Washington, D.C. South Mission

Dear Family, I am sorry this is a week late, but we have been having so much fun that I didn’t get a chance to get the weekly letter written. After Derek and family left we were back to the regular routine. Life is not nearly as much fun or busy without kids around. We spent Monday getting laundry done so the beds would be ready for Chelsea and Kent. Monday was a regular day at the office. Sometimes I wonder what I do, but I seem to stay busy and it is often 5:30 or so before I realize what time it is. In fact, when we left I packed up some things that I can do from home. When I take things home to work on, there are fewer distractions and bigger spaced to spread out so I can sort things easier. I forgot to get an alarm on my phone Monday evening, so we didn’t wake up on Tuesday until 7. That makes for a faster morning! I like to take it slower and have time to do our Come Follow Me in the morning before we leave. I will admit that sleeping in an hour felt good. After dinner I...

Dear Family, Here it is another week.  What a week we had!  Derek and Jessica and family arrived at church just in time for the sacrament last Sunday.  How fun it was to have them here with us—and they didn’t even complain about the tight quarters.  After church we went to see Arlington cemetery and the changing of the guard at the tomb on the unknown soldier.  It never ceases to amaze me how many people have given their lives to protect our liberty.  I wonder why I have been so blessed to be born in this country of freedom at this time when gospel is here.  How very blessed I feel.  We had a family discussion of what we were going to be studying in Come Follow Me this week.  We had four parables that we studied and tried to determine what they meant and how we could put them into practice in our lives.  Well done. Monday Derek and family went to Washington D.C. and did a bike tour of the Mall and enjoyed that a great deal....

Good Morning, Here it is another week gone by. Sometimes when I start the week on Monday and look ahead it seems like a long time until the week end again, but before I know it the week has raced by. This has been one of those weeks. Monday we got to the office a little early because we wanted to be able to be home in time to visit with Derek. He had a business meeting up in the Washington, D.C. area and was able to come and visit Monday evening. What a fun evening for us. What made saying good bye at the end of the evening ok was that he and the family will be coming to visit on Sunday!! We are trying to get ready for zone conferences this week. For me there isn’t a lot to do, but we have to get someone to watch the office if Dad and I want to go to any of them. The vehicle secretary has to make arrangements to get all of the cars inspected for safety as well as cleanliness. When Dad and I go we get to check the windows (rolling up and down smoothly), mileage, windshield wiper...

Dear Family, Mission News This was Zone Conference week. We had Zone Conferences Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. This meant that the office was quiet because the other two missionary couples are gone most of the day doing car inspections. Mom and I went for part of the day on Friday. The theme was “Finding through Members”. These missionaries get a ton more training that I got. At the zone conference that our neighbor that moved a few weeks ago, went to Church last Sunday. But it appears that he was not overly impressed. We will see. We told the Sisters that if they wanted us to come to a discussion, we would gladly come. I went to a district council to the Old Towne district in Mt. Vernon. This district is a Spanish speaking district, but they spoke in English while I was there. I left early so they could do their practice teaching in Spanish. On Friday we went on a teaching meeting with Nancy. This meeting was good. The missionaries taught most of the discussion on t...

Dear Family, Here it is another week gone by. It has been a good week and a busy week. Many new experiences and growing ones. This was transfer week and with that comes a lot of activity. We were losing 28 missionaries this transfer and that meant lots of exit interviews with the President. He does those at the office and that means lots of missionaries (exiting ones as well as their companions) in the office. It is fun to have their exuberance and goodness there, but it is a little harder to concentrate and get things done. We had 10 interviews on Friday and then 10 on Monday. Dad and I went over to the mission home around 7 to help put the finishing touches on the dinner for the 20 incoming missionaries. The 10 sisters arrived before the elders, so we got them started eating and President took one sister at a time for a 5-minute interview. He and Sister Caplin had determined that with a 5-minute interview that would take at least 1 hr and 40 minutes to get the interviews...

Dear Family, Mission News Monday, we got up at 3:30 to take Elder Ward to the airport on his way to Ecuador. The president interviewed 10 departing missionaries in the mission office. This brought a lot of missionaries to the office. It is fun to hang out with the missionaries, but it is hard to get anything done. In the evening we had dinner at the mission home with the 20 new missionaries. Mom and I take their pictures with our phones and the missionaries message their parents. Tuesday is Transfer Day – I am responsible for lunch, but I delegate it totally to Sister Chesbrough. Mom and I help out putting things out on the tables and she does most everything else. She just loves to cook and that’s great by me. After lunch Mom and I took 3 Visa Waiters to the airport Wednesday, we took the Nielsons out to dinner. They went home on Friday. They are great people and we enjoyed them and learned much from them. Thursday, I delivered phones to some of the visa-waiters. In the aftern...

Dear Family, Mission News The big news is that Mom completed the audit on Tuesday. The Church audits are not to punish the senior missionaries for making mistakes. It is more to find ways to improve processes. The auditor was friendly and helpful. We have some shortcomings and deviations that will need to be resolved. The office supposed to have 4 computers at most and we have 6. We don’t see how we can do the work with only 4. That is one deviation from church procedures that we might need the mission president go to bat for us. Monday night all of the seniors gathered at the mission home for dinner. We welcomed two new office couples and said thanks and farewell to Elder and Sister Nielson. They are great people that helped us so much. We will really miss them a lot. A sister (Sister Porter) who extended and her parents, who came to pick her up, also came to the dinner. After dinner the Nielsons shared their testimony and stories. President Caplin shared stories as the departi...