Skip to main content

Elder Nelson - Snow Delayed Flights and Masons

Dear Family,

Mission News
This was transfer week which is always a crazy time. I attempted to give flight information to the President, so he can pick up and drop off missionaries. On Monday 11 of our 16 new missionaries got stranded in Minneapolis and didn’t arrive until midnight.

Mom and I had dinner with the 5 missionaries at the mission home and took their pictures. It is fun to meet the new missionaries and feel their excitement.

Transfer day is on Tuesday. This time I had to make sure we had phones for the missionaries in new areas.

Wednesday the departing missionaries went to the Dulles Airport in the morning. Elder Shek was going home to Hong Kong at 6:15am. The rest of the missionaries’ flights were at 10:00am. So, Mom and I got up at 3:50am to take Elder Shek to the airport. He is a super missionary and it was a delight to talk with him for about a half hour. We were back home in bed before 5:30am.

Wednesday, I went to a district council meeting about an hour northwest on the mission office in Ashburn. While I was gone it was discovered that the missionaries leaving at 10:00 had their flights changed because of weather. Mom had to contact 7 parents and let them know their missionary’s arrival would be delayed.

Mom had a tough week because of transfers and lack of information from Salt Lake. Mom likes to do things right, but sometimes that is very hard, very frustrating. Hopefully this week will be much better.

Fun Stuff
Saturday, we spent about 3 hours at the George Washington Masonic Memorial in Arlington. George Washington was the most famous Mason and he did a lot with the Masons. When he laid the cornerstone for the capital building he and his fellow Masons dressed in their ceremonial clothes. About two dozen US Presidents were Grand Master Masons. The last one was Gerald Ford.

As far as I can tell the Masons are similar to Boy Scouts for adults. Anyone who believes in deity can joint. They have a code of conduct, rules of civility that they swear to uphold. They give a lot of service. The Shriner Hospitals are one example. In the early 1900’s they were quite popular, but I think they are waning in numbers a bit. See here.

They have tours that last about an hour. We went on one and a half tours. We enjoyed the visit.

At the top of the tower there is a 360 viewing platform. Mom and I could see the capital, but it is about 7 miles away. 
This is the Memorial Building. Can you find Mom? 
One of many statues of George Washington
The Knights Templar (early Masons?) defended the Christians who went to the temple during the time of the Crusades. I am standing in front of one the knights. 
WES News
It is property tax time again. Mom and I hate property tax. We will find somebody good to do it for us.

Family News
Kent in the Canyons 
Chelsea and Elizabeth enjoying ice cream at the end of a visit to the Dinosaur Museum at the Point of the Mountain. This date with Chelsea was Elizabeth’s birthday gift. 
McKay and Elizabeth enjoying a snow day. 
Derek and family went for a bike ride around their new house.
They met their neighbor – all 6’ of him. I am sure he is friendly – look at his smile.
Love,
Dad

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sister Nelson - Transfer Week

Dear Family, Well, this was transfer week and that always makes life interesting. Monday I spent the day getting all of the rent checks printed and mailed. Some of them have changed where they want the checks delivered and I haven’t been able to get them changed in IMOS yet. It is not because I haven’t tried, but I didn’t have time to worry about it this month, so I printed the checks and then typed envelopes manually with the address that needed to be on the checks. We also had missionaries coming into the office to get their exit interviews and that is fun to visit with them. These are missionaries that we have known for almost a year and it is getting harder and harder to see them go home with each transfer. It is, pretty amazing, to compare their pictures of when they came with the people they have become—both physically and spiritually. We are so impressed with the missionaries here. Dad had to leave to go get a 15-passenger van to help pick up the missionaries from the ai...
Post a Comment
Read more

Elder Nelson - Mt. Vernon

Dear Family, We are still working about 10-hour days, but we now know more of what we are doing. There are still things we don’t know, but those mysteries are much fewer and less frequent than 2 weeks ago. The couple we replaced, Elder and Sister Beus, left September 10, 2018. We arrived October 2, 2018. Before the Beus’ left, the Judson’s came to fill in the breach. They served in the office 5 years ago and kept things going until we came. They have been coming in about 3 times a week to train us and help us out. But we are far enough along that we will now call them only when we are stuck. I am going to run my stuff mostly on the computer. I will still have files but many of them will be on the computer instead of paper files. My calendaring will be done more on the computer. I think in a month or two I will be able to get my current tasks done in 6 hours a day. I will then be able to help out elsewhere or do some creative things. Friday, we got a free Papa John’s pizza. The ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sister Nelson - Anniversary and Thanksgiving

Dear Family: This may be short letter because my hands are tired and I know that if I don’t get the letter done today, it will take weeks. This has been a fun, full week. We started this week off bright and early. It was our anniversary and we arrived at the office at 8 am. It was probably because we didn’t stop and fix a lunch but decided to come home and have lunch here. While we were home for lunch, Garn got a phone call from President Caplin asking him if he could arrange for a ride to the airport for one of the sisters. Not wanting to take more of our share of being with the missionaries, Garn called another senior couple to see if they could do it. They had meetings that prevented them from helping out and it was getting close to the time that she needed picking up. We decided to do it ourselves. We called the office to get them to send the travel plans that had come since the time we left the office. We picked her up at her apartment, talked with her companions a mi...
Post a Comment
Read more