Second entry

Welcome to our second entry on our new blogsite.  John and I have decided that we will take turns writing first and then the other one will add to it with things they thought were important.  So here goes Sister Downs' perception!  :)  First of all I'll tell you about some "temoral things" and wind up with "spiritual things."  Our apartment is much nicer than we expected.  There are over 100 apartments in our complex!  Thank goodness there are only 4 apartments to a building though.  Our neighbors in the building seem to be quiet folks which we count as a huge blessing.  We have a 2 bedroom apartment so one room can be used as an office.  We even have a desk and a bookcase!!  We are trying to use the Wi-Fi hotspot on John's phone as our internet system and so far so good except for being VERY slow at times.  The apartment is very clean and very safe. We are triple blessed to have a washer and dryer right in our apartment!!   We are in an area called "The Pocket".  The areas surrounding us are not as nice as our area and a few of them we probably will not be going into after dark.  Part of our goals while serving this mission is to become more physically fit.  I don't want to brag so I'll say I'm righteously pleased to state that we have walked for 30 minutes every day since last Wednesday.  It is very flat here and very lovely where folks have been able to water their lawns.  There are parks and riding paths galore.  We walk to a park about 5 minutes from here and then walk through the park for about 25 minutes and then return home.  We go early in the morning before it gets too hot and before scripture study time and it is a wonderful time.  Although my muscles initially did not agree, they are beginning to cooperate more and we think we can tell a difference already.  I will have John tell you about his bicycle travels.  We are having the young couple across from us over for popcorn tonight and friendshipping.  Grocery stores are close by but, alas, no farmer's markets!  They are all a distance from us but we hope to get downtown Sacramento next week and check out one or two down there.  We were very surprised not to have a lot of farmer's market close by.  The gas and food are definitely more expensive.  Gas runs about $4.19and up.  We
do a lot of driving when we visit members in this area so we are praying that the Lord will bless our gas supply!  :)   The  weather  is everything that we were told it was going to be......beautiful.  The days are hot (but NO humidity) and the night become cool.  

Onto more spiritual things.......we have become friends with another missionary couple from Tennesee who live a few building over, Elder and Sister Wolf.  This is there second mission and we have been so impressed with them.  They are serving in the Hmong Branch which is made up of saints from Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand.  Several years ago they served a mission in Malaysia.  They are several years older than we are and have many health problems but have served so diligently to the Hmong Branch.  They don't speak Hmong but have a translater with them most of the time if they are teaching a lesson.  Such wonderful examples to us!!

This past week we started visiting families in the church.  We will primarily be working with less active members and new converts.  We enjoyed meeting with those that we could catch at home and hope to visit with eveyone on the church roster before too long.  The members are pretty spread out and it will be better for us as soon as we know the lay of the land better and can "group" folks geographically to save time and gas.

This morning was our first church service.  It was fast Sunday so we had the privilege of hearing the members bear their testimonies of the Savior,, His Atonement and their gratitude for the Restored Church.  Some spoke only Marshallese, other only English, and others a mixture of both languages.  We often could not understand the words but we felt the Spirit and were touched.  The opening hymn was sung in English and closing hymn in Marshallese.  The first part of the Sacrament prayer was Marshallese and the second part English.  We received a very warm welcome and gave the opening and closing prayers, in English of course.  They did not have an accompanist so that was an interesting experience.  The chorister started off  a little off key but by the time we got to the second verse we were all singing the same tune.  They had a Community Choir Festival last Sunday and had several, maybe four or five, other church choirs to participate.  I wish we could have been here.  Everyone said it was a spiritual feast and there was an excellent spirit among the church choirs.  Stake Conference is coming on Sept. 18th and we will be singing in the branch choir.  They are singing 3 different hymns in 3 different languages,  I will post this and start another.