Washington, D.C. South Mission

Dear Family, The end of June, Yikes! Where does the time go? We are getting into the summer months now with the humidity rising. Last week I was visiting with a lady in church who was here taking care of her grandchildren while her daughter and son-in-law went on Trek. She is from Houston having moved from the Bay Area. I asked her how she liked the weather and she said that they drink their weather. She went on further to explain that when she goes running, she cannot breathe in through her mouth or she chokes on the water that comes in! She has to breathe in through her nose. We are not that humid here, but we sometimes feel like we need to put out our hands and push aside the air in order to walk through it. In fact, last night when we were coming home from a baptism we felt like we were driving through the fog, but it was just the water on the road from a recent rainstorm that was evaporating and we could see it in the air. But I get ahead of myself. Monday was the first ...

Dear Family, Mission News I went to two very good district council meetings this week and gave my little lesson on remembering the tender mercies of the Lord and writing them down and to help new converts to write their conversion stories. I went to Woodbridge and Mom went with me to Oakton. Mom was very, very impressed with the spiritual maturity of the missionaries in Oakton. They taught using the scriptures very easily and comfortably. We love being with the junior missionaries. Wednesday the carpets were cleaned in the mission office. We went to a district council in Oakton. Afterwards we went to lunch with Elder and Sister Taylor who are Self Reliance missionaries. The more we are around them the more we admire them and enjoy them. Friday I was asked to give a baptismal interview to Mariama Bangura. She is a sweet, humble sister from Sierra Leon. She really has a strong desire to follow Christ and live the gospel. She has a tough life. Her husband is in Sierra Leon with 3 of ...

Dear Family, Happy Father’s Day! Another week has come and gone, and the mission is still standing. We haven’t ruined it yet. Monday, the senior sisters in the mission met up for lunch at a favorite Greek restaurant of one of the sisters. This sister and her husband were leaving for home on Friday and we wanted to say our good-byes. It was a good excuse to go party too. We had very good food and wonderful company. As we visited I became aware that our duties are certainly very different. Some of the sisters that are not in the office have to be really creative in finding things in the day time to keep themselves busy. Although, at times, it would be nice to be able to get caught up, I would never want to be not busy. We have things that need to be done all of the time and I never have to be creative to find something to do. That is a good thing because I am not always that creative. While I was out with the “girls” Garn and one of the other office elders went to lunch t...

Dear Family, Mission News Monday Elder Larsen and I went to the Japanese restaurant where David works. We are still trying to get him to come to Church, but he did not make it today. He has a substance abuse problem that we would like to help him with. On Tuesday and Wednesday I went to Woodbridge and Annandale zone interviews. While the president was interviewing the elders, I was going over device audit procedures with the elders who were waiting. I learned/observed a couple of things: I need to come up with a plan to pull mission owned devices out of the field. The missionaries will use the devices they have purchased and brought into the field. There are a couple of issues with this. First it is not obvious how to store all of the data on the phone to an area safe place in the “cloud”. 90% of the data is stored on the area book which is a cloud software. The remaining 10% is not so easily saved so new missionaries coming into the area can have it. Second, on exchanges missi...

Dear Family, Another good week has raced by with birthdays, transfers, teaching with the missionaries, and baptisms. And I am sitting here trying to remember everything. Monday was a long day. Garn was out talking with missionaries talking about their phones and usage. He has been tasked with coming up with a mission plan for the wise/righteous use of technology as well as checking with the missionaries about their device usage as it shows up on the reports from Salt Lake. It has been a fast learning curve going from knowing how to makes phone calls, texting, checking emails etc. to knowing how to conduct audits of the phones, transfer sim cards from phone to phone, find lost data, and fix broken phones. I was trying to get bills with problems paid, our senior dinner assignments for the mission home get together sent out, and answering the front office phone. Tuesday was another office day. We were trying to things ready for zone conferences. We take all of the mail for the zones...

Dear Family, Mission News I visited 5 missionaries to discuss using technology wisely. This a bit uncomfortable to me, because I am not now a judge in Israel. My approach has been soft and focused on helping all missionaries enjoy the Spirit. I wrote a mission plan for creating a culture of using technology righteously and sent it to the mission president for his review on Saturday. It is not an elaborate plan. There are 4 sections to the plan Teach correct principles Prevention which includes always make your screen visible to your companion and always have your companion view texts, emails and Face Book communication before you send it. Deterrence – Device audits by companions and mission leaders Responsibilities of the Senior missionary responsible for “technology” Friday evening we were asked to meet Sister Carroll and Sister Lyons as they were giving a tour of the church and discussion. As we were driving to the church building the missionaries called and said that a for...

Dear Family, Happy Birthday to Chelsea. June 2nd is a popular date for birthdays because Michael Otteson and Don Chase are also celebrating birthdays today. This has been one busy week! As I look back on the events of the week, the things we did at the beginning of the week seem as if they happened two or three weeks ago. But even with all the activities we made it through still standing. Monday was not a holiday for us. In fact it was the arrival of our new missionaries. That also means that we have all of the departing missionaries come into the office for their exit interviews, so we get to see and say our good-byes to them. It is getting harder and harder to see the missionaries go home the longer we are here. One of our new missionaries is from New Jersey and his parents drove him down. He didn’t go through the MTC, but did it on line. He arrived at the mission office around 3 pm and Dad took him under his wing and had him help a little until it was time to go and pick up ...

Dear Family, Mission News Transfer Week: This was transfer week. As usual it was a busy week, but this week was not as stressful as some other transfer weeks. Perhaps I know more what I am doing. I orchestrate the assignments of the other 6 senior missionary couple and Sister Chesbrough for some of the special assignments like taking via waiters to the airport (they usually fly out on Monday or Tuesday. The returning missionaries fly out on Wednesday.) The returning missionaries have a few hours for an excursion. I coordinate that activity. The missionaries usually choose to go to Mt. Vernon. Monday the departing interviews are held in the mission office. This ruins my productivity for the day. One new arriving missionary is not a documented person. His family is from Ecuador. They arrived 7 years ago and he was baptized 6 years ago. He arrived with his parents from New Jersey about 2:00 in the afternoon. He did his MTC training online. I did some orientation about the mission fo...