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Elder Nelson - Family Day and History Symposium


Dear Family,

Mission NewsMonday 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 missionaries that have the SIM card on their phone will want to take their phone with them on the exchange leaving the missionaries serving in the area without an area book or easy ways to communicate with their friends.

Third, missionaries need to log out of all of their applications and set their passwords to the mission standard.

President Caplin invited me to the first interviews with the zone leaders. They discussed the key indicators for the zone and how things are going. Then he discussed with the missionaries the people they are teaching. He gave them detailed direction about how they should work with these friends. He coaches not only the zone leaders, but every companionship on how to teach. I was amazed that he would do that. My mission president only interviewed me a few time and we never discussed the people we were teaching.

Wednesday I was asked to write a little background note for some missionaries. The missionaries taught a member of the city council in Herndon on Tuesday night. He asked the missionaries if they would like to come to a city council meeting on Wednesday and he would introduce them and let the city council know what good work the elders are doing. With the help of one of the members I put together a short introduction. The missionaries said it well. The city council meeting is streamed over the internet so members of the community can watch the proceedings.

We had a short visit with Nancy on Thursday evening. Graciela and Lucas were there too. Nancy was troubled about something so the elders decided not to give a lesson.

We have an elder that has a bad ankle with a fair amount of tendon and ligament damage. The doctor wants him to stay off his feet for 6 weeks. President Caplin asked if we could keep him busy in the office for 6 weeks. I don’t think we can – unfortunately. He is a good likeable elder and we would love to help him. However, it just does not seem like a good idea.

Fun StuffA BYU History Symposium was held at the Washington DC Visitors Center on Saturday. One presentation on how the Lord helped the colonists defeat the British Army and Navy was very interesting.

The Church has been working on the Washington DC Temple for a couple of years and the have at least one more to go. This picture was taken just outside the visitor’s center.
WES News
Good June, July looks surprisingly strong. We might break even in July.

Family NewsAfter Chelsea dropped her roommates off at the airport she ran over some debris on the freeway and wrecked her bumper. Fortunately she is fine, but her car will need some body work.

Father’s Day gift from Chelsea

Note I did not communicate well with my barber. The sides are cut shorter than they have ever been. But in two weeks it will look great.

Love,
Dad

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