pillow fights too.  Elder Fu is (dramatically) buried under all the couch pillows.

And games and more games.  The good part is they feel comfortable enough in our home to just relax a bit before another busy missionary week.

Lest amidst the fun it escapes us, this is also a table FULL of FUTURE leaders in the church.  I can say that without reservation or bias because they are pioneers in their homelands and culture.  The Chinese people are receiving the gospel fast and fully.  And these are their teachers, who are also relatively new in the gospel. (Except the English elders, who also like to join the Sunday night festivities.)

A fun week of blending PAST, PRESENT, and FUTURE worlds.