JustServe.org: Service Opportunities.

We had Fifth Sunday today, and a presentation on  the website: http://www.justserve.org/  This website is a way to connect those wanting to volunteer time and those looking for volunteers.  It is sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  But it is more than a church sponsored vehicle.  It is available for all groups to use and post service opportunities, and for people to sign up to provide service.  If you want to give greater service, this is a great website, no matter were you live.  However it is being rolled out in stages.  It is especially active in California.  I noted that opportunities to serve for the Manteca weekend were on the site, and I understand hundreds of hours of service were provided.  I am not sure if this includes the final cleanup where hundreds of people converged on Woodland Park to help with the cleanup.  Anyway, it is not a bragging kind of a thing.  In fact, we all know that he who serves is often blessed more than the person being  served.

Camberly Rose and Megan

Found some pictures of Camberly with the rabbit.  They look great together.

Notes from Caleb

"Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don’t come until heaven; but for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come." -Jeffrey R. Holland

I think most importantly I learned this week that when faith is exercised blessings come. Elder Mckell and I have been searching for an Investigator to start teaching. And we had a zone fast on Sunday for unity. So we included as part of our fast that we would be able to find a new investigator who we could help enter into the waters of the baptism this transfer. And we just petitioned the Lord. We told him that we had real intent to not go in for dinner and eat until we found someone knew to teach. We had dinner scheduled for seven thirty, and at 7:25 we drove past a lady who was sitting outside her house. Elder Mckell pulled the car (that stud!) over and said a prayer and we hopped out and asked her if we could talk to her for a few minutes. Luckily she said yes, and we taught her the Restoration and she accepted an invitation to be baptized.

It's amazing how the lord blesses us when we exercise faith. I think He smiled upon us when we do. When we say "o.k. Father in Heaven, I mean business!" He believes. And then he has us struggle for a little bit. But as we plow through the hunger or fatigue he blesses us. And I have seen that again and again on my mission. And I don;t know what it is, but it always seems like at the last moment God blesses us. There hasn't been a time where I have exercised faith with pure intent that the Lord hasn't blessed me. I love that.

We need more faith! And I believe that that is true throughout the whole church. We often times don't exercise enough faith to gain the blessings that our Father in Heaven wants to give us.  In Doctrine and Covenants 67:10 it says that if we will strip ourselves of pride, fear, and jealousy that we will see the veil rent and we will see God and know that he is! We will see miracles! I know that this is true. Do the work, God will bless you.

After Christmas Letter

The after Christmas story.  This is what everyone would have written after Christmas about their lives.  Things change quickly however so and updated version will be out shortly.  

Caleb continues on his mission in Des Moines North and is now serving in Fairfield.  When he Skyped with us he sang “I Am a ChIld of God.”  The scariest thing on his mission w2as someone being shot about a block from their apartment when he was in Des Moines.  He says where he is now has many interesting farm smells.  I guess he is not use to the rural life.  He sang with the choir (bass as they had too many tenors) for Christmas with his companion.  Also sang a duet with his companion in church a few weeks ago. 

Miranda is looking well (or so it appeared on Skype.)  She had a scary incident with a burner being left on in their apartment, and it was only by chance to went back and found it on.  It could have been a tragedy.  She is needing to get arch supports for her feet as they have been in pain.  She has had an interesting time with a new investigator.  She has been sharing about the tender mercis of the Lord and had family prayer with us. 

It seems Skyping time is just too short. 
Tony: Is preparing for baptism and also enjoying gymnastics and his friends.  He is great at school.

Charity: She and Anthony are living in Turlock where Anthony has been student teaching at Turlock High School and finishing his credential so he can teach in California.  Camberly Rose keeps them busy. 

Jeremy: Jeremy and Kayla are living in Tracy.   Jeremy continues to try balancing school and work.  It is a hard thing to do.  They welcomed Bronston Isaac Wardle this year, October 17.   He is a cute little guy.

