Washington, D.C. South Mission

Dear Family, What a wonderful whirlwind of a week we are just finishing up. On Monday I went into the office with the purpose of making sure that all of the rents were correct and ready to submit for approval by the mission president. With interruptions and lots of exceptions on the houses causing them to be entered individually, I finally got the job done by mid afternoon. I like to put them in the mail by the 17th of the month, but that will not be the case this month. Tuesday was the first day of the mission tour. Elder Johnson wanted to have a mini MLC (missionary leadership council) on Tuesday which meant that we had to have a grab and go lunch for them. These are really easy—a subway sandwich, a piece of fruit, a bag of chips and a package of cookies all put in a brown paper bag. The missionaries pick up their brown bag and leave the building in about 7 minutes off to their areas to get back to work. Elder Johnson, Sister Johnson, President and Sister Caplin divided up an...

Dear Family, Mission News The fun of this week was Elder Peter M. Johnson of the Seventy and his wife came for a mission tour. They had meetings from 8:00 in the morning to 9:00 at night for the better part of 4 days. On Wednesday we gathered half of the missionaries at the Centreville Stake Center and Elder and Sister Johnson taught and led discussion from 9:30 to 4:30. He asked me to explain what happened at the day of Pentecost. Fortunately I knew a little bit about that event. Later Mom and I role played. Mom was the friend and I was her member friend. The missionaries did a great job in the role play. One sister (Sister Zammaron from Gilroy) had only been in the field 3 weeks, but she was great. At the end of the meeting Mom and I were asked to share our testimonies because this is our last mission conference. Wednesday night Mom and I helped out at a dinner with the stake presidents and their wives had with Elder and Sister Johnson at the mission home. Mom was a very good ...

February 16, 2020 Monday February 10th We both got up and went to the office because I was hoping to have an answer from the auditor as to when he was coming. There was no email but a couple of things that I did before I was ready to go home and rest. We left for home about 11. It is good to have that settled.After lunch I was ready for a nap, but Dad was ready to go back to the office for an hour or so, but it was longer than that. Tuesday was another day of toughing it out. I tried to not cough any more than I absolutely and drank a lot of water to sooth the cough as well as used a lot of cough drops. We lasted until about 2 before giving up and going home. I got a call from the auditor at home and we decided that Monday the 24th at 10 am would be the start of our audit. When we got home we just sit around and do nothing. Wednesday was Olivia’s day to get her tonsils out. Lance sent of a picture her in the hospital bed and she looked so little and scared with red eyes...

Dear Family, Mission News On Thursday I did training on submitting new member conversion stories for all of the young missionaries. The training was only 10 minutes, but I did it over Zoom. I was a bit like talking to myself because I could not see my audience. Mom and I are still recovering from our colds. Mom especially was under the weather. Mom’s cough was so bad that she did not sleep well. I think we are mostly over the symptoms and we are at about 90%. One of the senior couples wants to extend a few weeks. When I was talking with someone in the missionary department, he said that big changes are coming for senior missionaries. President Nelson is supposed to make the announcements. No details in the rumor, but a rumor nevertheless. Elder Shurtleff is on the far right, Elder Leavitt is fourth from the right. Mom and I are on the right. The other 4 were fairly recently baptized. At least two of them are planning on serving missions. We attended a Woodbridge Stake ...

Dear Family, Remember me? I just didn’t get up enough energy to get a letter written last Sunday or any day this past week. I’ll do what I can to catch up. On February 3rd we had our new missionaries fly in. Although we only had 16 new missionaries come, Dad still had to drive to the airport. Rather than a passenger van, he got to drive the u-haul. Ever since the elders had their mishap with the larger u-haul not making it under the overhang at one of the church buildings, the young elders do not drive the u-haul anymore. I went at 4:00 to pick up the dinner for the missionaries and only had to wait 12 minutes for the meal. I was able to get to the mission home before the missionaries arrived. Because of the huge snowstorm in Salt Lake, the plan was an hour late taking off and the missionaries were late coming. The one missionary coming from the Mexico MTC arrived a little early, so President Caplin interviewed her there at the airport. It was good to meet the new missionarie...

Dear Family, Mission News The Sunday evening before transfers there is a Come unto Christ Devotional. There are 4 recent converts that tell their conversion stories. Missionaries sing and the President and his wife speak. This meeting is usually very good, but this Sunday it was great. The speakers were very good speakers and their humility brought a wonderful spirit into the meeting. This was transfer week and everything went very smoothly. As always there were a few little hiccups, but these were easily worked around. On Monday the new missionaries arrived, we had dinner with 16 of them and we took 8 Sister missionaries to the Hotel and were home at 8:30 which included a stop at Walmart. We have never been home that early before. We are usually home around 11:00. Every transfer is different because the number of missionaries coming and going are different. The ratio of elders to sisters differs as well. So the number of vehicle and drivers varies too. Then TIWI card and keys ...

Dear Family, Here it is another week and month. Where does the time seem to go. We finished up January with only one little snow storm with all of the snow gone by the next day. We thought last year was an easy winter, but this one has felt more like a cool spring. In fact, we have seen more sun shiny days this past winter than we did most of this summer. A shout out birthday wish to Aunt Lis 2-1-20. Hope you day was wonderful!! This past week has been busy and although not so many meetings a bit stressful. I have been trying to set up someone to come and do the annual audit. I don’t know why I have been so lucky to do two audits in an 18-month mission. I talked with the stake president of one of the local stakes (the son of Sister Chesbrough in our office) about using one of their auditors. He put me in touch with the 2nd counselor who is over the auditing team. I sent two texts with no response so finally called and was able to talk with him. He got back on Friday with t...

Dear Family, Mission News We took Elder Miller to the airport yesterday. He is a fine missionary that is going home for health issues. Later we went to the baptism of Lucy, a friendly, happy woman from Brazil. She was married Wednesday to her companion of 30 years or so. Her husband, Patrick will probably be baptized in the next few weeks. It was a very nice service and she is loved by many members. Sister Caplin, Sister Bourgeous, Lucy, Antonia (Lucy’s Baziian friend) Elder and Sister Nelson, Sister Kirk I completed my survey of stake high councilors. It was fun to feel their enthusiasm for the work and learn of their innovative ideas for moving the work along. Finally I got the program for inviting new converts to write their conversion stories restarted. Friday 4 sisters and their companions came in for their departing interviews with President Caplin. That shoots down getting anything done for much of the day. However, it is always a lot of fun to be with the young miss...