Dear Family,
Here it is another Sunday and time to review the week and see what we have learned and try to remember the tender mercies from the Lord.
This week has been relatively quiet in comparison to last week. Monday we came in and worked on picking up the pieces from last week and being gone so much of the time. It wasn’t too bad. I wonder if I am getting a better handle on things or it is just quieter. One thing for certain is that since having such a bad end of January with SO many of our February checks not making it to their destinations, I have FedExed about 13 payments and that really helped. It costs $5 instead of $.50 to send these payments, but we don’t have the 10% late payments or threats to send the account to the lawyers. In the end the mission probably saves money.
Tuesday I was looking at the calendar for May and noticed a new luncheon scheduled for a Saturday during the Mission tour. So I asked one of the other senior sisters in the office if she knew anything about it. She didn’t and we began looking at the mission tour schedule a little closer and realized that we have a lot of dinners and lunches that we will at least need to coordinate if not prepare. We spent some time on the phone with Sister Caplin getting more answers about the schedule. She has so much to do that we feel we should take the meals off her “plate”. While we were doing that we decided to get the senior dinner with the mission president/wife assigned out. That will be on April 29th. It will be so fun to “party”, but we are going to get a lot of opportunities to do that in the next couple of weeks.
Wednesday was the start of our zone conferences. Technically we shouldn’t have had to have them this transfer because we are having a mission tour with Elder Haney from the area presidency coming, BUT Salt Lake had scheduled the installation of new TiWi’s in all of the missionaries’ cars so we had to have all the cars brought in to get the new ones installed. They had flown the installers in to do it. However, instead of having an all zone conference we had half-day ones and then President did his interviews afterwards. He has to interview all missionaries once a transfer—with 170+ that is a lot of people to interview. Anyway, Garn went to this first one to see what was going to be said about phone usage after the 10:30 bed time. President has asked him to check with each of the missionaries that have usage after hours. He has found that for the most part there are good reasons for the usage—one elder face times him parents in China. Because of the time difference that means he calls around 4 am. It was still not one of his favorite jobs. While he was gone to the zone conference that left me in the office all by myself and that gets pretty quiet. There has got to be a happy medium between no one else there and scads of people coming and going all day long.
Thursday Garn and I were alone in the office until around 3 because of the other two couples having assignments at the conference. Dad spent the afternoon getting the equipment ready to have the Mission Presidency meeting in the evening. They have determined that it is easier if everyone if they do a face-time meeting with everyone joining the meeting from their own homes. Garn, however, has to go into the mission office because it has better internet than our apartment has and he doesn’t want our less than robust internet because of any problems for the meeting. After getting it all arranged, he found out that President wanted to cancel the meeting—he had a son here visiting and had not had a chance to visit with him due to the zone conferences.
Friday was our day to go to the zone conference. There is a senior couple who live at home and are in charge of all of the self reliance programs who have been kind enough to come and babysit the office so we can go to one of the zone conferences. When we first got there we helped with the car checks; our part being the checking of the windows going up and down, the horn working, the wipers working, the mileage, the headlights, parking lights, brake lights, back up lights and all four blinkers working. It takes about an hour to get that chore done.
This conference was wonderful. They talked about having charity, what it was, how we obtained it, and why it is so important. The discussion, led by President Caplin, was very thought provoking and the comments he was able to get from the missionaries showed a gospel maturity that I certainly did not have at their age. We are so impressed with the caliber of these young people. President and Sister Caplin’s son who is a history professor at Snow College was here visiting so they had him give a little of the historical background for the Passover dinner. We learned how everything in the dinner points to the Savior. It was a wonderful, uplifting conference and we were grateful to have been able to come and hear. We are so grateful for kind people who make it possible to us to do so.
Driving back to the office, we drove through a down pour. I have not seen drops so large in size or so loud in sound. We could hardly see the road. We did, however, get back to the office safely. Boy, is it hard to get back and work after being gone. I guess that is why we always say “work first, play later”.
