Senior Trip Day 1 - Trip to Newport Beach

Tyler and I were very lucky to go on June's Senior Trip. Joanna, Christina's mom, put it all together. She is a crazy planner. She got the villa reservation and planned all the meals. I think I helped out here and there, but for sure this was her deal. The plan was for two sets of parents, but at the last minute, Micah, Christina's dad, couldn't come, so Tyler was the main man. I'm so glad he could be there.

We all met at Christina's house early in the morning, so we could get on the road and make good time. The van was packed to the brim. It could hold 15, but don't forget that everyone brought gear. We were limited to a backpack each and everyone did a good job keeping stuff to a minimum.

Joanna is very serious about food. In the morning, there were tons of snacks on the counter and you were supposed to fill up a bag with whatever you like. It is hard to know what you are going to be in the mood for later. But there was no shortage of options.

Tyler started by driving, so I took the front seat with him. But I never moved. Driving went between Joanna and Tyler and I always just stayed in the front and chatted (or slept) next to the driver. I actually tried to stay awake with Joanna and chat with her because I felt bad sleeping when she was driving. Not the same for Tyler. I have slept while he has driven many a time.

We drove all the way through Vegas before we stopped for lunch. We tried to eat at Jack in the Box, but their lobby was closed. We didn’t want the kids to have to eat in the car, so we looked again and found In and Out Burger not far away. 

There was a long stint where I talked to Joanna about everything. I learned that she has hemophilia and about her struggle with pain and bleeding in her joints and how doctors wouldn’t give her medicine since she was a woman. Such tragic stories and so much pain. Most of her stories seem very dramatic, but in truth, I think most of them are. The kids spent time in the back making videos and taking selfies and having a pretty good time. They do a good job keeping each other entertained.

As we got closer to Los Angeles, we ordered pizza and worked on going the right way. I was often the navigator simply because I was up in the front seat. But I also helped order the pizza when Joanna’s phone didn’t work. I do feel like I was somewhat useful today, although i didn’t drive. We found the pizza place no problem. Then Tyler dropped off Joanna and I at the house and took the kids to the beach.

Our job was to scout the house and make sure they didn’t see us arrive with too many people. We are only 2 people over, but they have lots of strict rules and we didn’t want to get in trouble.

The house was beautiful. It was cozy and cute. There were four bedrooms and a huge kitchen and a nice dining area. The decor was beachy and I liked the roof area and the patio out front. The garage goes to a back alley which was super tight. It was crazy trying to get the van down that skinny thing. But Tyler made it work. 

When everything looked good, we had the kids come back from the beach. They picked rooms and decided where they were going to bunk. The boys didn’t want to share beds so two of them slept on a futon. I guess that is what they wanted. 

Joanna and I left to shop. The list was a mile long of stuff we needed. I kid you not. So much food to get. We had to alter the list just a bit because there was no grill on the premises. But we bought two grill pans while we were out. 

We went to Costo first. We filled two carts with so much food. We just kept loading it in. Wow, that woman can shop. I felt like I was on one of the grocery shows where you just keep putting stuff in the cart. It was crazy. I tried to be as helpful as possible, but I think Joanna just enjoyed having someone along. I did talk her out a lot of stuff. These kids don’t seem to be mowing through the food and we are going to have so many leftovers. I was trying to be the voice of reason. I guess we’ll see if I was needed or if I hurt the supplies. 

We got out of there just after they closed. Then it was on to walmart. There I was sent on more random errands to find different things. I was more of the cleanup crew and I was good at that. I found several items Joanna missed. Tyler called somewhere along the way asking where we were. I know...we were taking forever. They had enough time to walk down to the beach and play Spikeball. (Wah, without me) and they walked back in time for curfew. Good job. Looks like they also played some cards.

Finally we were done. We filled that 15 passenger van to the brim with food. We got the boys to unload and the kids to fill the fridge which was packed. We should eat well my friends. We should eat well. June did some Tetris magic and made everything fit in the fridge. Props!

All the kids were in their rooms by 11:30. Good for them. I learned that a good trip is better when you are prepared. Long gone are my days of showing up and just enjoying, but I don't mind being on this end either. These Seniors deserve a great time together.

