Washington, D.C. South Mission

Dear Family, Mission News This was transfer week and as usual it was busy. We are still having problems with the phones after transfers. I am not sure of the root cause and the president wants me to find the answers. Last Sunday Mom and I and President Caplin and Sister Caplin had a Zoom visit with a new couple coming to our mission in mid-September from Mesa Arizona. They seem like a wonder, faithful and high-powered couple. President Caplin wants to find the best place for them. They are called serve in the Member Leader Support (MLS). The challenge for us is to find assignments that will keep them busy. MLS missionaries in areas of high growth like the Philippines, West Africa and Brazil contribute greatly to the growth of the Church and to strengthen new leaders and new members. However here in Northern Virginia the Church is strong and members for the most part have been in the Church a long time. One of our MLS missionary couples went home a year early because they did not ...

Dear Family, Well, this was transfer week and that always makes life interesting. Monday I spent the day getting all of the rent checks printed and mailed. Some of them have changed where they want the checks delivered and I haven’t been able to get them changed in IMOS yet. It is not because I haven’t tried, but I didn’t have time to worry about it this month, so I printed the checks and then typed envelopes manually with the address that needed to be on the checks. We also had missionaries coming into the office to get their exit interviews and that is fun to visit with them. These are missionaries that we have known for almost a year and it is getting harder and harder to see them go home with each transfer. It is, pretty amazing, to compare their pictures of when they came with the people they have become—both physically and spiritually. We are so impressed with the missionaries here. Dad had to leave to go get a 15-passenger van to help pick up the missionaries from the ai...

Good Morning, Another week has raced by and we have been in the process of gearing up for transfers. It has also been an emotional week with missionaries going home for health reasons and for others leaving a week before transfers to make school deadlines. Monday we went to the Mission Home at 9:15 to pick up two of the four elders who were going home to make school deadlines. These were some really good elders and it was so much fun to see the wonderful men they had become. After they had eaten breakfast there was some left over food, so President suggested that they go out and serve breakfast to the workers who were there trying to fix the lawn. I thought that was a wonderful to leave their missions—serving others. We got to the airport and got them all checked in—everyone’s luggage was within weight limits!! Last transfer we had a sister whose luggage was overweight because of lots of bottles of shampoo etc. and it cost $100 extra. She could have bought a lot of shampoo for ...

Dear Family, Mission News The most fun part of the week was attending the baptism of three people yesterday. One sister is a young lady from Bolivia. There also was a mother and 11 year old daughter from Mongolia. There was a wonderful spirit their and the sisters were welcomed warmly by the members of the ward. At the end of the service they asked these sisters to bear their testimony. All three testimonies were good, but we enjoyed the 11 year old girls the best. She was humble and also poised and confident. A sister attended the baptism that Mom and I counselled with 6 weeks ago. She kind of remembered me, but she really remembered Mom and she gave her a big hug. I took an elder to airport on short notice. He has some sort of worthiness issue. Hopefully he will return in several months. I went to a district council in the Spanish speaking Sudley district. There was a good spirit in the meeting and some good learning taking place. I enjoy those meetings. President Caplin spend...

Dear Family, This has been a fun, full week. Last December Dad suggested to the senior office couples that we ought to get together once a month and do something together and set a schedule for each couple to take a month to plan an activity. Everyone seems to enjoy being together and it gives those who are not in the office to get caught up a little on the comings and goings of the mission. Well, this last Monday was one of those evenings when we had decided to get together. A little background—before we came out to Virginia we had the missionaries over for dinner. There was an Elder Sealey who after finding out we had our mission call to the Washington D. C. South Mission, said: “that is my mission”! We went on to talk about it a bit and said that we needed to go to an ice cream place out in Gainesville called Moo Thru that had the best ice cream ever. Well, when we got here we would ask people who lived here if they had ever heard of Moo Thru and their reaction was always th...

Dear Family, Mission News This was a relatively smooth week at the office. No big projects or stresses. I did go to two district councils and gave little presentations. It is always great to be with the junior missionaries. Our friend, David, is progressing. He is overcoming his drug and drinking problems and has done well the past couple of weeks. He is attending Church on his own. He has had some brief “discussions” with the missionaries. His road to baptism will be very long and hard because of all of the bad habits he has. I hope he makes it. We talked briefly with Nancy. We will be reading the Book of Mormon with her once a week after her son starts school at the end of the month. Some changes coming up. We are that we will putting more emphasis on bike safety. One of the senior missionaries will be assigned to be the Bike Guy. He will assure that the elders are using safe bikes. There will be greater emphasis safe riding. President Caplin thinks the office ...

Dear Family, We send our love and support to Amanda and Lance and family. We were sorry to hear of Amanda’s grandmother Kenney on Saturday. She will be happier being with her eternal companion, but she will still me missed a great deal by her family. Know that we love you and are praying for you. It seems that we stay pretty busy, but looking back over the week it’s hard to figure out what took up so much of the time. We got to the office on Monday a little earlier than usual and that gave me a little bit of quiet time to concentrate. Then I spent the entire day trying to get some of the vendors who had changed addresses or had sold their properties to someone else approved and updated. I do the vendor approval so rarely that I still am not comfortable with the process of getting them set up and approved and then set up for payments in IMOS. I also had more calls from the missionaries about when they would be funded than I have had since I got here combined. They would ask if t...

Dear Family, Mission News Saturday night we attended the baptism of Amer. Amir’s family came from Armenia 3 generations ago and moved to Jordan. In Armenia and in Jordan they were persecuted for being Christian. Amer went to a Catholic high school in Jordan - a 3 hour walk from his home. Every day on the way home from school he would get into a fight because of religion. One day when he was discouraged and tired of fighting, his grandfather told him that the family has been persecuted for many generations, but his family never give up or gives in. They keep on going and are true to their faith. After high school he joined the military. He became a captain, but the persecution continued. After one life threatening event, he fled Jordan for the USA. He was welcomed here and life was good. He attended several Christian religions but could not find the consistent peace that he was searching for. On June 30, 2019 he was picking his son up from a friend’s house. As he was leaving i...