Mark: He and Lizzy are in Las Vegas.  They too welcomed a baby, Augustus "Gus Gus" Owen Wardle.  He was born

Natalia: Natalia and Ty are still living in the Seattle area where Natalia teaches school.

Sheri: is busy witht he Primary.  She is presidents and they have a couple of groups of rowdy children they try to keep focused every Sunday.  

Billy:  I am rebusy (very busy) at work.  We are short staffed so it seems I try to keep ahead of what a couple others use to do as well as my own work.  I have found a new hobby in genealogy.  This think with the church getting us free access to Ancestry.com and FindmyPast has been great.  I will go to the end of the line in Family Search, get the data and then search on Ancestry.  Quite often I am able to find information with additional genealogy.  Often this starts with someone else’s work, but eventually gets to source material.  You only need one source material to enter the information into Family Search.  Sometimes I get stuck, then I go over to FindmyPast.  FIndmyPast is really good with English records. 

It has been fun.  I have worked in the Netherlands on Mom’s side, the Green and Williams lines (aunt and uncle by marriage) and more recently the Ashton line.  It has been a fun ride.  Now there are plenty of ordinances for family members to do.  The names are at the Oakland Temple in the Manteca, Northland Ward file if anyone wants to take some family names through.

Manteca Stake History 2014: Stay-at-home Missionaries

Stay-At-Home-Missionaries

The Manteca Stake Stay-at-Home-Missionaries serve in different programs and in different capacities.  However one thing is common to them all.  They all approach their duties with a great deal of enthusiasm.  

Church-Service Missionaries have a wide range of assignments.  These missionaries work in the welfare system of the church.  “Church-service missionaries labor in the Lord’s vineyard by inviting members to come unto Christ and help them to become spiritually and temporally self-reliant.”   (LDS.org)  There are several missionaries serving in this capacity at the Bishop’s Storehouse.  Jean Murphy and Pat Tubbs (mother and daughter from the Sycamore Ward) have been serving for approximately ten years.  They say they were called and “sort of forgotten” so never released and just continued to serve.  Now they have formally been asked to continue their services.  Julia and Jonathan Crockett (mother and son from the Lathrop Ward) have been serving almost two years and expect to reenroll and continue to serve.  Cody Dunford of the Yosemite YSA Ward has been serving for about six months.  He says he really enjoys his service.  

Service missionaries at the Bishop’s Storehouse are expected to serve at least one eight-hour shift weekly.  Their tasks include helping patrons fill orders, and making sure the shelves are stocked.  Jonathon enjoys being in charge of the bread.

Hugh and Shelia Brown (Chester Ward) were recently released as Church-Service missionaries after serving as Church Service Missionaries at the Bishop’s Storehouse.  The last thirteen months they had been serving as directors.

There are Family History missionaries.  These missionaries work from home, providing technical support for those using the Church’s family history tools such as familysearch.org.  The duties are described in this manner, “As a FamilySearch Support Missionary, you will assist patrons as they work to identify their ancestors and link families. You will provide both guidance and answers to those who contact FamilySearch by phone, chat, email, or social media.”  (LDS.org)  John and Brenda Parker (Lathrop Ward) have served as World Wide Support Missionaries now called Patron and Partner Service Missionaries.  They provide computer and telephone supports  to those using Family Search.  The expectation for these missionaries is 80 hours per week.  However I find that they indicate putting in much more  hours then the  required.  

Linda Ray of the Northland Ward also services in this capacity.  She is a lead of a QI team of approximately 50 missionaries providing support for family search.  She indicates she serves with people speaking at nine languages and from all over the world including England, U.S. Germany, France, Spain, Italy, New Zealand, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Canada and Australia.  She serves monitoring groups which supports most of the functions of Family Search.  She says if you look across the mast of family search, she works closely with them to make sure they are providing good services.  This includes Family Tree, Memories, Indexing, Search, Wiki and several more.  Again she puts in much more than the expected 80 hours per month, and is enthusiastic about her calling.  She has health conditions which require her to stay home, and this mission gives her the opportunity to help with the missions of the Church.  

