Washington, D.C. South Mission

Dear Family, Here is the last letter of the year. I am getting caught up and if I can hunt and peck I will get this done today and finish the year caught up. Monday was a hard day to get into the office on time because of the late night Sunday evening. We were not the only ones having the same problem. I spent the day trying to get caught up on many things. The office has been inundated with packages and regular mail. We have had so much mail that we have to deliver it so there is room for more to come. Since we were going to another devotional this evening we had to load all the mail received today for the half of the mission attending the devotional tonight. Then we left a little early to go home and get the Monday set of goodies and went to the church, then we traveled a half hour to pick up some elders who didn’t have a ride. We are getting so many more sisters that more and more of the elders do not have cars. It was another wonderful evening of music and words bringing u...

Dear Family, Mission News Sunday night and Monday night we had a Christmas Devotional for all of the missionaries. Half came on Sunday night and half on Monday night. Mom was in charge of the treats after the devotionals. I was in charge of the hot chocolate. It is a bit more difficult than you think to provide hot chocolate for 100 people. Christmas Treats provided by the senior missionaries. Some of the mail was put on the stage for the missionaries to pick up. We had about 600 packages for Christmas. I am responsible for distributing the mail. I am glad Christmas is over. The Devotionals were very, very nice. The music was provided by the missionaries (mostly) and it was very good. Saturday we attended the baptism of a young college graduate in Woodbridge. There were 14 senior missionaries and 6 young missionaries at the baptism. There were 3 friends who also attended. Fun Stuff They weather has been very nice. Sunny and warm-ish – 60 degrees. Christmas day as we were fix...

The week started out with a birthday Monday. The office people were really good to hit a good balance of letting me know that I was remembered without going overboard and embarrassing me. When I got into the office there was a smelly candle in a jar and a lovely card. When the nurse came in, she brought me some muffins for everyone. She also brought in some sugar free orange soda. The others in the office are really big into having an ice filled cup of soda on their desks that they like to bring drinks in for everyone. This was the last day of interviews for those missionaries going home. I had some of the waiting companions help with the filing. It is easy enough to do but can get put on the back burner and pile up. I was grateful to get it done. About 2 pm Dad I brought away to go pick up an extra van to pick up the incoming missionaries. The Church doesn’t want us rent 15-passenger vans, so we have to travel much further to get a 12-passenger van. The crazy thing in m...

Dear Family, Mission News Sunday night we had our Come Unto Christ Devotional. Three recent converts shared their conversion stories. There were about 4 musical numbers performed by the missionaries. One played the flute to accompany the opening song. A sister played the cello for prelude. There was a solo and a duet. It was very nicely done. I am impressed by the musical talent in the mission. The mission president and his wife spoke and it was very good. Transfer week was this week: 22 incoming missionaries and 12 outgoing. I am in charge of the logistics. There were a few minor snags, but on the whole it went well. These new missionaries look to me to be a very good group. They are anxious to serve. One of the missionaries that went home lost his luggage. He lives in Mexico. He flew from Virginia to LA on American Airlines and the transferred to Delta. He was supposed to get his luggage from American Airlines baggage and then check them into Delta Airlines. He was not tol...

Dear Family, Mission News Monday evening we had a dinner and gift exchange with the other Senior Missionaries in our Mission plus the doctor and his wife who serve 6 other missions. One couple, Jim and Evelyn Taylor, were released as Self Reliance missionaries. The more we were around them the more we liked them and admired them. They are just wonderful Christians with love in their hearts and a willingness to help and build the Kingdom in any simple way they can. They have a wonderful peace in their lives that comes from living the Gospel. They have helped us tending the office while we are in mission meetings. We gave them a key to the office. On Monday they said that they would like to keep the key so they can help us when we needed them. We had our Senior (mostly) office council and I presented the first lesson of the Inviting Class that I am planning to present to the Wakefield Ward. I asked for feedback and got some good ideas. When I prepared the lesson I was so focused on th...

Dear Family: Another week has raced by and we are at another Sunday.  Our weather is getting cooler, but no snow yet.  The worst part of this time of year is how early it gets dark.  It seems that by 3:30 in the afternoon it is getting dark and mentally I am thinking it is about time to go home.  We aren’t any further north than we are in California, but we have lots more cloud cover here in the East than we do in the West thus later sunshine in the morning and earlier darkness in the evening. Monday we had our senior get together (dinner) at the stake center where we do all our transfers.  We were asked to bring a gift to exchange that would be a good memory of our time here on our mission.  We had ordered a pin and a tie bar with the Washington DC Temple on them as our gift.  But as typical of Deseret Books they didn’t have them in stock and 12-15-19 Dear Family: Another week has raced by and we are at another Sunday.  Our weather is ge...

Dear Family, Mission News Return and Report was on Tuesday. It is always fun to be with the young missionaries. One sister, who was completing her mission in a few days was invited to share advice for the young missionaries. She said a number of things. Here are 3 that I remembered. If you want to baptize often you have to find people to teach. To find people to teach talk with ever one. Be comfortable with being bold. “I certainly did not baptize everybody I taught. But everyone I taught knew that I knew that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the Lord’s one true church and this church has the fullness of the Gospel. It isn’t just another nice Christian Church. It is the true church. I am preparing to teach a class to members who are called to be “Inviting Missionaries” for 3 months. Their calling is to invite friends and people they meet to “Come and See and Come and Help”. I am putting together a power point presentation I hope the first draft will be done by next S...

Dear Family: This may be short letter because my hands are tired and I know that if I don’t get the letter done today, it will take weeks. This has been a fun, full week. We started this week off bright and early. It was our anniversary and we arrived at the office at 8 am. It was probably because we didn’t stop and fix a lunch but decided to come home and have lunch here. While we were home for lunch, Garn got a phone call from President Caplin asking him if he could arrange for a ride to the airport for one of the sisters. Not wanting to take more of our share of being with the missionaries, Garn called another senior couple to see if they could do it. They had meetings that prevented them from helping out and it was getting close to the time that she needed picking up. We decided to do it ourselves. We called the office to get them to send the travel plans that had come since the time we left the office. We picked her up at her apartment, talked with her companions a mi...

I am getting a letter out for this week and the week before Thanksgiving.  I still need to write about Kent and Lindsey's marriage.  One of these days I will get caught up. Today starts "Light the World".  See LightTheWorld.org.  I am going to try the suggested activities to get into the Christmas Spirit. Love, Dad