We went home and were changing into comfortable clothes when we got a text from the office missionaries asking if we could help with a discussion with Nancy. We said sure and changed back into our office attire. As I was changing, I had the thought that maybe Nancy would like to go to the Women’s Conference being held the next day at the stake center. I hadn’t been too sure that I was going to go, but decided to ask her anyway.
When we got to their house, I took off my shoes because it had been raining and didn’t want to get water all over the living room carpet. The lesson was going quite well when Isabella (the big black lab) got lazily up and wandered out into the entry way and turned toward the kitchen. I could see that she stopped and I thought, “she is going to get one of my shoes”. She continued into the kitchen then came around to the dining room which can be seen from the living room. Yup, she had something black in her mouth. I didn’t want to disturb the lesson and wondered if I would be getting some new shoes. Isabella came back around to the entry way and then into the living room with the shoe in her mouth. She wouldn’t let me take it from her, but one of the missionaries got it from her. She immediately went out into the entry way and got the other shoe. This time she brought it directly into the living room and again passed me by to take it to the missionary. He took it from her and put them on the couch by him and I was able to go home with shoes not too wet from being in a dog’s mouth.
When the lesson was over I asked Nancy if she would like to go to the conference with me and was a little surprised at how quickly she said yes. I told her I would pick her up fearing that if I left her to her own devices she might change her mind at the last minute. A good ending to a good day!
Saturday I picked her up and we got to the stake center on time and without taking scenic detours. The conference was on discovering our spiritual gifts and then with that knowledge learning to use them to bring forth the work of God. There was a sweet sister from the Spanish ward in our stake who was asked to offer the opening prayer and she had jokingly asked the stake Relief Society President if she could pray in Spanish and was told of course. I turned to Nancy and said, you can really understand the prayer now. At the last minute this sweet sister prayed in English. After the presentation we had a light lunch. We went and got our lunch and then went back to our table. I thought Nancy was with me, but when I got back to our table she wasn’t with me. I looked around and she was at the table where the Spanish sisters had been sitting (where translation had been taking place) visiting with some of the sisters. As we were sitting down, this lady that gave the prayer came over to talk with us and I discovered that she was Nancy’s first cousin. What are the odds?!! This sweet lady who is a relative of Nancy’s is a member of the church. Nancy had come to the states before this sister had, so they were not as close as they would have been had they been geographically closer while growing up, but they did know each other. This could be instrumental in helping Nancy come to see the need of the gospel. We will have to wait and see what happens. That was a really sweet experience. I asked Nancy if she had enjoyed the conference and she said, “Yes, I don’t have words to express myself”.
I got home and it was almost time to get ready for the baptism. It was a good baptism and was good to see this sweet sister find the gospel. It was also enjoyable to see so many of the senior couples there, too. I don’t know if it is because they are familiar faces to me among the sea of less familiar faces, or if it is because we are fellow missionaries that it is so good to see them. We were sitting there and I saw another familiar face come in. It was Johnathan Peart who had been a member of the Santa Clara Ward for about 10 years, but they had moved to Virginia so that they could afford a home. He and his wife Rachel (Fredrickson) live in our mission. I had thought they had moved to South Carolina, but that was where he grew up not where they moved. What are the odds that he would come to this baptism—we have been to a couple of baptisms in the Centreville building. Anyway, we had a nice visit with him. What a day of coincidences.
We did our grocery shopping on the way home and then made arrangement to do some missionary switching on Monday morning. If we do it, then President can have his p-day on Monday to be with his son.
Sunday was another great day. The talks were on forgiveness and they had a good message. One of them made the comment that forgiving allows families and friends to be more united. We will need to know how to do this if we want to be with our families eternally which is where we want to be.
We are going to go to a fireside this evening and that about wraps up our week.