Blackberries and a Baptism

Hey amigos! I know a bunch of people got added to the email list just barely... so just you know I'm a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I was originally assigned to the Dominican Republic Santiago mission but I'm chilling in the Oregon Eugene mission right now while I wait for my visa. And I love it! If you are interested in reading any of the emails I have already sent in my two months as a missionary, email my mom. Fair warning though, they're pretty long.

The highlight of this week for sure was Heidi's baptism! She got baptized by immersion for the remission of her sins on Saturday! It was a super cool experience. The Spirit was so strong there. Heidi bore her testimony after her baptism about how she knows for herself that this church is true. She was so ready for this step!

She received the gift of the Holy Ghost on Sunday. The ability to have guidance and protection from God always if we live worthy of it is such a blessing!

The best part of the baptism for me was that Heidi's parents came. She's had a hard life and doesn't have the greatest relationships with her families. She really wanted her parents and daughters to come but she didn't think they were going to. I was praying all week that her parents would come. And they did! They came to the baptism, then they came to church on Sunday to be there for the confirmation as well. The members were so welcoming! A lot of people came up to Vicki and Randy (Heidi's parents) to say they were so happy they could be there and ask if they wanted to stay for the second hour of church. The first couple times they said no, but then they said yes and I think they had a really good experience. Members are so important in the missionary work!

I have a friend on a mission right now and in his email last week he said that Orem Utah had the most baptisms in the world last month! That blows my mind. I challenge you guys to get involved with missionary work! In Orem I thought there weren't really any options available to do missionary work... but clearly I was wrong!

The baptism was definitely the best part of my week. We also got to do a lot of yard work this week and that was really fun! I love getting to be outside and the weather here is so nice! Since the day that I got here missionaries have been warning me about the blackberries. Apparently there are so many in Oregon and everyone is trying to get rid of their blackberries or at least trim them back. They're a pain to work with because they're super thorny, so missionaries get recruited to deal with them all the time as service for people. And sure enough, we got to Debby's house and she asked us if we would trim back her blackberries for her. It was actually so fun. They're definitely prickly. That lady also weeds that were basically teeny tiny onions. I was actually so tempted to eat one but I thought it might be too weird to take some lady's weeds home and eat them for dinner. So I didn't.

Also some spiritual thoughts for the week. Hopefully you guys aren't bored of me being obsessed with how the words in the scriptures are sometimes slightly different in Spanish. In John 14 is talking about how God will give the Holy Ghost unto us to, and verse 18 says, "I will not leave you comfortless." But in Spanish the word that it says is "orphaned". We are not left without our Father's presence and support!

Also a quote I found this week that I really like. It's by Elder Neal A. Maxwell. "Hope is realistic anticipation taking the form of determination." I really like this quote because we have so much to hope for. Christ sacrificed His life for us so that we can hope for eternal life with our families. When life is hard we have hope that it will improve. Because of Christ we know that all things are possible. So it's realistic to hope. And then it's important for us to act. Faith is a principle of action.

One of my comps turned 20 this week so we had a little celebration for her and went out to lunch and played some games. Sister Brower loves Boba and she wanted that for her birthday, so we went to get some. I have never had it before. It was good but weird. I liked it, but honestly I just love water so even though it's boring that's the drink I like to stick with.

The church is true! I'm so grateful to be a missionary and get to help with God's great work full time! But you definitely don't have to be a full time missionary to be a missionary.

I love all of you guys!

Hermana Cazier

pics

1-2. I love calligraphy

3. boba

4-5. yardwork

6. I made a candle

7. cool car a member has

8. Heidi's baptism!!

9-14. during lunch on one of the days we did kind of a photoshoot at this cool train at Stewart Park.

video - there are these things called nutrias that hang out by our apartment. They're basically cat sized rats. 

When I couldn't download the video, I put a picture on here, but I decided to leave it so you could see this type of rodent closer. - Maleen

Invite Him to Stay

Hey everyone! It's been an awesome week. I feel a lot more settled in to being a missionary, and a lot more effective in my area. Now I actually know who people are in the ward and I've met some inactives and people we do service for.

