Oh, What Do You Do In the Summertime?

I thought our Church History tour earlier this summer
was pretty exciting and adventurous.  

While 5 Magnussons were flying to the East Coast 

and then driving across the country by bus,......

....Kristine was traveling to far away exotic places on the other side of the world.

In Tahiti...

She was becoming one with nature.

She was catching...... 

.....gutting... 

...and eating raw fish.

She was also drinking coconut and rain water.  

 (because there was no running water)

A couple of weeks later in Saipan....

....she was diving...

 ....and visiting WWII remains... 

...in and out of the water.

She was working. 

Really, she was.

She was doing research 

 and collecting marine  invertebrates.
(sea creatures without backbones)

We're glad she got on the plane to come home  :)

Her adventures puts a whole new twist to the Primary song, Oh, What Do You Do In the Summertime?.

Click here to read the article that was written up on the BYU Hawaii's homepage about their trip to Saipan.

Gems from Lisa's First Email Home

How to be fluent in Spanish in 9 weeks:

 ..."we taught our first lesson EN ESPANOL to an "investigator" yesterday (that would be our second full day of being here).  and we have a follow-up lesson with him today ... nerve wracking.  but, this teaching method is so inspired.  we must teach even though we don't have the language skills to really teach--so we learn humility and faith real quick.  plus, we are more motivated to learn!  there are so many resources available to us, though.  preach my gospel (PMG) is awesome, and they really utilize technology here.  we have time everyday to go to a computer lab and do lessons in grammer, vocab, phrases, speaking, doctrine--all in our language, and all based off the lessons in PMG--and we can choose the lessons based on our needs and go at our own pace.  this really helps to supplement the instruction we get from our teacher.  we have also learned to pray in spanish and all our prayers are to be in spanish.  right now, mine are mostly a funny mix of spanish and english, but i say what i can."


Life with 19 year old Elders: 

 "....we do everything with our district (10 of us)...classes, workshops, planning, meals, gym...all of us are going spanish speaking.  4 to salta, and the rest to ft. lauderdale and phoenix.  the elders are definititely 19 years old, but funny and not intolerable.  (i just helped one with his laundry. "...hermana? can i wash this towel with my whites? how do i turn on the washer?")  funny." 

What Lisa knows:

 "...love you all!  i know that Heavenly Father is aware of us and wants us to be happy.  i know that if we put our faith in him, we will be blessed.  there is power in the scriptures!"

Let the Fun Begin!

Sam registered for school this morning.  

Go Ye Into All the World. . . Mark 16:15

Goodbye, Lisa!  See you in 18 months.

 Her last walk on the bike trail on Sunday night

 With the Stake Presidency....

She'll be arriving at the Provo Missionary Training Center this afternoon 

where she will be studying Spanish and receive her missionary training.  

After her MTC experience she'll be off to Salta, Argentina in October.  

You can read about what she'll be doing in Argentina here.  

You can email Lisa at:

lisa.magnusson@myldsmail.net

Her mailing address while she is at the MTC is:

Sister Lisa Magnusson
Provo MTC Box #251

ARG- SAL 1018
2005 N 900 E
Provo, UT 84604-1793

I know she'd love to hear from you!

Sam, Basketball, and The New Era

Sam is a great example to his basketball teammates.  He has shared his beliefs and values with the members of his high school team on several occasions.  He wrote an article about his experiences and the New Era published it in the Sept. 2011 issue!  You can read what he wrote:

Understand Doctrine

Finding the Answers

By Sam Magnusson

I have two big things in my life: church and sports. I found out that I had to combine the two when I tried out for my high school basketball team.

I started going to practice during the summer right before my freshman year. As I got to know the older players and their personalities, they started to notice I didn’t do a lot of things they did—I didn’t cuss, smoke, do drugs, look at pornography, or even go on dates yet. They started to make fun of me slightly. In a high school of about 1,500 students, only 4 of us are members of the Church. So you can guess we got teased a bit. But it didn’t bother me much, and I was happy to stand up for what I knew was true.

As the season drew on, my teammates started to ask me more about the Church. There weren’t big, important questions, just things like “Why don’t you date?” Then one day during study hall, some of the players started talking about their families, and that conversation turned to religion. So they asked deeper questions about the Church like “What is repentance?” and “Do you believe in a heaven and a hell?”

I always carry a copy of For the Strength of Youth in my backpack, so I pulled it out to help answer their questions. We talked about the Church for over an hour. When it was over, there were two questions I could not answer. I promised to look up the answers and get back to them. That night I looked up the answers, and my mom suggested I bring extra copies of For the Strength of the Youth and also the book True to the Faith.

The next day while we studied together, when the boys asked questions, I pulled out the books and passed them around. We had another long and deep discussion about the Church. I asked if anyone wanted to keep the books, and some people did. Later that week we had another talk about other churches, not just mine, and my coach, who is very religious, talked about his and other beliefs.

I don’t know if anything good will come out of this, but I know that my team members now know more about the true gospel and why I am different from them. My testimony had been strengthened, and I have gained the courage to talk about and stand up for what I know is right and true.

BYU Hawaii - Refining Genuine Gold

After viewing the  video you will understand why we are so glad that Kristine has been able to attend BYU Hawaii for the past 3 years.  She leaves in a few weeks to finish up her last year of her college education.  We are proud of Kristine for her accomplishments and who she is.  

The Du-roq Was Rocking on Second Street!

Last night Second Street celebrated the 2011 Annual National Night Out along with other residents of Duarte.

We appreciate the Temple City Sheriffs taking care of us here in Duarte.  The officer reported that compared to past years, crime is down in our city.  

Just waiting for the neighbors  to come....

We served chocolate waffles.  Yum!  You can get the recipe by clicking here.

(Click on the picture to check out the toppings for the waffles)

Late Bloomers

We were gone on our church history tour for three weeks starting June 20th. Because we were gone for so long, we  purposefully didn't plant our summer garden until we came back the middle of July.  

We did plant some tomatoes plants just before we left because they don't need a lot of attention.

This is our garden today. We planed these plants from pony packs about one month ago.

Here is a yellow zucchini that is just beginning to grow.
Yea for late bloomers!

We planted lettuce from seeds a month ago

Pepper plants

Our first red tomato from the plants we planted just before we left.  

Thanks to our neighbor, Scott,  for watering them while we were away.  

I can hardly wait to have a BLT with some of our home grown tomatoes.  

 I bought some bacon today.