We hope to take our first temple trip later this month with the YSA ward to Fresno. The Oakland temple is closed and Fresno is closer to us than others, although it is a small temple, requiring appointments to be made. We are enjoying our work among the POM YSA members and the military families. Our visits with them have been fun and productive. Most of the families are strong in their faith and active in their wards (Monterey 1st, 2nd, Marina, and Seaside). However, more are finishing up school and leaving as summer approaches. Summertime is always a big PCS movement time in the military. I remember our moves every 2-3 years in the summertime. I'd save up leave throughout the year so that we could have an extended vacation during our transfers.
YSA folks find it harder to stay active and strong in the gospel during their studies here. The academic curriculum, added to the normal military requirements, make it very demanding. They spend much of their week and weekend studying their challenging languages: Leventine, Farsi, Mandarin, Russian, Arabic, Korean, and such. It becomes easy for them to disappear from church attendance or even any active participation. Some won't answer texts, phone calls, or emails, and just want to remain anonymous. Others, are as active and faithful as time allows. We try not to be judgmental, but we know that if they will give time to the Lord and keep his day holy that they will have the Spirit to be with them more. The YSA age is a difficult time of life and I can see the vast difference between them and those who get married and begin families. The added responsibility and influence of marriage and family really strengthens and grounds them, especially the men.
We've had good success in working with the YSA folks at the Presidio of Monterey (POM). Our Tuesday evening group is growing and remaining fairly constant. We even have a nonmember girl coming and another girl who was raised LDS but hasn't had much interest in the church. (see photos). We are also finding happiness in interacting and ministering to military families. The little children are so cute (see photo below) and we seem to be like grandparents to some of them. The military spouse studying languages usually must do a 2-4 month country immersion towards the end of their studies, and this gives us an opportunity to help prepare them with resiliency lessons and information, and to also minister to the family during their absence. Everything we do around here is mostly one at a time. It sometimes doesn't feel like great success, but when we see one person's life strengthened, we realize what a joy it is to serve.
We've given some presentations and talks. We spoke in two wards, Stephen gave a presentation on effective listening and communication to an empty-nester FHE group, and we are speaking to the youth of the Monterey 1st ward on Sunday about abuse, at the request of their bishop. We enjoy teaching and visiting with the young elders and sisters. They are a joy to be around.
Saturday morning was so pretty that we walked along the Monterey beach for about an hour, then, drove 17 miles to Salinas along HW 68 and back. The hills are bright rolling green and spotted with oak and other trees. Salinas is surrounded by agricultural land. The earth is rich, dark, and fertile, and produces much vegetables and fruit. We spent part of Saturday preparing things for our Sunday presentation, DLI sacrament meeting, and Sunday evening scripture study at our apartment.
Today we had another very nice sacrament meeting on POM for the DLI students. We had 9 of us. A special reverent spirit prevails at these small sacrament meetings compared to the larger, noisy family wards. After DLI, we went to Monterey 1st where we spoke to the youth at the request of the bishop on how to recognize, prevent, and cope with abuse. That is something we know a little about.
Afterwards, we drove to Marina ward and attended sacrament meeting there to get more acquainted with the military families.
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