Again, know that we love you lots and pray for your well being,
Mom
P.S. Nancy with Isabella
Here it is another Sunday and time to review the week and see what we have learned and try to remember the tender mercies from the Lord.
This week has been relatively quiet in comparison to last week. Monday we came in and worked on picking up the pieces from last week and being gone so much of the time. It wasn’t too bad. I wonder if I am getting a better handle on things or it is just quieter. One thing for certain is that since having such a bad end of January with SO many of our February checks not making it to their destinations, I have FedExed about 13 payments and that really helped. It costs $5 instead of $.50 to send these payments, but we don’t have the 10% late payments or threats to send the account to the lawyers. In the end the mission probably saves money.
Tuesday I was looking at the calendar for May and noticed a new luncheon scheduled for a Saturday during the Mission tour. So I asked one of the other senior sisters in the office if she knew anything about it. She didn’t and we began looking at the mission tour schedule a little closer and realized that we have a lot of dinners and lunches that we will at least need to coordinate if not prepare. We spent some time on the phone with Sister Caplin getting more answers about the schedule. She has so much to do that we feel we should take the meals off her “plate”. While we were doing that we decided to get the senior dinner with the mission president/wife assigned out. That will be on April 29th. It will be so fun to “party”, but we are going to get a lot of opportunities to do that in the next couple of weeks.
Wednesday was the start of our zone conferences. Technically we shouldn’t have had to have them this transfer because we are having a mission tour with Elder Haney from the area presidency coming, BUT Salt Lake had scheduled the installation of new TiWi’s in all of the missionaries’ cars so we had to have all the cars brought in to get the new ones installed. They had flown the installers in to do it. However, instead of having an all zone conference we had half-day ones and then President did his interviews afterwards. He has to interview all missionaries once a transfer—with 170+ that is a lot of people to interview. Anyway, Garn went to this first one to see what was going to be said about phone usage after the 10:30 bed time. President has asked him to check with each of the missionaries that have usage after hours. He has found that for the most part there are good reasons for the usage—one elder face times him parents in China. Because of the time difference that means he calls around 4 am. It was still not one of his favorite jobs. While he was gone to the zone conference that left me in the office all by myself and that gets pretty quiet. There has got to be a happy medium between no one else there and scads of people coming and going all day long.
Thursday Garn and I were alone in the office until around 3 because of the other two couples having assignments at the conference. Dad spent the afternoon getting the equipment ready to have the Mission Presidency meeting in the evening. They have determined that it is easier if everyone if they do a face-time meeting with everyone joining the meeting from their own homes. Garn, however, has to go into the mission office because it has better internet than our apartment has and he doesn’t want our less than robust internet because of any problems for the meeting. After getting it all arranged, he found out that President wanted to cancel the meeting—he had a son here visiting and had not had a chance to visit with him due to the zone conferences.
Friday was our day to go to the zone conference. There is a senior couple who live at home and are in charge of all of the self reliance programs who have been kind enough to come and babysit the office so we can go to one of the zone conferences. When we first got there we helped with the car checks; our part being the checking of the windows going up and down, the horn working, the wipers working, the mileage, the headlights, parking lights, brake lights, back up lights and all four blinkers working. It takes about an hour to get that chore done.
This conference was wonderful. They talked about having charity, what it was, how we obtained it, and why it is so important. The discussion, led by President Caplin, was very thought provoking and the comments he was able to get from the missionaries showed a gospel maturity that I certainly did not have at their age. We are so impressed with the caliber of these young people. President and Sister Caplin’s son who is a history professor at Snow College was here visiting so they had him give a little of the historical background for the Passover dinner. We learned how everything in the dinner points to the Savior. It was a wonderful, uplifting conference and we were grateful to have been able to come and hear. We are so grateful for kind people who make it possible to us to do so.
Driving back to the office, we drove through a down pour. I have not seen drops so large in size or so loud in sound. We could hardly see the road. We did, however, get back to the office safely. Boy, is it hard to get back and work after being gone. I guess that is why we always say “work first, play later”.
