Pictures

These were all taken at the Ronald Reagan Library.

This is a podium with the teleprompter and we can see words on it and it shows how fast to move depending on how fast we speak but also moving our hands.

Grandpa getting applause for his speech!

Ronald Reagan walking the halls in the White House.

This is Air Force one inside the building. It is the actual airplane and we got to walk through it and see where everyone was assigned to sit. The secret service people had special seats and the press would sit in the back. They always had military people on board also. And I think I told you but Pres. Reagan liked chocolate cake so had a cake on every flight. Always someones birthday or anniversary to share cake! Yum.

I love seeing all the flowers blooming in California.

Fun 46th Anniversary

Hi all,
We had a fun anniversary weekend. Dad had got tickets for a
whale watching cruise for my birthday but went on our anniversary
 weekend.















It was cloudy and somewhat rainy but a great day. About 40 people
on board, so a good size boat. 2 decks. We decided to stay inside at
first to see how the weather would be. But we had large windows to
 look out and watch. But once we got out of the harbor dad and a few
others went out on the front of the boat. Lots of spray coming up so
 the majority of us stayed inside. But dad loved it! I saw about a
hundred dolphins swimming with us! Really so fun and I think some
of them were showing off for us since there were about 7 leaping up
 and out many times right by the boat. Maybe racing us! But so fun to
see them leap out of the water. We went a few more miles out to the
 islands - about 20-25 miles out. Circled around the island and then many
 of us went out on deck and looked around for some whales. None leaped
 out of the water, but we saw about 12 spouts of water shooting up. So they
 were there just not seeing fins and much, but still in the area and fun to see
the water spouts. Loved the experience, and may go again!















We were prepared for the weather and wore a sweatshirt and then a fall coat
and we're feeling great! Some of our friends just had light weight rain jackets
 and so were cold in the wind and water sprays. We invited some of the other
 senior missionaries couples and then others heard we were going so we had
10 of us all going. So was fun to have this group all together. Felt sorry for
 some of the people on board as the waves were  quite chopped and so some
were sick. But luckily I was good. I did take some ginger and that helped so no
problem.















Dad was loving the water and spray and so he stayed on the front deck and
got sprayed with the waves. We had about 5 foot waves and so he was getting
 lots of water! But you know dad, he loved the challenge, and the water! We saw
more dolphins on the way back. So exciting to  see them jump and swim along
 side. It as a great adventure. We were gone about 4 1/2 hours. It was a great time.















Then that evening we were invited out to dinner at black Angus steak house. They
were some people from the ward and they are about our age and they have been
going out to eat on New Year's Eve for many years together so was fun to be invited
 into their group!  We were not out partying very late! I Guess the wind and sun and
water made us a bit tired so went to bed before midnight!, smile
















So it was a fun anniversary weekend! So thankful we have fun adventures! And so
thankful for each of you -you are our blessings!
Thank you for being a wonderful family!!
Love you all!
Mom

Great week

Hi all, 
As some of you may know we had a special fireside for just the missionaries this past Saturday. All the missionaries were together in one building, and that had not happened for the past three years, so this was a pretty special time together - everybody together. We had Elder wilde, and Elder Hallstrom, and Elder Ballard come to our meeting. We were there in our seats about 30 minutes to 45 minutes early listening  to one of the elders play some piano music, mostly Christmas songs. So that was really wonderful also. Many of the things that they talked about were for the missionaries, but they can also be applied to our every day lives also.

Elder Wilde said that our main responsibility is to your companion. When they have harmony and unity they work together better so I was thinking that applies to us as married couples also. Or anybody we work with when we work with harmony and unity we get along better and work things out. Work smarter as a team and as companions. Keep a journal. He was saying keep a journal of the people that you visit because you never know how they may come up again in your life and he told a story about a young missionary who did keep a journal and added the names of some people in the mission and then years later he came across them again. Another point he said is work until the very end. And I was thinking about our elder who baptized us was going home in just a few weeks. So he kept teaching and finding people. So good that he didn't quit early, and found us!! 