Probably the highlight of my week was teaching this guy named Thomas! He was found on facebook. It's always encouraging to hear that someone was found on facebook because facebook finding seems to be mostly fruitless. There is a set of missionaries in each zone who are ONLY social media missionaries; they don't get to do any service or member lessons or anything, and they have access to instagram and other stuff so they can reach more people. Those sisters were the ones who found Thomas, but since he is in our area they passed him off to us! We did a zoom lesson with them, a member in our ward, us, and Thomas, and it went really well! We taught him the Plan of Salvation, which was my first time teaching a specific lesson out of Preach My Gospel, the manual we have for teaching the basic principles of the gospel. Thomas was really receptive and agreed to read a chapter of the Book of Mormon! Since he didn't have one, we got to drive to his house after the lesson and meet him in person when we dropped off the Book of Mormon.

Also it was fast and testimony meeting in church on Sunday! I love the fist Sunday of the month cuz I get to fast and I get to listen to other members' testimonies! One sister shared her testimony about an Old Testament story that I haven't heard before. Three holy men came to visit Abraham first, then Lot. When they came to visit Abraham, as soon as he saw them coming he ran out to meet them and fell down at their feet. He washed their feet and when they came into his house he had the best calf killed for a feast for them. And he invited them to stay the night.

Then it tells the story of Lot receiving the holy men. When he saw them coming, he stood at the gate and bowed respectfully when they arrived. He had a feast for them too, but he did not invite them to stay.

What I thought was so cool about this is that both Abraham and Lot accepted the holy men. They came in to both of their houses, but the holy men only stayed with Abraham. The light of Christ is in all of us and we all have the ability to feel the Spirit. But do we make our hearts a place where the Spirit can stay? Abraham went out of his way to make sure the holy men felt welcome, and he sacrificed his best calf for them. In the same way, it takes a constant effort from us to make our hearts open to the Spirit coming and staying. And it can mean sacrificing some of your time or maybe some of the things you do that don't bring light into your life. But when you make the Spirit welcome in your life, it makes a huge difference in how you feel and the things you are able to accomplish.

It also reminded me of one of my favorite talks ever from general conference. It's called Good, Better, Best, by Dallin H. Oaks. In it he talks about doing the best things. Lot invited the holy men in, and that was a good thing. But he could have done better by inviting them to stay. If you want to read the talk, here it is!

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2007/10/good-better-best?lang=eng

One more experience from the week. I got to do a video call yesterday with a guy who lives in Mexico. I found him through facebook. He doesn't speak English, so we had a conversation over voice message on messenger and I got to practice my listening abilities in Spanish. Then when we video called, he told us some crazy stories he had about experiences where he listened to what the Spirit was telling him and was able to do crazy stuff. I translated everything for my companions. It was really encouraging to me because I understood almost everything! It was hard to remember it all to repeat it back to my companions though, cuz he would talk for a long time before giving me a break to translate.

I love all of you guys! Have a great week and do something this week to invite the Spirit to stay with you a little more than you did last week, whether that's studying, praying, serving, or anything else you feel with bring you closer to Christ!

Les amo!

Hermana Cazier

pics

1. I love bananas and my comps do too so we buy a lot of them

2. part of my conversation with that Spanish speaking guy

3. I cooked stuff this week!

4. we went to the library

5. I bought a pair of sweats... as my sister Ivory knows, the mens section has all the best clothes :)

From Your Favorite Resident of Roseburg, Oregon

I made it to the field! I am now here in Roseburg and I'm loving it!

I have two companions. Sister Glover is the blonde one with short hair and Sister Brower has the curly hair. They welcomed me by decorating our little apartment super cute. I love both of them! They are so much fun. At first I thought it was really weird that I'm getting trained in a trio, but now I actually really love it!

Being in the field is way different than I thought it was going to be. Mainly because I found out when I got here that I am now a facebook missionary. I still get to do some normal teaching, but no door knocking or contacting. No physical door knocking, at least. We spend two hours every day on facebook, friending a ton of people who live in Roseburg and messaging random people on facebook. After we start a conversation with someone about anything, we try to turn it to Christ and see if they are interested in learning more. Social media is not my favorite thing or something I have any experience with. So when I found out that that's basically all I do as a missionary, that was initially kinda disappointing to me. But I decided to be positive about it. Especially because I only have one or two transfers to be a facebook missionary, so I've gotta use my time to the fullest! It's really cool that I have the chance to be a part of two completely different missions, so I just want to work really hard so I can look back and be proud of the work I did in Oregon when I leave. I feel a little bad that I have this cheat positive outlook about being a social media missionary. One of my companions really hates facebook and she doesn't have anything but facebook to look forward to for 13 more months. But even though facebook isn't my favorite, I can take comfort in the fact that it's not gonna last that long for me. And the good news is that when you decide to be positive about something it makes it fun!

