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Sister Nelson - Train the Trainer

Dear Family,

The weather this past week has been a bit different from last when we had 70-degree weather. This week we have had in the high 20’s and low 30’s. What really made it feel cool was the wind that went with the lower temperatures.

After such a fun week end we had to settle in for a regular week. Dad took the missionaries to the grocery store at 7 and picked up some artisan bread so we could have some bread with the homemade split pea soup that one of the senior sisters made from the ham hock we gave her. That was nice because we didn’t have to fix lunch today and we like split pea soup. This soup, however, was a bit saltier than I like, so a small bowl was plenty. We were able to get to the office early so that we get an early start. We did some final planning for the Return and Report luncheon for tomorrow and some packing up of the supplies that we will need for the luncheon.

We left by about 5:30 and went shopping for table cloths for the tables before going home. After a quick dinner and clean up, I went grocery shopping for my part of the luncheon. Dad was on a 2-hour call with the people where we have our 401Ks, and he worked on putting the finishing touches on his presentation for our district council meeting tomorrow.. When I got home I put together a double batch of taco soup. I as glad that it was an easy recipe to put together. The elders living in our complex stopped by to get their mail and then it was time for bed.

Tuesday we got to the office early but were the last ones there. Everyone had gotten there to load up their cars and finish getting ready. Before we had had much of a chance to do too much we got a call from the AP’s saying that there was a funeral planned for the stake center where we have Return and Report and wondered what they should do. We told them to call the Caplins and see where we should try to move the meeting to. They quickly changed it to the meeting house where we go to Church and the calls went out to the missionaries to change locations. Our part-time service missionary called the building scheduler to make sure that there was nothing planned in the Ox Road building that morning and by some miracle she was able to get ahold of him. She says that she is NEVER able to get ahold of the building coordinators on the first try. All the missionaries got the needed call either while they were driving or before they left and the switch in location was seamless. If we had not known better, all of us felt the meeting was where it had been planned to be instead of a last minute change. Small miracles seem to happen lots around here.

We had a good district council meeting and I think all of us are becoming more converted to the necessity of everyone taking seriously the counsel from our Prophet to help gather Israel. Even with the meeting and the switch-a-roo, I had a few minutes to get some stuff done before I left to get the luncheon set up. This luncheon turned out to be an easy set up and clean up. That is the best part—easy clean up.

That evening we met at a Korean family’s home in our ward for dinner. There is a new Korean companionship in our mission that our ward members were meeting with. One of the new Korean companionship is from Korea and came to the U.S. at age 13 so she if fluent. The other one was asked two weeks ago by President Caplin to go Korean speaking. We were very impressed by how much she has accomplished in two weeks. The gave the blessing on the food in Korean and helped teach a short spiritual thought on the restoration in Korean. Her part was certainly smaller and slower than her companion’s, but she was trying. Our Korean ward members were very complimentary of her efforts. They made the comment that Korean is a hard language to learn and that after 30 years of being in the states, they still only get between 40-50% of what is said in sacrament meeting. Because of this, he said many of the Korean saints have a hard time staying active because they don’t know what is being said in church. We talked about the importance of people hearing the gospel in their own language and how the Lord helps the missionaries with their language learning. It was a wonderful evening with good food and good people.

Wednesday was another regular day at the office and I can see a little more catching up taking place. Our package from our renters containing all of our mail for the past month arrived in the mail at the office today. I came home and spent the evening paying our personal bills and that felt good to have that done for the month.

Thursday one of the senior couples came into the office to work on portals with us. His wife had surgery the first part of December and he needed some tasks to do at home while she recuperated. He kept reporting in that he had done between 85-90% of them, so I was getting a little excited about getting the information. As it turned out he probably had 2-3 portals that he was able to get into that we didn’t already have. He has spent lots of hours on it, but hasn’t been as effective as we are getting to be. The only problem is that I don’t have the time to work on this. But when the housing secretary or I need to get information from the apartment complex and we call and talk to them, we have them stay on the line while they give us the information we need and we put the information in and see if it works. Most of the time it doesn’t and then they have to figure out why and fix it. We have learned that they need to stay on the line until we get on the portal through experience. Even with the correct information, it usually doesn’t work until they do something else on their end. This senior elder wanted to talk about all of the work he had done on each apartment and I just wanted the results because I needed to get the rent entered. So we took a break about 12:30 and then I worked on rent after lunch.

Friday we got to the office early and then Dad had to go pick up a couple of computers from some elders who had been doing the Face Book tracting. It hasn’t been very effective for the English program. While Dad was out there he had to do an audit on all of the phones as well.

I worked on utility bills all morning and then printed the rent checks in the afternoon. We needed to take one of the senior office elders home, so I packed up all of the checks and envelopes and took them home to stuff the enveloped.

Saturday was an early 8 am baptism. When we opened the curtains we discovered that the 10 am storm had come and gone already. The roads around the apartment were snow covered, but the more traveled roads had been salted. One of the MLS senior missionaries were having a baptism and we wanted to go and support them. From the baptism we dropped off Keri an McKay’s Christmas present to McKay’s sister and her husband who are back here going to school. Keri thought it would be easier to mail the package here rather having them cart in on the airplane when they came back home. After doing that we got our grocery shopping done and were home by 11:30. We stayed home and enjoyed the warmth of the apartment and the smell of some baking. We don’t get to be at home too often, so it was a real treat. In the late afternoon we took some muffins to Nancy, but she wasn’t home. The missionaries had stopped by her home and wanted us to check with her to make sure that the 6:30 meeting was ok for Monday evening.

Sunday was a cool day, but the snow was mostly gone, and the sky was less gray. Church was good and we stopped by Nancy’s on the way home from church. It was good to see her because we haven’t seen her since the end of November. But she said that she didn’t want to meet with the missionaries. That didn’t surprise me, but I felt bad because she needs the gospel. She also thinks that she can read the Book of Mormon by herself, so I asked if we could just drop by occasionally to check up on her and she said that is what she would like.

Well, that about does it for the week. Know that we love and pray for you lots.

Love,
Mom

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