Wow, it's been a crazy week, as I'm sure it has been for you too.
We've have had many highlights of the week, the biggest one being, Sarah and I got to go to Disneyland on Wednesday with Sarah's friend Sarah Mable Jensen, her two daughters and her dad, Andre. Her two daughters are super cute. She has a daughter named Scarlet who is three or so years old and a baby named, Lily. They are the cutest little girls.
We got in for free. But not after we did our darnedest to make it work out. Tyra, the girl that works at Disneyland, the girl we met at Red Lobster had several problems the day of. We had texted the night before and everything was going to work out. We were going to meet her at the park and get the tickets with her. However, morning of, we get a text that she wasn't going to be at work on time and that her bus would only give her a few minute window of opportunity to get us the tickets and for her to arrive at the Indiana Jones ride where she worked, and besides, they changed her schedule the day of. We were like Oh No, what are we going to do? We finally decided to offer her a ride to Disneyland. Which was good for her because, without us, she would have been really late. We didn't even get her there with enough time to spare, but she would have been extremely late if she had taken the bus. So, we had her in our car, talking to her and we got her some chocolates as thanks. She had us park in the McDonald's parking lot right across the street from Disneyland. We booked it to the security line, where me, Sarah and Sarah Mable went through the no bags line and we waited for her to get through the bags line and to go to the bathroom. We got the tickets at the front gate and let her depart to the ride she works at. We hope that she arrived on time and that the park didn't get mad at her for letting us in.
After all that, we walked back to our cars and drove to the parking lot. We parked in the Toy Story parking lot and then stood in like a 15 min line for the busses tot he park. When we got there, we were pretty hungry, so Sarah Mable got a locker at the front of the park and we ate the food we had brought. That altogether was like 2 hours. We wanted to be in the park by 9:30am, but we didn't actually get into the park until 11:30. It was okay though, we had enough time to do everything we wanted.
My biggest thing that I wanted to do was go on Space Mountain with Sarah, so that was the first Fastpass we got. Sarah Mable really wanted to take Scarlet on Pirates and the Haunted Mansion, so that is what we did first. She definitely liked Pirates more, She even told her mom while we were on Haunted that she would rather be on Pirates. This was Sarah's first time on Space Mountain (and we only went on it once) but it was soooooo fun, of course and she loved it. Her eyes are closed in the picture. The funny, but really cool thing that Sarah and I got into the grove on on some rides (the fast ones after Space Mountain) was that we started holding hands, like on Indiana, and Thunder Mountain, and Splash Mountain. Those three rides we got to go twice on. Indiana broke down while we were on it, so when it finally started working again, they told us we could stay on and enjoy it for a second time.Thunder Mountain was fun, as we did it at night and it was fun to put up our held hands during the ride. And Splash Mountain was great. We also went on that at night, too. It was breaking down a lot, but we got to go on it at the time when it wasn't broken down. You will see in the picture our held hands.
We went on other rides throughout the day. We rested and ate at different times...and split up several times. Sarah and Sarah Mable wanted to go on Autopia together, so they left me in charge of getting Indiana fastpasses and in holding the infant in a holding backpack. Boy was that nerve wracking at first. She didn't really want her pacifier. But finally, after a lot of walking, she started falling asleep. So all was well, in the end. Sarah and I stayed til closing. We watched a bit of the firework show, but the family left after that. From there we went to the Abraham Lincoln show, and it really surprised me that when they openned the curtain that there was an animatronic Abe Lincoln there. I literally exclaimed in surprise when they opened the curtain, because I had no idea that they were going to show us that. We also got to eat at the Carnation Cafe with reservation. What we didn't know is that Sarah Mable and her Dad were going to pay for the meals.
Not only that, but we are extremely blessed. They've been in town most of the week. They came bearing gifts of food. Andre, Sarah Mable's dad, has a farm and several cows. He brought us a whole cooler fool of meat from one of his butchered cows. Ground beef, steaks, etc. Then Sarah Mable took us to Costco and bought us some vegetables (big sized bags), chicken and salmon burgers, not to mention most of the food that we used for our Disneyland trip, including muffins and pound cake. This definitely was a godsend because we have been running out of food, or at least seeming to run out of food, which has been the feeling.