Some cool stuff that happened this week. I got to hold a sword when we went to a mutual activity at a member's backyard black smith building... smithy? Is that the official name for those kinds of things?

Also I got to go to the duck pond and help with a community service project picking up trash there. We got free t shirts!! I love free t shirts with a passion, so that made me super happy. There was a LOT of trash to be picked up there. We found a lot of weird stuff, even stuff floating in the pond. Like a subway sandwich, a dead body, half a gallon of expired milk... Just kidding, we didn't find the milk. That would be way too creepy.

There are a lot of homeless people in Oregon all over the place. Missionaries are instructed not to go near them but we saw a bunch of them at the duck pond camped out.

We got to teach mission prep on Sunday! We taught them how to teach the Plan of Salvation then they practiced in pairs. Since there was an odd number of youth I paired up with this kid named Taylor. I was really impressed with his teaching. He asked a lot of questions and likened everything to normal and easy to understand stuff. He's gonna be a good missionary. Also he apparently spoke Spanish, so when it was my turn to teach him I got to get some practice in. That was really nice because neither of my comps speak Spanish. One of them says, "MUY BIEN!" all the time in a low voice. And she says random Duolingo sentences all the time. It's pretty funny.

We have a baptism coming up which is super exciting! I met Heidi at the duck pond then saw her again at church yesterday. She is a cool lady and I'm so excited for her to get baptized soon! I'll keep updating you guys about that.

Sorry this email is all adventures and zero spiritualness. I'll just share real quick what the Relief Society teacher talked about yesterday. She taught on the talk Lovest Thou Me More Than These? which is such a good talk by the way. One thing that we discussed was that a strong enough desire overcomes automaticity. Even if you can no more than desire to believe, start with that and your testimony will become stronger than you thought was possible. And the automatic habits of not praying, getting easily distracted while studying, falling asleep while reading the Book of Mormon... they can be overcome if you have a genuine desire to learn and grow. It's not always each but it does work. I have a testimony that through Christ we can do anything. There is nothing we can't get through because there is nothing that can be thrown at us that Christ didn't already conquer. So all we have to do is rely on Him and keep moving forward. You guys got this! I'll talk to you all next week. :)

Hermana Cazier

From last week:

1. MTC personnel only

2. selfie with the sons of Mosiah

3. goodbye mountains

4. the four of us

This week:

1. my comps decorated the apartment

2. another comps pic

3. and another - this one was right after I first met them

4. we found some turkeys

5. duck pond

6. tried avocado toast for the first time. It was good

7. found some masks while we were cleaning the basement of a church building with Lucy

8. the sword

Salty Scavenger Hunt

Karen and Mark are so fun to hang out with. We try to get together every month or so to double up and go on a fun date. Sometimes we choose a location and sometimes they plan something. This time around, they found this fun scavenger hunt in Salt Lake. We ate dinner at this yummy sushi place and then we followed clues and answered questions and had an enjoyable evening walking around. The weather was pretty good since it was in June. I don't know much about the architecture in Salt Lake so it was really neat to walk around and learn about some of the buildings.

Here are some photos of our evening. We met at the mall, so naturally we took a picture by the fountain.

This is after dinner when we were getting ready to start our adventure.

Here is one of the old churches where we found clues. I'm still not sure we figured this one out. Does that look like a rose in the window?

This building is a landmark that I have driven by often. I am not sure what it is used for now, but I think it was the original State Capitol building. 

It is not a official date unless you imitate a statue you run across.

We had to find some things on the building. It was sort of off limits, but with a zoom on your camera, you can view most things. Can you see the face?

This was at the art museum, I think. These people are so fun to hang out with.

Can you tell what these "people" are doing? I couldn't. Apparently they are dancing. Okay...maybe if you stretch your imagination.

And finally, Tyler and I love to take pictures of interesting ideas. He liked this unique sink. It looks like a flying saucer to me. 

We didn't get to finish the hunt since we ran out of time, but it was definitely a fun idea. You should look in your area and see if there is something similar. But wait for good weather. Walking around is much more fun on a pleasant evening.