We went home and were changing into comfortable clothes when we got a text from the office missionaries asking if we could help with a discussion with Nancy. We said sure and changed back into our office attire. As I was changing, I had the thought that maybe Nancy would like to go to the Women’s Conference being held the next day at the stake center. I hadn’t been too sure that I was going to go, but decided to ask her anyway.
When we got to their house, I took off my shoes because it had been raining and didn’t want to get water all over the living room carpet. The lesson was going quite well when Isabella (the big black lab) got lazily up and wandered out into the entry way and turned toward the kitchen. I could see that she stopped and I thought, “she is going to get one of my shoes”. She continued into the kitchen then came around to the dining room which can be seen from the living room. Yup, she had something black in her mouth. I didn’t want to disturb the lesson and wondered if I would be getting some new shoes. Isabella came back around to the entry way and then into the living room with the shoe in her mouth. She wouldn’t let me take it from her, but one of the missionaries got it from her. She immediately went out into the entry way and got the other shoe. This time she brought it directly into the living room and again passed me by to take it to the missionary. He took it from her and put them on the couch by him and I was able to go home with shoes not too wet from being in a dog’s mouth.
When the lesson was over I asked Nancy if she would like to go to the conference with me and was a little surprised at how quickly she said yes. I told her I would pick her up fearing that if I left her to her own devices she might change her mind at the last minute. A good ending to a good day!
Saturday I picked her up and we got to the stake center on time and without taking scenic detours. The conference was on discovering our spiritual gifts and then with that knowledge learning to use them to bring forth the work of God. There was a sweet sister from the Spanish ward in our stake who was asked to offer the opening prayer and she had jokingly asked the stake Relief Society President if she could pray in Spanish and was told of course. I turned to Nancy and said, you can really understand the prayer now. At the last minute this sweet sister prayed in English. After the presentation we had a light lunch. We went and got our lunch and then went back to our table. I thought Nancy was with me, but when I got back to our table she wasn’t with me. I looked around and she was at the table where the Spanish sisters had been sitting (where translation had been taking place) visiting with some of the sisters. As we were sitting down, this lady that gave the prayer came over to talk with us and I discovered that she was Nancy’s first cousin. What are the odds?!! This sweet lady who is a relative of Nancy’s is a member of the church. Nancy had come to the states before this sister had, so they were not as close as they would have been had they been geographically closer while growing up, but they did know each other. This could be instrumental in helping Nancy come to see the need of the gospel. We will have to wait and see what happens. That was a really sweet experience. I asked Nancy if she had enjoyed the conference and she said, “Yes, I don’t have words to express myself”.
I got home and it was almost time to get ready for the baptism. It was a good baptism and was good to see this sweet sister find the gospel. It was also enjoyable to see so many of the senior couples there, too. I don’t know if it is because they are familiar faces to me among the sea of less familiar faces, or if it is because we are fellow missionaries that it is so good to see them. We were sitting there and I saw another familiar face come in. It was Johnathan Peart who had been a member of the Santa Clara Ward for about 10 years, but they had moved to Virginia so that they could afford a home. He and his wife Rachel (Fredrickson) live in our mission. I had thought they had moved to South Carolina, but that was where he grew up not where they moved. What are the odds that he would come to this baptism—we have been to a couple of baptisms in the Centreville building. Anyway, we had a nice visit with him. What a day of coincidences.
We did our grocery shopping on the way home and then made arrangement to do some missionary switching on Monday morning. If we do it, then President can have his p-day on Monday to be with his son.
Sunday was another great day. The talks were on forgiveness and they had a good message. One of them made the comment that forgiving allows families and friends to be more united. We will need to know how to do this if we want to be with our families eternally which is where we want to be.
We are going to go to a fireside this evening and that about wraps up our week.
Again, know that we love you lots and pray for your well being,
Mom
P.S. Nancy with Isabella
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