Bittersweet Week

 Hello family and loved ones, 

Well, we have just finished serving the Lord as full time missionaries in the California Oakland/San Francisco Mission.  

We enjoyed feeding missionaries all weekend so we could serve them, and have a chance to take pictures and say our goodbyes.  Then we did our final training with the new couple who are now serving at the Employment  Center and handed over keys to the center and to the apartment.  

We took the opportunity to travel to Monterrey, Pacific Grove and Carmel by the Sea for a couple days to walk the beach, go whale watching, ride bikes along the coast, drive Pacific Coast Highway 1, eat at beachside cafes and sleep in a 150 year old hotel.  Such a wonderful time to enjoy the beauties of the area.  Then our friend took us out on his sailboat for a day of Fleet Week.  We watched a parade of all kinds of ships sail under the Golden Gate Bridge, then we watched an airshow of different planes perform overhead, including The Blue Angels.  What an amazing day.

We loaded boxes in every inch of our car with the guitar next to me as we drove off to Lake Tahoe.  We enjoyed a day there with all the beauty of its lake and forest.  Then we traveled up to Boise to spend a day with our son Jason and Taya and their 3 little kids.  Finally, we drove to Tremonton to visit my 90/91 year old parents, then drove on to our home where Zac and Brett jumped out of the bushes to greet us with "Welcome Home" signs.  The following day, we unloaded all those boxes, went to see the new "Tree of Life" sculpture display at Thanksgiving Point, then met with President Hafen to be released from our full time service.  We celebrated time with our family over a good dinner then planned how we will try to fill our days going forward. 

We will both miss wearing our missionary name tags.  It has been such an honor to be a missionary and serve.  Even during our two hours at Thanksgiving Point we had several people stop us and ask where we were serving.  It has always been such a thrill to share with people what we are doing as missionaries, or to ask if they know our church, or if they have seen missionaries where they live.  It made for an easy way to start a conversation with anyone.  We also loved to share postcards of the Oakland Temple as many folks were familiar with that beautiful landmark.  It has been so awesome to just have the message of Jesus Christ at the forefront of our lives and to always be looking for ways to share a message.  We hope we can continue to share as we carry on.  

We will have the opportunity to speak in church at a Sacrament Meeting this Sunday, October 20th at 9:00 a.m. at the white church by AFHS at 673 E. 300 N. American Fork.  We invite you to come listen to our messages about serving Jesus Christ.  We would also invite you to stop in to visit after that meeting or later that day or anytime you are nearby.  We would love to see you!

This is our final mission email.  We have LOVED our mission and have enjoyed sharing our experiences with you.  May God bless us all.

Love, Elder and Sister Jerman/ Roger and Kaleen

 Last day at the Employment Center 

Pacific Grove

Fleet Week - Parade of Ships

and Air Show

Lake Tahoe

Jason and Tayas’s family in Boise 

We’re home!

But for the Grace of God Go I

 Imagine you are from the Philippines and now living in California, were recently taught the gospel and baptized, you and your spouse are 70+ and you have a disabled older child living with you. Then you lose your job. You have no income, no insurance, no benefits, no pension. This is what happened to the Nicomedez family about 5 months ago. We were asked to help them find jobs. But then, what luck, they lost their phone and their car broke down and they couldn't even go buy groceries! So Sister Jerman and I drove down to Pleasanton and met them to give them some job coaching and create resumes for these two wonderful people.

They applied and interviewed for several months, with no luck, but they kept on trying. On Sunday night we received a very satisfying phone call that just thrilled us and confirmed that God is Good! They had interviews with different companies and found jobs. Both Brother and Sister Nicomedez got jobs at Lam Research and Walmart. What a confirmation of the fact that the Lord is looking out for each of us, we just need to persevere and have faith. It was also a great story to end our mission on. A side note, the EQ president, RS president, Ward Employment Specialist, and their ministering Brothers and Sisters were all helping this incredible miracle to come to pass. That's how it should be in every case of unemployment of a ward member. What great examples they are to us.

This past week we trained the senior missionary couple who will replace us at the Employment Center.  We attended Zone Conference and served at the Visitor Center for our last time.  We also had a great time watching General Conference and feeding missionaries on Saturday and Sunday night.  We finished saying some fond goodbyes with our job seekers, our co-volunteers at both the Employment Center and Visitor Center, our beloved missionaries we work with, our senior couples that have become our dear friends, but especially with a couple of people we have come to know and love. 

