Dear Family,
Sorry this is a little late. I opted for a nap Sunday afternoon instead of writing my letter and it was too late to write after we got back from the fireside. More about that later.
Sometimes it is hard to write about the week because they seem to run together. We try to get to the office by 8 and don’t often leave until between 6-7. By the time we get dinner and do a little with WES and read in the Book of Mormon we don’t get much done.
Monday the Mission President was in the office in the afternoon and that always makes things a little hectic. Sister Caplin often spends time with Dad to try to get all of the items on the calendar and to let him know what is coming up. We are having a couple of mission tours which are changing up the schedule a bit. We won’t have any zone conferences because of the visits. Elder Bennett is coming to tour the mission and after that Elder B Kenneth Packer is coming. He is President Boyd K. Packer’s grandson and was also the trainer for President Caplin in the MTC. While Dad was doing that I was working with President Caplin trying to make sure that we knew exactly how many missionaries we would have in the field on transfer day next Tuesday. We were expecting 13 new missionaries from the MTC to arrive on transfer day, but got notice that we would be getting 5 waiters (all Spanish speaking heading for Ecuador). We were just getting our heads wrapped around that and all that means—new apartments, car distribution, 18 new missionaries needing to be trained, etc. President Caplin had received a phone call from one of our other waiters saying “I feel impressed to call you and tell you that my mother says that travel has my travel plans ready for Somoa.” President was glad that he called, but was not happy that Salt Lake had not informed him that the missionary was leaving on Sunday. I told him that I had received a call from another waiter asking if I had heard anything about her visa because she had heard kind of 3rd hand that she could be going to Bulgaria as early as the 31st. The transfer board was changing with each minute that passed. So he called Salt Lake to find out if they had any other changes. He found out that we had one missionary leaving on Sunday, one on Monday, and two leaving about the Middle of November and one the first part of December. Things were a bit tense for a while because President was trying to get ready for a mission president’s seminar in Ohio and he was trying to get transfers taken care of before he left. Needless to say, Monday was a late night leaving the office.
Tuesday I spent most of the day trying to get the base payment for all of the missionaries ready to be paid. I needed to take care of all of our current missionaries as well as all of the new ones coming and the ones leaving. I don’t mind the reports if I knew where to go to get the information. Salt Lake is going to be on first name basis with me soon, but they are so kind and polite and helpful.
Wednesday we had to get into the office a little early because we had volunteered to drive the President and Sister Caplin to the airport. They were a little late getting to the office because they had some last minute people coming to their home for upkeep that delayed their departure. He drove to the airport in the mission van and it was an interesting experience. We traveled in heavy (for VA, but doesn’t quite meet CA) traffic but made it on time. Dad and I drove back much slower and calmer and had some good laughs over the trip. The rest of the day was lack luster after our drive to the airport. I spent some time trying to help one of our leaving missionaries get some traveling money. He was on his was to Samoa and they are a cash society meaning that he was never given a debit card in order to buy is food etc. We had to put money on his companion’s card. Because the interim person doing the funding of cards didn’t realize that he didn’t have a card, he didn’t get paid for the month of October. Needless to say he was pretty low on funds. Without the president being around to make the decision, I had to do some texting to see what he wanted me to do.
We set the alarm so that we would remember to call Emma for her birthday. We were sure that she would want to hear from her when we got up at 6 a.m. We waited and called her after we got home in the evening. This time difference can really make connecting with an earlier time zone interesting.
Hopefully next month with transfers and money needing to go onto the missionaries’ cards things will go more smoothly because I will have done it once before. We were more than ready for the week end to come. We did our grocery shopping so we would have time to do the mission’s shopping on Saturday.
Saturday we spent the morning shopping for food for the luncheon for the “Train the Trainer” meeting. And then we spent time baking corn bread for the trunk or treating. For some reason we got busy baking and Dad doing research on mission blogs that we were late for the ward party. They were cleaning up the chili/corn bread by the time we got there. Guess we will be eating a lot of corn bread for the next little while.
Sunday was a really good day at church. There was a young girl getting ready to go on her mission. She and her father spoke. The talks were well prepared and I learned a lot from them. As I watched this family interact with each other before church started I could tell that they enjoyed each other. I don’t know them well, but it made my heart happy to see the joy they had from being a family.
That evening we went to a fireside called Newly Baptized or Returning Members. They had asked 3 people to share their conversion stories and another person telling of her returning experience. It was a very tender fireside to see how the gospel changed people’s lives. I think that because I have always had the gospel in my life I haven’t seen the dramatic changes that come with finding the gospel. Certainly we all change and grow but those changes aren’t always as big as when you find something new. Anyway, it was interesting to hear of a man from Persia who came to America and accepted the gospel even at the risk of losing his family. Another girl had had a friend her whole life who had share the gospel with her their whole life. This friend went on a mission to Japan and this girl came to Virginia to go to school. She met the missionaries and decided to study with the missionaries. Well, she joined the church and her friend’s mission president gave the Japanese missionary permission to skype some of the lessons with her childhood friend and help teach her. When it came time for the baptism, the mission president gave permission for the missionary friend to be able to skype the baptism. The girl in Virginia said we talk about 18-month or 24-month missions, but her friend had been on a 20 year mission. It was a wonderful evening and we enjoyed being there with the missionaries and seeing their joy as they interacted with the people that they had help to teach. We really have some wonderful young missionaries here and we enjoy watching them and seeing what obedient servants they are.
