Our Mission! California Oakland/SanFrancisco: Celebrations

Hello!

We have missionaries speaking 9 languages in our mission - English, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Cambodian, Samoan, Tongan, Fijian, and Tagalog. So, the word from the mission office is that this is the most in any mission. Because of that, we see weddings, birthdays, baptisms and other celebrations in a variety of cultures. This week we got to participate in the Cambodian New Year with a program of dancers in cool native costumes, then we helped serve dinner to over 1000 people. Fun to sample some food while listening to a band and watching people dance and play games.

We enjoyed hosting a dinner party at the Family Search Center for all the senior missionaries. We are lucky to have about 40 in this mission. We called it our "Pot O' Gold Luck" dinner and invited everyone to wear green and bring green foods to go with the corned beef and pork we prepared. We had enough left over pork that we hosted young missionaries the next two nights for dinner at our place. It was so fun to get better acquainted with several missionaries last week and we are looking forward to more this week. Then transfers will happen and we will have new missionaries!

After serving at the Employment Center, we enjoy some time going out on the trails for a ride on our E Bikes, spending some time in the Family Search Center and our shift at the Visitor Center. It just couldn't be better! Then the best bonus was a trip to Folsom to visit Jason and Taya and their 3 young ones. Finn is now just over a week old. What a privilege for us to be so close to celebrate life!

The grandest celebration of all is the gift from our Savior. We hope we can all take time this Easter week to study, ponder and reflect on the Savior's life, sacrifice and death for us, then also recognize His gift of forgiveness, resurrection and eternal life. Happy celebration of all these gifts our Savior offers us!

We love you, Have a wonderful week,

Love, Elder and Sister Jerman