Bill and Lacey have been a big part of our lives here in the mission, we have known them for almost as long as we've served here. Bill is older and is like a brother to me because he is so kind and innocent, even though it's very difficult for him to work. He fell off a ladder a few weeks ago and broke some ribs, (sound familiar?) but he still comes in to apply for jobs and does his best to be self-sufficient by doing odd jobs for friends and neighbors. Lacey is the hardest working homeless person we have ever met. She applied for 5 or 6 jobs a day, day after day for weeks, interviewed and even had work recently, but despite living and sleeping out in the open each night, she attends college classes and wants to date her boyfriend and carry on a "normal" life. The Lord loves these precious people just as much as He loves each one of us. Wow! "But for the Grace of God go I."

All of us can serve God and His children in some way, thus blessing our lives and the lives of those we serve. Let's keep going forward in faith.  Even though we may come to an end for a season, God our strength will be, press forward ever, Called to serve our King!

Love, 

Elder and Sister Jerman

Our last Zone Conference

Farewell to our job seekers, our friends - Bill

And Lacey

Our last time to serve at the Visitor Center

Feeding the sister missionaries at the Visitor Center after General Conference

Feeding the missionaries in our zone

Our last night with the Zone 

Last evening on Temple Hill

Farewell to this beautiful temple we love

It’s so hard to say good bye. We decided to enjoy some sights on our way home and expect to arrive in a week. 

We will talk in church on October 20th at 9:00. We invite you to come hear our thoughts and testimony. 

See you soon!

Whopper Week

 Hello everyone,

Actually we've had a wonderfully whopping month!  We received lots of fun visitors - our kids, our sisters, some friends from home, and a family from Chile here to visit. Besides our days at the Employment Center, we made 7 trips to the airport, drove across the Bay bridges 26 times, fed 29 missionaries - 5 one night, then 6, then 8, and a grand finale of 10 one night. We love having them in our home!

 

We were in Utah 2 Sundays but were still able to visit 8 new wards in the Bay area, making over 100 wards we have been able to visit.  We loved seeing so many beautiful areas and meeting so many wonderful people.  We were even asked to speak in sacrament meeting at a Samoan ward.

It was a busy and fun week for us. We ate dinner out with some senior couples, visited a Farmer's Market, went to English Connect class, went to the temple, served at the Visitor Center, picked up our friends, Dennis and Marilyn Moss from the airport and took them to Pacifica to eat at the Taco Bell on the beach as we watched surfers from the patio.  We then spent a day seeing all the sights in San Francisco, and another day attending a Giants MLBaseball game at Oracle Park with its incredible view of the Bay full of sailboats and kayakers surrounding the outfield.  We then hosted a fun evening of games with the senior couples, then spent Sunday driving an hour and 15 minutes to attend church in Half Moon Bay, near Moss Beach with the Mosses so we could introduce ourselves to the ward members.  We spent the afternoon at different look out points, exploring coves and walking along beaches. 

Then we got to talk to Jason and hear the details about his incredible (there are no words) 100 mile run. "The Bear"  Jason ran 100 miles (that's 4 marathons in a row) on a hot day from Logan to Bear Lake, that means uphill, up the canyon, up the mountain!  He gained 22,000 feet of elevation.  He ran from 6:00 a.m. all day to reach the halfway point, when he could finally have pacers run with him through the night to keep him awake and going.  He finished by 2 PM the following day at 32 hours, 12 minutes.  More than 1/4th of the runners did not finish.  It was beyond brutal but he did it.  He finished!  Lesson for all of us is that it is amazing what we can accomplish if we just get started and have that strong commitment in our heart and mind to finish.  Also, we need to help each other along the way and to remember the Savior is our pacer. 

Wow, we are suddenly nearing the end of our mission.  It has zipped by so fast for us and we have loved our time serving here in the Oakland/San Francisco Mission.  We will miss everything about this experience, especially the wonderful people, the weather, the beautiful sights, the Oakland Temple and Visitor's Center, and all the missionaries who we love so much.  I will cry when we pull out of here.  

We are excited to share our feelings and experiences from our mission at the Sacrament Meeting on October 20th at 9:00 a.m. at the white church by American Fork HIgh School on the corner of 700 E. and 300 N. in American Fork, Utah.   We'd love to see you!

