Goodbye Sister W

For the last 4 1/2 months, we have been privileged to have Sister Wassennaar (pronounced with a V) from The Netherlands serving in our ward. We love to have the missionaries over for dinner any chance we get. We are lucky in that our ward gets to feed the missionaries every night. When we have Elders assigned to our ward, we don't get to feed them very often since Mike is often at school still during dinner time. With the sisters, we can have them over even if Mike is not at home. We often sign up to feed them once a week. This has been especially fun with Sister W. She loves to play with the boys and they LOVE to play with her. She plays swords, bubbles, hide and seek, and has even brought Chutes and Ladders to play as the lesson. My kids get so excited to see her at church and cheer when they hear that the Sisters are coming for dinner, that is usually the only time we have dessert after dinner too, which makes them doubly excited! Nate calls them "Sisa Mish." Sister W got sick in the MTC and had to go home for a bit before she came out to California. Unfortunately, she still only had an 18th month visa and so she has to go back to The Netherlands to finish out her last 6 months. We are so sad that she is leaving us, but we know she will go on to be a great missionary at home. 

There was a goodbye devotional for all the missionaries who were leaving the California San Bernardino Mission. There were 12 missionaries and a couple going home. Sister W asked specifically for me to bring the boys, but it would have been easier to leave them home. The fireside was almost 2 hours long and there were 16 testimonies in all after the Mission President and his wife spoke. I took the boys by myself so that Mike could study. They did pretty well, but were getting kind of restless by the end. The family behind us handed up a drawing the daughter had made of Sponge Bob and some paper and pencil which helped the boys stay occupied a little longer. A man and woman came and sat on our small row with us and the boys started trying to get their attention. Nate even bummed a piece of gum off of the woman who only had one piece of Dentyne Ice and she split it between the two boys. Afterwards, we got to say goodbye to Sister W and hurried home for bedtime. I was glad we were able to go and say goodbye though.

 Nate was so ready for bed and didn't want to look at the camera so a lady from our ward bribed him with a mint. That is why I am making such a funny face in the second picture, but we are at least all looking.