Sometimes it is hard to write about the week because they seem to run together. We try to get to the office by 8 and don’t often leave until between 6-7. By the time we get dinner and do a little with WES and read in the Book of Mormon we don’t get much done.
Monday the Mission President was in the office in the afternoon and that always makes things a little hectic. Sister Caplin often spends time with Dad to try to get all of the items on the calendar and to let him know what is coming up. We are having a couple of mission tours which are changing up the schedule a bit. We won’t have any zone conferences because of the visits. Elder Bennett is coming to tour the mission and after that Elder B Kenneth Packer is coming. He is President Boyd K. Packer’s grandson and was also the trainer for President Caplin in the MTC. While Dad was doing that I was working with President Caplin trying to make sure that we knew exactly how many missionaries we would have in the field on transfer day next Tuesday. We were expecting 13 new missionaries from the MTC to arrive on transfer day, but got notice that we would be getting 5 waiters (all Spanish speaking heading for Ecuador). We were just getting our heads wrapped around that and all that means—new apartments, car distribution, 18 new missionaries needing to be trained, etc. President Caplin had received a phone call from one of our other waiters saying “I feel impressed to call you and tell you that my mother says that travel has my travel plans ready for Somoa.” President was glad that he called, but was not happy that Salt Lake had not informed him that the missionary was leaving on Sunday. I told him that I had received a call from another waiter asking if I had heard anything about her visa because she had heard kind of 3rd hand that she could be going to Bulgaria as early as the 31st. The transfer board was changing with each minute that passed. So he called Salt Lake to find out if they had any other changes. He found out that we had one missionary leaving on Sunday, one on Monday, and two leaving about the Middle of November and one the first part of December. Things were a bit tense for a while because President was trying to get ready for a mission president’s seminar in Ohio and he was trying to get transfers taken care of before he left. Needless to say, Monday was a late night leaving the office.
Tuesday I spent most of the day trying to get the base payment for all of the missionaries ready to be paid. I needed to take care of all of our current missionaries as well as all of the new ones coming and the ones leaving. I don’t mind the reports if I knew where to go to get the information. Salt Lake is going to be on first name basis with me soon, but they are so kind and polite and helpful.
Wednesday we had to get into the office a little early because we had volunteered to drive the President and Sister Caplin to the airport. They were a little late getting to the office because they had some last minute people coming to their home for upkeep that delayed their departure. He drove to the airport in the mission van and it was an interesting experience. We traveled in heavy (for VA, but doesn’t quite meet CA) traffic but made it on time. Dad and I drove back much slower and calmer and had some good laughs over the trip. The rest of the day was lack luster after our drive to the airport. I spent some time trying to help one of our leaving missionaries get some traveling money. He was on his was to Samoa and they are a cash society meaning that he was never given a debit card in order to buy is food etc. We had to put money on his companion’s card. Because the interim person doing the funding of cards didn’t realize that he didn’t have a card, he didn’t get paid for the month of October. Needless to say he was pretty low on funds. Without the president being around to make the decision, I had to do some texting to see what he wanted me to do.
We set the alarm so that we would remember to call Emma for her birthday. We were sure that she would want to hear from her when we got up at 6 a.m. We waited and called her after we got home in the evening. This time difference can really make connecting with an earlier time zone interesting.
Hopefully next month with transfers and money needing to go onto the missionaries’ cards things will go more smoothly because I will have done it once before. We were more than ready for the week end to come. We did our grocery shopping so we would have time to do the mission’s shopping on Saturday.
Saturday we spent the morning shopping for food for the luncheon for the “Train the Trainer” meeting. And then we spent time baking corn bread for the trunk or treating. For some reason we got busy baking and Dad doing research on mission blogs that we were late for the ward party. They were cleaning up the chili/corn bread by the time we got there. Guess we will be eating a lot of corn bread for the next little while.
Sunday was a really good day at church. There was a young girl getting ready to go on her mission. She and her father spoke. The talks were well prepared and I learned a lot from them. As I watched this family interact with each other before church started I could tell that they enjoyed each other. I don’t know them well, but it made my heart happy to see the joy they had from being a family.
That evening we went to a fireside called Newly Baptized or Returning Members. They had asked 3 people to share their conversion stories and another person telling of her returning experience. It was a very tender fireside to see how the gospel changed people’s lives. I think that because I have always had the gospel in my life I haven’t seen the dramatic changes that come with finding the gospel. Certainly we all change and grow but those changes aren’t always as big as when you find something new. Anyway, it was interesting to hear of a man from Persia who came to America and accepted the gospel even at the risk of losing his family. Another girl had had a friend her whole life who had share the gospel with her their whole life. This friend went on a mission to Japan and this girl came to Virginia to go to school. She met the missionaries and decided to study with the missionaries. Well, she joined the church and her friend’s mission president gave the Japanese missionary permission to skype some of the lessons with her childhood friend and help teach her. When it came time for the baptism, the mission president gave permission for the missionary friend to be able to skype the baptism. The girl in Virginia said we talk about 18-month or 24-month missions, but her friend had been on a 20 year mission. It was a wonderful evening and we enjoyed being there with the missionaries and seeing their joy as they interacted with the people that they had help to teach. We really have some wonderful young missionaries here and we enjoy watching them and seeing what obedient servants they are.
That about does it for another week. Know that we love you and pray for you daily.
Sending much love,
Mom
Sending much love,
Mom
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