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Elder Nelson - Mom Passed the Audit!

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 departing sister.

Sister Porter told of a man they tracked into early in her mission. When they first met him, he was scraggly and unkept. When they invited him to church, he said, “I love to go to church after I have sinned!” He has attended church most every Sunday since then. When she last saw him towards the end of her mission, he was standing tall, looked shart and had no hint of his previous “attributes”. He transformation was amazing.

President Caplin told of a missionary who when he joined the Church his family took all of the family pictures in which he was in and burned them on the front lawn. They have never talked with him or returned his communication. The completely abandoned him. He is a strong and faithful elder.

A woman was contacted and taught by sister missionaries. She was converted, but her family who are devout born-again Christians hate the Church vehemently. She was afraid that her family would disown her if she were baptized. The abandoned elder had a chance to visit with this sister about her situation and he shared his experience. She decided to get baptized and then tell her family which she did. We don’t know how the family responded.

Mom celebrated the audit being over by coming to a district council to the Little River District on Wednesday. Our neighbor elders were there, and it was very fun for us.

We have 8 visa-waiters going to Ecuador. This week excitement was to see who was going to get visas this transfer (March 4-6). 4 are going and 4 are staying another transfer. We take one to the airport early Monday morning. We will have to wake up at 3:30am to get him there on time. We will take the other three Tuesday after noon.

We will get 3 visa-waiters on Tuesday. On is assigned to Ecuador, one Ukraine, one Australia.

Saturday, we took a sister to the airport that is leaving about one transfer early for some reason. Afterwards Mom needed to deliver a check to a sister who is leaving and somehow did not get money transferred her debit card. We then got some things at Costco for a Tuesday Train the Trainer meeting for the new missionaries. Mom made cookies that we took to a “friend” (investigator), but she was not home. We returned the port-a-crib and stroller Keri used to the bishop’s family with a plate of cookies. When I told the bishop that we put 15 miles on the stroller, he said, ”Good for you!” The port-a-crib was going out to someone else is a few days.

The baptism we attended was for a young Peruvian woman the sisters met on the street. The talks were especially good although unusual. One talk was by a convert whose family came joined the Church under similar circumstances. The YSA sister that gave the talk on the Gift of the Holy Ghost is a law student at George Washington. Earlier this week she asked the Lord to give her a spiritual experience that she could share in her talk. On the train home from school, she felt prompted to eat at Chic-Fillet. Although a strange prompting, she followed it. She saw a ward member having dinner with an older man. She waved but did not want to bother them. On the way out the door she felt she prompted to go back in and talk with them. The older man the ward member was talking to was her father - who is a lawyer. The speaker is a law student and she is having trouble finding an internship for the summer. All of the places she wanted to go, have not worked out. The father discussed her situation and the committed to helping her find an internship.

I thought it took some faith to ask for a spiritual experience for her talk.

Fun Stuff
Other than the district council, there was not too much fun this week.

Not fun is that Mom has been battling a cold for about two weeks. She coughs a lot especially in the morning. I got a bit of a cold a few days ago, but I feel very good now.

WES News
Profit this month was good. I have been a bit too busy to spend much time helping out. I think I need to spend a bit more time.

Family News
Derek and family are coming March 16 and Kent and Chelsea are coming the 29th.

Margret Marie celebrated her first birthday.

Love,
Dad

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