Elder Hallstrom talked that he travels with Elder Ballard a lot and what a great representative he is of the saviors love, and joy and happiness he shows. He was saying that when people join this church they're asked to do a lot. We ask them to pay tithing, don't take drugs, stop smoking, give service to others and he said it's kind of a miracle that anybody joins this church. Ha ha. But we and they do because the Holy Ghost reveals that it is true. He said we should all be striving to continually improve in our lives by developing and improving keeping on going. We need to instruct and help others. Also we need to be put ourselves in positions where we can to be taught by the Spirit. Go to church. He said there's always people that will go to church and they say they feel nothing and others to go to the same meeting Will come out and say wasn't that a wonderful meeting. So we need to prepare ourselves to be willing to listen. So then he asked, after this meeting what will you change?  
what will you improve? Maybe it's to give up something up,  you have a habit that you need to let go of- a bad habit.  
Maybe it's something you need to do- study more. Or to be obedient. 
And this is a question he asked the missionaries - am I willing to change and willing to put my life in the Lords hands? 
And I think we can say the same thing of ourselves am I willing to improve and do the things that I need to. And then also said to us missionaries - what you learn here on your mission you can take into your life after your mission , so build strong good habits of study and prayer, and attending church. 
The kind of person you are on your mission will be the kind of person you will be forever. Good mothers and fathers, good companions working in unity and thoughtful of others. 
He also mentioned the missionaries are prayed about or prayed for every single day. By the general authorities by moms and dads, by family members, even those people who are hoping that they will come into their lives and teach them about Jesus Christ. that was pretty powerful for our missionaries to hear.

For our opening song we sang oh come let us adore him. And Elder Ballard used that song as a theme throughout his talk. He said he had a special calling to tell others about Jesus Christ. He said we know about Jesus Christ more than most other people do. We should adore him - it's a privilege to think of heavenly father and Jesus, and the gospel and for the plan of salvation. 
He told the missionaries talk to more people than you do. You have knowledge they want to know. 
I have not had a problem talking to others. But fun to hand someone a card about the church and tell them more. 

He said our confidence builds with knowledge so study and pray. The power of your smile is great also. Your smile radiates from your eyes also. Radiates through your spirit because you adore him! Do all you can each day because you adore him! 

Then he took questions from the missionaries. One question was how do I know if I am doing enough? He said if you go to bed tired and feel you have done your best then you have done enough. 
There will be hard days but don't let those hard days stop you. The lord loves you and cares about each of you! You are never alone! 

It was a powerful 2 hours. 
Then at evening we went to a different stake and they had a stake wide Christmas visit the nativity program. There were over 200 people singing, playing instruments and it was beautiful. Some jazzy tunes, hand clapping songs, spiritual songs. Primary age kids, youth and adults. One guy played a bass fiddle, some one played drums, guitar, violins, trumpet, quite a variety of songs and music. We were sitting mid way into the cultural hall and they had kids and youth along the aisles walking in and scenes along the sides. Really quite a production. Reminded me of all the scenery and people josh and liz had at their ward a few years ago. 

Love you all so much!! 
Mom 

Thank you and Merry Christmas from the Iversons

Dear friends,
Thank you so much for The merry Christmas letters. It was fun to see so many fun notes from all of you. Sounds like you had a great ward Christmas party. 

We have had an interesting fall here. Maybe I should put fall in quotes. We see a few trees have some colored leaves and the few leaves on the ground and it is getting cooler. It got down to about 55° one morning. So I thought I better wear a sweater. But we are enjoying this beautiful California winter. There are still oranges and lemons growing on the trees, and people in the fields picking strawberries and also lots of other crops. They have three seasons of growing here so they are able to produce lots of fruits and vegetables.
So I will enjoy not shoveling snow this winter. But you are welcome to come visit if you need to get away from any of the snow shoveling. Smile.

We get to work with these cute, fun missionaries. And we just had 12 more arrive from all over the world. It's fun to see their enthusiasm and desire to serve the Lord.
So every six weeks we have new missionaries coming in on a Monday. And then on Tuesday we have transfer days where the missionaries get transferred to new companions or new apartments or new cities. And then on Wednesday we have the returning missionaries departing. So on Mondays we are picking up missionaries from the  airport and and then on Wednesdays we are driving groups of missionaries to the airport for their return home to their families. So exciting times and busy times that week.
Then my job as mission secretary gets busy as I am making new rosters and changing phone directories of all the new companionships. But it's a great job and great people we get to work with.

As most of you know my mom passed away in October and then Steve's sister passed away in November. We will miss those sweet ladies in our lives, but also feel fortunate to have great memories of both of them. We had some very good talks with family while we went up to Minnesota for the funerals. Steve was asked to speak at his sisters funeral which is a very uncommon thing in the Lutheran Church. But he was able to put in a few LDS scripture quotes and quoted some ancient (Mormon) prophets. We were telling some people what we do on our mission and more about our church. So it was quite a missionary opportunity to share our beliefs and what we're doing. One of our young nieces about 12 years old told her mom that if more people shared their beliefs about Jesus like we do, there would be a lot less hate and crime in the world. So she was happy for what we were doing. So that made us feel really good.