Love, 

Elder and Sister  Jerman

Samoan missionaries 

Missionaries in our home!

Feeding missionaries

Weekend with our friends

Heading to a Giant’s game

Oracle Ballpark with a view for a Giant’s game 

Jason finished “The Bear”

Our Chilean friends, the Laurie family. 

Remember Jesus Christ is our ultimate pacer. 

A Rose is a Rose by any other name

 What if you had to choose between your biological father's given name and your better loved but adoptive parent's name? A hard thing, for sure.

Monday evening Sister Jerman and I were feeding some missionaries when we had a very thoughtful discussion. One sister came into the mission field with her biological father's name, Clark, whom she never really knew. She was adopted by another family, Jensen, but never took their name. She wanted to be identified with Jensen but the legal papers never arrived in time before her mission call. So she went on her mission and to her surprise, a single mom who was looking for the truth had a "vision" that someone with the name Clark would bring her the truth. And it happened. This sister taught her the gospel and she and her kids were baptized. Incredible! Even though she didn't want to keep Clark, the Lord kept it as part of his plan. Sometimes we don't know what the Lord has in store for us, but things always work out for our good. Goes to show that a rose by any other name is still a rose.

During the week we were treated to a Chinese cultural exchange. We had an Oriental dinner with Elder and Sister Cheng. Then we went shopping in their neighborhood Chinese store that had a crazy variety of different foods so we bought and tried some interesting things. 

Towards the end of the week, we hosted a Sister's Vacation. Three of Elder Jerman's and one of Sister Jerman's sisters came to visit, enjoy each other's company and tour San Francisco. We had so much fun sailing, riding cable cars, watching sea lions, driving down the crookedest street, driving over bridges and everything else we could fit in. Of course just being together for some down time was the best! 

One funny story to share.  We borrowed the mission van to accommodate everyone and left our car at the mission home. We drove 45 minutes to our apartment and then realized we had left the key to the house in Oakland. How were we going to get in or where were we going to sleep? So my sister, Nettie, hopped over our back fence and was able to open the sliding window and let everybody in so we didn't have to drive all the way back to Oakland or worse, break a window. Thanks Nettie!

Sunday we both spoke in church at a Samoan ward. What fun singing in Samoan and feeling their spirit. After the meeting, two cute little old Samoan grandmas gave us all Samoan treats and hugs!  We couldn't get enough of it! Share the love and joy this week everyone!

Love, 

Elder and Sister Jerman

Dinner with the Chengs. "Baby Bear soup, Papa Bear soup and Mama Bear soup!"

Riding on top of the bus across the Golden Gate Bridge 

1907 Cable Car ride 

Ready to sail across the Bay

Picnic at Pacifica Beach 

Sister weekend

Church in Chinatown - cool, crazy and in Cantonese!

 Hello everyone,

     It's been another amazing week, different, but amazing.  

     The church held an Employment Conference in Salt Lake City for all the managers from Employment Centers across the United States and Canada.  We gathered with approximately 175 missionaries for training, advice, and encouragement.  Our favorite part was getting acquainted with so many wonderful people and learning new ideas. We got to stay at the Marriott Hotel and were well fed.  We enjoyed dinners at the Church Office Building and This Is The Place State Park. One of our meals even had flowers on the table from Pres. Nelson's 100th Birthday!  What an amazing man and prophet he is!

     While there we enjoyed walking through the Temple Gardens, the Family Search Center and the Church History Museum.  Along the way we bumped into my cousin Ann Calder, met a Visitor Center missionary who knew my cousin Erica serving in Mongolia, met a couple who knew Hermana Laurie's family in Concepcion, Chile, and invited a young man from India who was interested in the temple to visit the Oakland Temple near his home in California.  He took our number to coordinate visiting us when we serve at the Oakland Visitor Center.  Cool to continue to do missionary work.  I love wearing a missionary badge!  It brings so many opportunities to share the Gospel.  

     After our conference, we traveled home and stopped at Cafe Rio in American Fork for dinner.  We had 3 different groups of people ask us about our mission.  The first one grew up in Antioch where we currently live, a daughter and her parents lived for years near the Oakland Temple and then a man stopped at our table saying he had overheard our conversation and wanted to share that he had served in the Oakland/San Francisco Mission as a young missionary.  How amazing to connect with so many people during one meal while away from our mission!

