8 July 2018

We had a nice 4th of July here in Monterey, although we surely missed the hot-air balloons rising up over Utah Valley. The Old Monterey Business Association (OMBA) approached Elaine and me when we first arrived in Monterey back in February if we would help get volunteers from the missionaries and LDS population to help with their 4th of July parade. We had meetings with them and were able to secure 20 volunteers, most of them Young Single Adults (YSA) and 8 missionaries to help. We showed up at 8 a.m. and received our assignments. All of the missionaries, including ourselves, all wearing our missionary badges, were asked to carry banners in the parade for sponsors. One of the sponsors was a local grill and pub that is trying to become a more respectable establishment in Monterey. We arranged for one of our older couples who were not missionaries to carry that one. Elaine and I certainly aren't show people, and walking down the street in front of thousands who lined the way was fun but not my cup of tea, so to speak. That night, they had a nice fireworks show over by the old Fort Ord Community and golf course. I don't think it was as big as the one in Provo, but it was a pretty setting over Monterey Bay.

Our elders and ourselves are helping with the big Retroauto show and pavilion at Spanish Bay in August. It is a fun event with some celebrities like Jay Leno and Jerry Seinfeld who often attend. They absolutely love our missionaries to serve as greeters, ushers, and escorts for the show because they look and act so professional. We are looking forward to that later in August.

New military families and singles are moving in this summer to study at DLI and also the Naval Post-graduate School has a big class starting. We are busy identifying and helping new military move in and adjust. Some show up at our DLI sacrament meeting. We helped a young husband and wife move into their house, and are visiting with others. We have new single servicemen arriving, and the challenge is always to get them coming to church services on post and to the YSA ward. We are sometimes a little shocked at the seemingly lax attitude returned missionaries have about attending sacrament meeting and worshiping the Savior. They know better than that, but being out on their own and involved in intense training seems to make it challenging.

We are busy doing family history presentations for ward councils in the four wards that we serve. We also have an appointment next Tuesday to meet with a military chaplain who does family, marriage, child counseling for the military. I've asked him to teach me about the army's resiliency and self-reliance program to help for deployments, and I am sharing with him the LDS program on Building Resilient and Self-Reliant Families. It will give us an opportunity to share with him the importance we place on families - even from an eternal perspective.