Washington, D.C. South Mission

Dear Family, Mission News Monday I did a mission orientation for a new senior mission couple, Blake and Pamala Christie. They are great folks. Monday night the Caplins had all of the senior missionaries over for a pot luck dinner. President Caplin told about the good things each of the senior missionaries are doing. Tuesday we had our Senior District Council. I prepare an agenda and conduct the meetings. We want to get better at finding friends for our missionaries to teach. Wednesday I worked a couple hours in the office but spent a good chuck of time at home working on the sale of WES. Thursday we had dinner with Christi and Lisa (Pinkerton). Christi needed to get an MRI and talk with the doctors about her brain tumors. Lisa came just to help her get around. In two weeks she will return for brain surgery. Aunt Barbara will likely come and help Christi out. Friday Mom and I read a 1Nephi 2 with Nancy on our weekly visit with her. We returned for a 2.5 hour meeting to discuss T...

Dear Family, Time seems to be racing by. As we travel we are noticing the leaves beginning to change colors. I keep thinking that it is way too early for that to be happening and then I realize that it is the end of September and it is, in fact, time for that to happen. Last year I was thrilled when the leaves turned colors (it was pretty) and fell off the trees because we could begin to see some land marks and begin to figure out where we were. When the trees are all filled with leaves, it is like driving in a green tunnel with all things appearing to be the same. This year I am a little sad to see the beautiful green trees lose their leaves and be left with just branches. It is a little stark. Monday we were in the office bright and early and worked until noon then went home. Dad needed to make a few phone calls about WES and I brought home things I could do on my computer at home. We had hurried out this morning without making lunch, so we were able to grab a bite while we ...

Dear Family, I am sorry that I didn’t get a letter off last week. I will try to get it done and to you soon. We had so many things going last Sunday and this Sunday that I am getting behind. This has been an interesting week, to say the least. But I will get to that as the letter goes on. We started out the week doing a missionary apartment inspection for one of the other senior couples because I had to take the MSF (missionary support funds) card to one of the missionaries who had lost hers. We thought that while we were there we could do the inspection. They live in a really nice apartment which has a concierge and a shop with fabrics where the occupants can go and pick out a piece of fabric they like and then tell them to make them what they want. That is a very different way of shopping for clothes than I am used to. The concierge came and opened the door and asked who we were visiting and then noticed out badges. He said that he had met the missionaries when he was going ...

Dear Family, Mission News We had a meeting called by President Dionne of the Gainesville Stake to orient Elder and Sister Vennard to their assignment as Member, Leader Support missionaries the Stake. This stake is doing a lot of community outreach like Just Serve and inviting the community to come the Church to learn how to do genealogy. This is a very large stake geographically and there are a number of members that are less active because they have to drive so far to Church. During the discussion the high councilor asked if the Vennards had feeling on how they should serve. Elder Vennard told their conversion story. They married and completing their 3rd year of college when they met the missionaries. After about the 4th discussion he decided he really needed to know if this was true. He fasted for 3 days and while his wife was away, he prayed for what ended up being 6 hours. As he was praying he felt a warm peaceful feeling and even though he had his eye’s closed he could tell t...

Dear Family, We have had a good week. When isn’t it fun to be working with our missionaries and the other senior couples. These is our week of zone conferences and Dad had to speak on using technology safely and righteously. We had gotten a WARNING from Salt Lake telling us that the missionaries are not to identify themselves on their social media pages as “elder” or “sister”. They are also not to friend anyone that they do not know. Apparently, there are some people out there that prey on our trusting missionaries and try to get them to do things that could embarrass themselves or the Church. Because Dad spoke at all three zone conferences, we needed to be at all three. We usually only go to one, but we really enjoyed going to all of them because they vary so much. There is a lot of good information and encouragement for the missionaries and I always come away feeling “edified and uplifted”. Monday was a preparation day for zone conferences. We need to get all of the mail rea...

Dear Family, Mission News This week I had to make a short presentation at 3 zone conferences on being careful with social media. That took a big chunk of the week. We took David to see his parole officer. He is still going to Church and meeting with the elders about weekly. We were going to take brownies to our new neighbors, but we ate them instead. Actually by the time we got around to taking them, they got old and dry so ate them in a bowl of milk. We tried to take Apple Uglies to them today but they were not home. We will try tomorrow. Street Contacting is something I never did in Germany. We did a lot of tracting, but no street contacting. Mom and I went with Sister Snow and Sister Wiscombe and stood outside the Metro station. The sisters played and sang primary songs on a ukulele to get people’s attention. It did not work so well. People listened a little but were not anxious to talk. We did talk with a bus driver from Togo West Africa. He has been here 8 years. He exchang...

Dear Family, We are watching the hurricane coverage and praying that the hurricane doesn’t hit the Florida coast. As we have prayed for a good outcome with this hurricane, we have been so grateful for the change in direction of the path of the hurricane. We pray that it will not hit land before the intensity goes down. We certainly have Derek and Jessica in our thoughts and prayers. This week has been a quieter one with fewer meetings to attend and fewer responsibilities outside the office to perform. The weather has cooled down quite a big and with the lower temperatures comes lower humidity—rather pleasant. Tuesday we had our senior missionary “district council” meeting. An aside, when President Caplin found out we were meeting and discussing our schedules and how we can help he said that he was unaware that we had a “rogue” district. I guess we will from now on be in the rogue district. Anyway, we met and discussed our plans for the week. One of the senior brethren said th...

Dear Family, Mission News I spent a fair amount of time preparing for the arrival of two senior couples. They have assignments that are very vague. They don’t really have anyone that supervises their work. The mission president is too busy with the junior missionaries to even know what they are doing. The stake presidents and bishops are likewise preoccupied their high priority responsibilities. Much is left up to the senior missionaries to find and create good things to do. The last two couples that came floundered for a couple of months before they engaged productively in the work. It was very frustrating for them. I am working with the stake presidents under the direction of President Caplin to make sure there is direction and responsibilities for these couples when they arrive. I want them to hit the ground running. I spent about 5-6 hours sending a bike home for an elder that had to go home early. Picking up the bike, helmet and lights from three different location...