Rex and Linda Brown also take on an important role as the serve supporting BYUI Pathway.  This is a program to help people who may have not been able to finish school, to come back and finish.  Linda says for much of the year the commitment is one hour weekly for a group with the participants to see how they are doing.  The students participate in network education through BYU Idaho.  Linda says that during the recruitment time of year the involvement is much more demanding.  

Janet Chance also has an unusual call as a Service Missionary.  She indicates she serves with LDS.org.  She is expected to help cover the LDS.org phone inquiry and email inquiry system at least eight hours weekly but again she says she actual serves much more than this.

The program of stay-at-home missionaries does a couple of things.  It provides opportunities for people to serve missions, who may not have the chance otherwise.  It is also an opportunity for people to participate actively in the missions of the church, whether to redeem the dead, help in perfecting the Saints, or make the humanitarian works of the church function economically.  That this program is such an important part of the church is demonstrated by the enthusiasm these missionaries have to their calls.

Life in Manteca123: Memorial Day Service: Park Clean Up

Tony was asking about this family tradition of getting up early on Memorial Day to go help clean the park.  He seemed to overestimate, but based on his years, this is our fourth Memorial Day Park Clean Up.  This is a small part we get to play in the Not Forgotten presentation put on in Manteca every year.  Those who put it on brag it is the largest such celebration West of the Mississippi.  That is pretty cool.  You can see my report of the actual day "Not Forgotten."
Here are a few pictures of this morning.  Tony did quite well, and was busy picking up with his mother for about a half hour before the temptation of friends and the playground took over.  He came home again saying Woodward Park is the best in Manteca.

Life in Manteca 122:Memorial Day Sunday: Helicopter Takeoff, Fireworks, Bouncy Houses, Family History, Memorials, Concerts

Memorial Day Sunday turned into an all day event.  I left church early, and headed to Woodwoard Park to help man the Family History Library Family History tent.  It is amazing how many people are interested in the family history.  I showed people how to get started, and then made sure they were aware of familysearch.org if they want to get started for themselves.
Just as my shift was ending, Kayla and Jeremy arrived.  We walked the boys around through a few booths, went and saw Brother Booher in the Chinook helicopter and took pictures.  Skylar then tried the slides, and really did a good job of it.  Jeremy had to go to work so they left early.

Sheri and the boys arrived in a little bit.  They too went on the bouncy house and slides.  Tony went through the helicopter and got a picture with his  former Primary teacher.  Charity and Anthony arrived and went through the memorial displays and the helicopter. 
  We had to move our spot in the shade for the helicopter takeoff.  It was cool, but also very windy and dusty.  I had gathered up our cups of iceies.  Tony says the blew away and hit a girl.  I hope the ice didn't spill on her.  The Chinook took off over our heads and toppled us all over the place.
We were only somewhat interested in the concerts.  I found my way back to the memorials during the concerts.  The concert that most interested us was Lincoln Brewster.  However the only song I really identified with was "Hallelujah."  They sang what they called a new song "Oxygen."  "I need you more than anything.  I need you more than oxygen."
We though we would enjoy the "Fire Dance" but much of this was not on stage, so we couldn't see it well.  The fireworks started promptly at 9:30.  They were very nice.  A lot of lower fireworks, which were good as we had a very good view.

Manteca weather can be crazy.  All they we were over hot and in the son and sought refuge in the shade.  However, when the sun went done and a breeze came up we  were snuggling under blankets trying to keep warm.
It was a good day.  Saw Brother Booher and his wife Dacia, Sister Goodwin, The Browns, Brother and Sister Zepeda.  The Petersens briefly.

Manteca Memorial Day: Not Forgotten Fireworks

Memorial Day: Chinook Helicopter Take Off.