We have a missionary fireside coming up this Saturday that we are all excited about. Elder Ballard and brother Hallstrom are coming to have a fireside conference with just the missionaries. So he wants to shake the hands of all the missionaries so that will  be fun to be able to have a general authority come and speak to us. He is also attending the stake conference in our mission on Sunday. But we get the privilege of having him on Saturday, so the missionaries are pretty excited. 

We have another fun experience coming up. We and some of the other senior missionaries in our mission are going on a whale watching cruise at the end of the month. So we are pretty excited to be able to see if we can find some whales  out there. As you may have guessed, the senior missionaries have different rules than the young missionaries. We can go in the water and even in a boat. The missionaries here are not even allowed to go on the beach, unless they are teaching someone at the beach.

If anybody is thinking about serving a mission anytime soon, our mission president has been told that there aren't as many senior missionaries volunteering to serve missions. So he is looking or trying to find people who are interested in serving a mission. We have a senior missionary couple who are going home in April and they work in the office With us. 
  So if any of you are interested in serving a mission or know of  anybody who might be, this is a great place to serve a mission.

We are also enjoying our stake calling as the self-reliance employment specialist. We have helped a number of people find jobs. And that's very rewarding to see the people get better jobs or to find a first new job. We have help people write resumes, given them a class on how to present themselves as you're going for an interview, how to budget some of their money, and what to tell the interviewer as they're being interviewed for a job. But it's really fun to be able to help people in that way. We gave a youth fireside a few weeks ago to the priest and Laurel's about how to present themselves for a job interview and also where to go to find a job. So that was fun to be able to work with the youth again.

Hope you all have a great holiday season and a merry Christmas. Thank you again for all the cute notes that you sent in those letters.
If you are following the light the world 25 days of Christmas, maybe you will recognize on December 16 our son, Seth and our grandson Henry on that video on that day. Thank you for all your well wishes and prayers on his behalf. He is halfway done with his radiation therapy and is doing better. Thank you so much for your prayers and faith on his behalf. We know prayers are answered and miracles have and are still happening. Thank you so very much! 

Merry Christmas! 
Love from,
Elder and Sister Iverson

Driving home from church

This is our view as we drive home from church each Sunday.  So beautiful.  

Pictures

Dad an I give our car awards at each of the 4 zone conferences for the cleanest car -inside and out. We give them a candy bar and a hot wheels car. They all seem to love it!!

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Senior missionaries at dinner:  When a new senior missionary couple comes in we get together for a dinner at the President home. We have eaten outside each time on the patio. We each bring something to share and Sister Felix usually provides the main dish. This time we are having French dip sandwiches. Always yummy food and fun talking to each other. Some are serving 2 hours north so we do not see them very often, just at these dinners and at zone conferences.

Oh we got news that we will be changing some of our zone conferences.

We will be having zone conferences every 6 weeks. We have been having them about 3 or 4 times a year. So lots more luncheons to plan!! But we get to see the missionaries more!

 

Transfer day.

Dad with some of the sister missionaries being transferred.

Some of the sisters with me giving me hugs. I am in the blue sweater. smile

Hi from Mom

Hi Family, 
It sure has been a busy month! So thankful I had some great talks with my mom before she passed away. I felt very fortunate to be able to spend some time with her before she passed away. She passed from being surrounded by her loved ones here onto being with loved ones in heaven that are excited that she's there with them now. The week before she passed away she had her 71st class reunion. It was a fun time for her to be able to meet with her classmates from years ago and they been having classrooms every year for the past couple years. Then two weeks before she passed away she had a fun time meeting with some of her cousins and they showed old movies when she was a child and of her parents and cousins so it was a fun little family reunion. And then with all of us kids gathering in Minnesota before she passed away I think she felt like she had talked with and greeted all the friends and family here on earth and it was OK to go on. Mom and I have been working on our family genealogy and had gotten a lot of it done and filled in. And we made copies for other family members and mailed those out to them so I think a lot of her family history work was finished for her to do. 
Being in Minnesota again for her funeral, was like a family reunion seeing all the distant cousins and aunts and uncles I haven't seen for a long time. So it was a good celebration of mom. I was flower girl in one of my cousins weddings and she was there. She was the short little 4 ft 10 inch lady that CHRISTIAN helped take luggage to her room. I never thought of my cousins and relatives as being short, they were just taller than me or regular size, but now as I am "taller" I see where I get all my height! Fun talking to relatives. We stayed over night at mark Iverson's when we flew in, then stopped in to se Cheri and stu after we picked up jessica and Claire at the airport. Fun to talk to them again. 

