Washington, D.C. South Mission

Dear Family, Mission News This was the quiet week before the storm (transfer week). There is preparation for transfer week. The arriving missionaries get a packet of information as do the departing missionaries. The departing missionaries are asked to complete an online exercise called “My Plan”. My Plan is the missionaries plan for after he is released. I don’t see those, but the mission president discusses them with the departing missionaries. I coordinate the transportation of the from the airport to the mission home and then to the hotel as well as the transportation of the departing missionaries. We always have visa waiters that need to be driven to the airport at different times. Transfer day is Tuesday and transfers end at 1:30 when the new missionaries go off with their new companions and companions are exchanged. At 1:30 the departing missionaries go on an “excursion” for a few hours before their dinner and testimony meeting at the mission home. I took on the responsibili...

Dear Family, We made it through another glorious week. It was very busy, but well worth it. Monday was a regular day at the office. I was busy trying to get onto the portals so that I can monitor when our rent arrives (or doesn’t) and see any charges added to our account that they don’t inform us of. I called one customer service company that we had a surprise (to me) charge that had been put on the account last May. Because no one knew about it, it had been accruing late charges for this last year. The people I worked with last week were helpful, but each time I called, the charges went up. Even after sending a FedEx payment last week, we got another notice on the apartment door of the missionaries saying there was another charge. I had sent the utility bill for that month on Saturday, but wanted to make sure that was the reason for the extra charge and that we were all taken care of. When I finally got in touch with them I found that they wouldn’t talk with me because w...

Dear Family, Mission News This was a busy week. Elder Allen Haynie of the Seventy toured our mission. We really enjoyed him. He spent a lot of time discussing how to find new friends to teach. He made it sound fun and natural. Much of the discussion reiterated the principles Elder Uchtdorf discussed in the last general conference. We need to love the Lord first and then loving your neighbor follows naturally. Mom got excited about memorizing scriptures from the talk given at the mission tour. When you call in she will recite a few for you. 😊 One of the things that makes the mission tour busy is that the office missionaries had to prepare 3 meals. Two of them for over 100 missionaries and leaders. Buying the food, preparing the food, setting the food out and then cleaning up all takes time and energy. While hauling the food around on Thursday, I tweaked my back. I thought, “Oh no! I am going to be just like my unfortunate siblings!!!” Friday I felt like an old man, but today I a...

Dear Family, Happy Mother’s Day to all. Time to recap another week. Sometimes it seems that the week takes a week to go by and sometimes it is gone before it got started. This week was one of those that I worked really hard, but didn’t get much done. Just seemed to be putting out fires all week long. I guess that I have to have these kind of weeks so that when I work hard and get lots done I can appreciate being able to get things done. Monday we spent the day at the office doing office work and trying to get the meals planned and organized for the mission tour coming up next week. When we came home, I fixed dinner while Garn called our partner to let him know that we had decided to buy him out. We had to notify our lawyer to get him to finish up the papers and we will see if they are accepted. Hopefully they will because they are essentially like the latest offer from our partner. After getting that taken care of we went over to Nancy’s home to invite her to a Relief Society...

Dear Family, Mission News Mom and I attended the Annandale District Council. They did not have time for my little presentation, but that is OK. I will return. I organized the Senior Missionaries in the office to have a weekly “Senior District Council”. We talk about various logistics in the office and then we talk about how to find people for the missionaries to teach. I think it is kind of fun. Fun Stuff Saturday morning 5 senior couples toured the Marine Museum in Quantico. It is a very nice museum. As you walk through the museum you get information about Marine Corp “operations” starting at the Revolutionary War to the present. In 2 hours I got through WW1. Some of the feeling I had at the end were how terrible and how awful is war. Also how grateful I am people gave there all so we can enjoy the freedoms we have. Elder-Sister Cook, Elder-Sister Downs, Garn & Susan, Sister-Elder Larsen, Sister-Elder Gowens at the flag that flew over Iwo Gima. Diet: I am on a diet. My ...

Dear Family, Mission News Monday we took an elder to the airport. He said that in high school he never talked with anybody that he did not already know. Now he is doing street contacting. The approach that works best for him is to talk about a person’s tennis shoes. He is an expert on tennis shoes and that is how he starts many of his street contacts. Friday night we attended a baptism of a 20 year old college student named Alex. The missionaries found him street contacting. Their opening question was, “Wow, how do you get your shoes so shiny?” From that start he was baptized 3 weeks later. He was a golden contact that was searching for something more spiritual. He quickly got a testimony of the Book of Mormon. At the end of the baptism, he bore a strong testimony. He is thinking about going on a mission. Wednesday morning I took a 27 year old mentally handicapped boy to his work. His father has passed away and his mother broke her hip and is laid up for some number of weeks. H...

Dear Family, This week started out bright? and early. We were to take a missionary to the airport and we also had to take one of the office elders (threesome) to the companionship where one was going home. We left our house at 7 to pick up our first elder. Knowing it would be early and maybe a long day for the elders, we made apple uglies to give to them so they could start out the day with a little food. We were able to get everyone to where they were to be by about 9 and get the elder checked in for his 10 o’clock flight. We were even back to the office by 9:30. But it felt as if we had already done a whole day’s work by the time we got there. We had a full day there at the office and then went directly to the Mission Home for our senior missionary get together. We met a little earlier than is normal so that we could have a business meeting before our dinner at 6:30. President and Sister Caplin wanted to go over the schedule for the mission tour that is coming up the 2nd w...