Mormon Tabernacle Choir: Memorial Day

This is from Music and the Spoken Word, Memorial Day, 2014.  The story of the sinking ship and the sailors in the water is amazing.  "Battle Hymn of the Republic" is on of my favorite.  Enjoy!

Life in Manteca 121: Memorial Day: Vietnam Wall Replica

The main day for the Memorial Day celebration in manteca is tomorrow.  However the wall has been up for several days and I decided to visit.  I found two elders and President Brown, guiding people, instructing them on how to find names of loved ones that might be on the wall.  58,000 American service men lost their lives in Viet Nam.  That is quite a number.  I saw in the paper that 20 years ago the "Wall" was part of Memorial Day exhibit.  To say the least I was impressed.  The crosses are there as well as other Memorial Day exhibits.  The stage is on the opposite side this year.  Very impressive.  I recommend you go tomorrow.

Tony trying a tree

Skylar

If you come by I will be at the family history table so look me up.  Billy

Visiting Board of Supervisors Meeting for Unit Based Team Presentation

About a month ago I was at the Board of Supervisor Meeting as part of the Unit Based Team presentation.  This is a collaborative effort between the union, administration management and line staff to work on projects to improve the work environment.  I am there with my boss Joe Tansek.  Also his boss Mikelle Le and her boss Sandra Hernandez were also present.  We represent the work done at the Mental Health Callcenter.  We worked on a project to help people get connected with services.
http://sccgov.iqm2.com/Citizens/SplitView.aspx?Mode=Video&MeetingID=6055&Format=Agenda
At the above website look for Unit Based Teams on the left and you will go directly to where the presentation takes place.

As part of the meeting there was also a presentation on the Armenian genocide of 1915 and also a presentation to the Crisis Intervention Team officers.  This is a collaborative between the police organizations of Santa Clara County and mental health in which mental health trains the officers to handle mental health situations.

Caleb's last letter and pictures, Nauvoo and Carthage

Subject: We had a wonderful week!

Family,

Life is so great! We have seen so many miracles that they are numberless. 

I can't tell you how excited I am for what the future holds. 

Good news! Elder Broadbent and I will be staying together! Which means we will probably be together my last transfer as well! Which also means that besides Elder Standage he will be my second three transfer companion!

It's gonna be awesome. He is going to keep pushin me to finish strong.

So I must admit... Mama sent me a Birthday package and I definitely opened it early. And it was so funny. The stuff that was in there was out of control! 

I played a lil dress up on Sunday night while Elder BBent was collecting key indicators from the zone. And let me tell ya... the pictures were out of control funny. ahaha. I have also recently realized that I am an awful yoyo'er and that fake mustaches are like coolest things ever. aha. Anyways, it was a fun little pre birthday celebration. I was also blowing those little Birthday horn things in Elder Broadbents ears and he was probably so tired of me. aha. Anyways,

Thanks for the package mama! 

Life as a missionary is so good. 

Today during studies I felt prompted to set goals for the last two transfers of my mission. I just feel like I need to push myself harder in order to experience the most growth possible. So I was able to set goals during my studies and I am pretty excited to do all that I can to achieve them. Father in Heaven will most definitely have to help me. But I know that they will benefit me and my spiritual growth. I am excited for the transfers ahead. 

I have a firm testimony that Jesus Christ is our Savior. I know that because of the Spirit that I feel as I read the Book of Mormon. The power in that book is beyond what words can describe. Of course it is true. If not, where did it come from? the only source could be a loving Father in Heaven. If you question your testimony of the restored gospel, please talk to a missionary. They can help. 

I love each of you. Thanks for all that you do for me. I can't believe I will be twenty tomorrow. That's old enough to like buy my own car or something! aha. I wish time would slow down. 

I am excited to leave it all on the field. The mission field that is.

Love,

Elder Caleb James Wardle