Sarah Mable and Andre also took us out to eat on Thursday. They took us to this fancy sushi restaurant in San Bernardino and we got All You Can Eat rolls of Sushi, my favorite being the Las Vegas Sushi. Scarlet wouldn't have the spicy sushi, which was a lot of them. We went to their hotel pool and spa two different nights. The second night there were tons of high schoolers getting ready for a conference, visiting from SLO county: San Luis Obispo. It was kinda annoying because the first night we had the pool to ourselves, but the second night, there were all these annoying teenagers.
Work this week was just trying to make it to Wednesday for the Disneyland trip, and, after that, making it to the weekend. I taught Ms. Santos' class on Monday and Friday. She team teaches with Mrs. Williford. Mrs. Williford's class is the harder class and fortunately she gets them out of the way in the first section of her class in the morning. On Friday, one of my friends from the Singles Ward, Amanda Ahlmann, was at Jurupa Vista roving (which is what I wished to do). But, besides all the familiar faces at Jurupa Vista, it was nice seeing her familiar face as well.
Funny thing, I was at Sycamore Hills on Tuesday, and I was roving, but they put me in a sixth grade class throughout the day. Edward Guillen, one of my deacons, was in that class. So I got to see him interact in his element. He is to himself, but when he's comfortable, he gets out there. Another funny thing, is that I teach him and his siblings piano on Tuesday. I got there early, and his mom let me in to teach him. Well, after his lesson, we had some down time in between the time that his siblings came home, so he let me play Fortnite, the new "in" game that all the kids are playing these days. Of course, as always, I was bad at it, but it was cool to connect with him on that level for a few minutes.
One of Sarah's best friend's wife was put into the Psychiatric hospital the other day. She was released really early because she voluntarily came, so, like me when I was sick and off meds, she was going crazy at the house. So, Yesterday, Sarah went to go visit them and stay the night with them while she was acting crazy. I drove half the way, but, her husband asked if I not come, because she was reacting poorly to people she didn't already know really well. Sarah stayed up really late that night, and came home this morning to prepare for Sacrament meeting. She had to prepare a talk in Spanish for the congregation on Prayer. It was a pretty good talk.
I then accompanied Sarah to her primary class, in which she talked about Jacob and his four wives and 12 sons. The class was really good. I can't wait until the next three weeks when we talk about the story of Joseph.
Oh, yeah, there was a Talent Show on Friday as put on by the youth. Sarah and I sang How Far I'll Go from Moana, and I played the Ukulele ON AN AMP. Wow, it was so cool. Now I want an amp for my Uke and any other future instruments I get. Sarah sang without a microphone because they didn't seem to be working that well. Naomi Mondragon played Riptide on the Uke, too, with another girl singer and Josh did the percussion. I could've sworn that she was playing the Ukulele that you made a drawing of, because it had a picture of a wave on it, but after further inspection, we came to the conclusion that they were similar, but not exactly the same. Josh and friends did a percussion type performance. And I also got to see my piano students perform songs on the guitar and singing. There were other good performances, like two dances, one by the Mondragons and the other by the Sister Missionaries in Mexican costume.
Another miracle is that Sarah got a job for the next two weeks in an apartment complex answering phones and other stuff related to that. She started on Friday. This is definitely a blessing.
Also, at my request, Luis Guillen taught our Priesthood class today, and he did a good job. He's a deacon and he taught about the Restoration of the Priesthood. He ended early so I took the rest of the class talking about D&C 13, John the Baptist's blessing to Joseph and Oliver Cowdery.
Anyways, send me a line if you can. I'm always grateful for any lines you do send me. IDK, should I pray that it always rains on your p-days, haha, j/k. I love you. Enjoy your day and do something relaxing.
I love you so much.
Thanks for all your prayers on our behalf. We are praying for you too.
Love,
John