     The church let us choose when to fly in and out so we tagged on both weekends before and after the conference.  We were able to catch up on a few things around the house and yard, and spend a lot of time with our kids and grandkids.  We flew back to California quite late Saturday night, arriving at 11:00p.m. We took the BART - Bay Area Rapid Transit, then Uber to get to our car parked at the Mission Office.  Then we drove a short distance to an empty senior apartment to go to bed by 1:30.  This saved us time traveling back to our apartment another 40 minutes away and also saved us that 40 minute drive Sunday morning.  Instead we were only 20 minutes away from finding a church in downtown San Francisco to attend the Bay ward, the Golden Gate ward, a YSA ward and then we traveled into Chinatown to attend the Cantonese "group" that meets in what was once a restaurant with very vibrant decor!  Then we got to visit a senior couple who serve in government relations.  They live on the 10th floor of an apartment building that has a huge wall of windows overlooking San Francisco clear out to Angel Island and Alcatraz.  On our way home, we exited the Bay Bridge to drive out onto Treasure Island.  So many amazing sights here in the Bay area.  We love our mission and know the last 3 weeks will zip by.  We have begun to say our last goodbyes to missionaries as we see them out and about, or here for dinner one last time.  We will be sad to pull away in a few weeks.  We have had a grand time, every day, in every way. 

 

Love Elder and Sister Jerman

Hug a Loved One

 We take too much for granted. This past week I have realized how many blessings I have been given from my Heavenly Father. I am so grateful to Him for my family and friends, my testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ, for my freedoms I enjoy, and for the sacrifice of my ancestors so I could live in such abundance today.

This week we've been helping others at the employment center, some of our kids came to visit us, and we were able to travel home to be with family for our granddaughter's birthday and Alicia's baby gender reveal before heading to a National Church Employment Conference in Salt Lake City.  What struck me the most was how blessed we are from the viewpoint of where we live. Yes, our country is going through tough times and challenges, but the U.S. is still the envy of the world. We have the best economy, amazing opportunities in education and jobs, the freedom to live and worship as we please, and high expectations for the future. 

We have been helping a job seeker, Engel, get a construction job by writing a resume that highlighted his strengths. He is from Nicaragua, but he left his young wife and 3 year old daughter back home to escape death threats against him for his stand on human rights. Supporters of leaders of his country threatened him and actually beat him up after he demonstrated with other students against the leftist crackdown on freedoms in his country. He escaped and came to California to find a better way of life and hopefully to someday bring his family with him.  

How lucky we are to have our families, freedoms, and a future we can look forward to that will be a blessing to our children and grandchildren.  So find a loved one and give them a hug, and tell them how much you love them.

We love you, 

Love, Elder and Sister Jerman

Zac, Marce, and Amy (just home from her mission) got to come visit us!

Visitor Center and a session at the Oakland Temple

We got to go on a monohull!

Zac the co Captain

Amy the Captainette

San Francisco 

Kora’s 3rd Birthday

What is your guess?  Mostly blue

Wild Ride

 Hello everyone,

     Life has its ups and downs and we just went through a couple of them. During our time in American Fork, Roger experienced some sharp abdominal pain so we went to the ER and learned he had a blood clot in his kidney.  Luckily no surgery but it took a few days on pain meds and blood thinner to get rid of that.

     After our wonderful week welcoming Amy home, we flew back to finish the last 6 weeks of our mission. What!?!  

      We served at the Employment Center to help several new people that came in,  then put in several more hours to call and update all 148 job seekers.  Whew!

     Thursday we went out for our favorite activity to ride E bikes on the trails around here.  We got separated and I finally headed home since I didn't have a phone with me.  When I called him, I learned he had crashed coming down a steep hill on a curve.  He said he zigged when he should have zagged.  He could tell when he stood up that there were some broken bones. The paramedics brought him to the ER where he was told he broke his clavicle and 5 ribs.  Luckily we were able to come home that night.  We swung by the crash site to get the bike off the bike rack where the paramedic locked it up to and it had been stolen.  Argggh!  Too bad.  Salt in the wound.

     Luckily he has been able to sleep and take it easy the last few days.  It doesn't hurt to just sit, only if he is up moving around too much.  The Elders came by to give him a blessing and our family has been praying for him.  He is healing and doing fine, and is anxious to continue serving the best he can to the end of our mission.   We have so much to do!  Up, up and away! 

Love, Elder and Sister Jerman