What a beautiful Sabbath day!  We started our day pretty early with a ward council meeting at the beautiful meeting house for Sacramento 1st and 2nd Wards.  This council meets every 2nd and 4th Sundays for about 90 minutes and is so beneficial to the ministering to the needs of the church members.  Each member of the council has different responsibilities so this is a time to coordinate activitities, address missionary needs and make sure that no one in the church "drops through the cracks" so to speak.  Both of these wards have dedicated bishops who give so much of their time and energy to serve the Lord with no pay, only blessings.  We are always in awe of the many services of love that are extended throughout these wards. It is such a privilege to serve with such good people!  We went to a Sacrament meeting (church) at 9:00 and then afterward jumped in the car and headed for the Marshallese Branch.  The young missionaries have been temporarily pulled from this branch for a while but the missionaries in the Tongan Ward are there to assist the branch if someone has a referrel or needs to be taught.  We have a new missionary in the Tongan Ward who was on a full ride scholarship at the University of Arizona, also playing football, and left the university to serve a mission.  What an outstanding young man he is!  Each member of my Sunday School class of teenagers has agreed to prepare a talk for Sacrament meeting.  Most of them have never spoken in public before so we have been spending time working with them on their talks.  A young sister gave an incredible talk this morning and I was so proud of her I thought I was going to pop my buttons.  Her mother was shocked.  She said she never thought her daughter could//would ever do such a good job.  Ahhh yes, the rising generation!  If we could clap and stomp our feet in church, John and I would have been doing so after Josie's talk. I had wall to wall teenagers in class today (visiting relatives) but the class was great. John had taken the Sacramental prayer and personalized it to the first person and when we read them together in class, substituting "I" for "we", etc., the whole class took it very seriously.  We always take the Sacrament to an elderly (85) couple each Sunday and then have a good visit.  He just found out he has cancer but was quite optimistic.  Yesterday we took a young couple to the temple for the first time to do baptisms.  This young man had converted to the gospel when he was 17 but had fallen away from the church.  He met and married a great gal who last November decided it was time she looked into the LDS Church.  Long story short....she was baptised last December and they are super strong in the church.  They are both excited about family history and took some of their family names for baptisms.  What a sweet spirit was there that day.  So blessed to be part of that experience.  We meet with them weekly for "new member' lessons and love their 4 and 6 year old kiddos.  Last Monday night John had a great experience in the Marshallese Branch.  A counselor in the Stake Presidency organized an evening of Family History and had all the senior missionaries and other members in the stake come with their laptops and they did a crash course in getting family names.  There were about 12-15 members from the branch there and they each got registered on Family Search and did several family names ready to do temple work for.  The next night they took their 47 family names and went to the temple and did a total of 100 baptisms.  Hopefully, this is just the "shot in the arm" that they needed to continue on with this great work in family history.  This is  a major step in the life of these branch members.  With the loss of our friend, Shela Reall, our hearts have been heavy this week.  She was an incredible woman and an example of righteousness to us all.  How privileged we were to have know her here on this earth and how grateful we are that we shall see her again.  I'm sure the Lord is keeping her so busy with all her knowledge and teaching experience to share.  What a comfort it is  to know the Plan of Salvation!  It doesn't take away the pain of losing a loved one but it certainly makes it bearable. Have a wonderful week full of opportunities to serve!!