Funny as I landed back in California I thought of texting mom and letting her know that I had landed safely. Just kind of something we always did to let each other know that we were safe back in our homes. So I'm sure there will  be a few more times that we think about writing or calling mom and she won't be there but we love her and she is at rest! So thankful  for the good times and great memories. 

We have a new senior missionary couple in the mission. They arrived this past weekend. They will be making the mission pretty interesting since their last name is also Iverson!!. But they will be serving in another city so hopefully won't be too confusing. but that was pretty interesting to get another couple named Iverson. And they were trying to figure out what to call them the old Iverson's or  the new Iverson's. They're older in age than we are but we're older in the mission here. it is interesting to see them in person. He has gray hair like Dad and sister Iverson is short brunette!! They are calling them Iverson 2! 

We had 13 new missionaries arrive last Monday. And it was one crazy day. I got a phone call about 930 in the morning saying that one of their flights was canceled only to learn that the other 12 werek on the same flight. So then I was scurrying around trying to get different flights for them to still arrive together  because we have orientation meeting the next day. But it all worked out we got them on different airlines and Flights and even came into a different airport. But it all got worked out, but it was a crazy day on the phone making all sorts of calls and arrangements. 
Then we had transfer day where the missionaries get picked up by Elder Floyd and dad and take them to a new church building where they get transferred with the new companionship. He's usually in the van with the assistance as they pick up missionaries for about six hours,  While I am in the office getting lunch for the new missionaries and having an orientation meeting and telling them all sorts of fun things about the mission here.

Well Tuesday started out about 6 am elder Floyd called dad and said the pin had fallen out and the trailer was just hanging by the chains. So about an hour later I drove up to give them a new pin. Sure was crazy trying to get road side help. We just wanted them to deliver a pin but they only wanted to tow the trailer.  So got that all figured out with me driving up there. 

Then Wednesday we had departing missionaries leaving . And we took them to the airport and usually have to take two vehicles pulling a trailer with all their luggage. It is a sad and exciting day, sad for us to say goodbye but exciting that they've served a great mission and going to be with their families again.!!  But long days- we go to the mission home about 6;45 and get to the airport about 8:30. Then back to the office for a full day. 
The Mission presidents wife usually has them all over for breakfast and serves homemade waffles with nutella, and strawberries, and buttermilk syrup. So they usually have a good breakfast before they go on the flights. 

You've been pretty busy with our stake employment calling. So far we have found some good jobs for at least five people so far. And one of them is a Carpenter and he got a job doing framing work  So he's pretty excited about that. We're working with a couple other families and searching for jobs on the computer and helping teach them how to write a resume, and working with them on computer skills. Keeps us busy but is so rewarding to be able to help people find a good job, or help them get more education or training for future jobs. 

I know this may sound strange to you, but we're kind of missing the fall weather. It's still really nice out here and we have the windows open, and don't wear jackets. But kind of missing that nice cool fall weather. But I guess the evenings are cooling off a little bit more too. 

We had a ward Halloween trunk or treat night at the church Friday night. People signed up to bring chili or corn bread and then they judged the chili. I got 2nd place! And yes there were more than 2 entries. There were 15 different kinds of chili. I wanted to try more but had enough. There some really good corn bread. Some dry regular ones but others were moist and had bits of corn in it more like a corn pudding. And even some with jalapeno  in it. That was good. 

Oh a funny thing... Well that is funny to some and a headache for others. One of the missionaries had an accident and no injuries but the car had major repairs so they totaled the car. We finally got a brand new Malibu 2017. Came in and looks great. They put the tiwi gps in and the car died! Come to find out the tiwi computer system did nit work with the car computer so they took the car back and had to fix it so they both would work! But has been so frustrating for dad to figure out what was  wrong. . But it is all good now! 

We are doing great and staying busy. The stake president wants us to speak in each  of the wards talking about the self reliance program so working in those talks. So far we have 4 wards scheduled. Whew! We had our first one today and went well. But then they asked us to stay for the third hour to answer any questions. Well we got there had the opening prayer and he turned the whole time over to us. Wished he would had gotten it started with an introduction for the ward but we did ok and did use the whole time. Not as many questions as I would have hoped but it all worked out well. I want to revamp my talk and add some and delete  some. But after giving it once I see what they connect with and what to add or change. 

Tomorrow is Halloween and seems so strange not to have school parades and costumes and treats. Just regular office work. And no dressing up. Well dad will wear his Halloween tie with a big pumpkin on it, but still suit and missionary clothes. So hope you all have a fun and safe evening!, 

Love you!! 
Mom