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 and went to some missionary apartments and then went tracting with the missionaries. They went from about 5:30 to 9:30. Pretty brave to go tracting for that long. How would you like to have been the missionaries who had an apartment inspection and go tracting with your leaders?
Wednesday was the Garn and I decided to go to the mission tour meeting. It was being done both Wednesday and Thursday because they didn’t want the whole mission at one meeting. We had fewer obligations on Wednesday than on Thursday and thought we would be able to stay the whole time if we went on Wednesday. We had to get there at 8 am so we could get the mail laid out for the missionaries to pick up at the end of the meeting, then be ready for pictures by 8:45. The closet doors to the closet where the tables were stored had been locked on Tuesday and the office sisters doing the grab and go luncheon couldn’t get the long tables for their luncheon. They had to use the round tables. I was going to call Sister Chesbrough on Tuesday evening, but forgot. So when we were driving to the stake center, I called her to see if her son (the stake president) was still home and she could get some keys from him. She got in touch with at work and he graciously came over and got everything unlocked. Lucky for us he works a mile from the church. He also opened up all of the stake offices in case Elder Johnson might need an office for some reason. Very thoughtful and helpful.
After pictures we went into the chapel which took a long time because Elder and Sister Johnson along with President and Sister Caplin shook every missionary’s hand as they entered the chapel. Elder Johnson was so full of love and encouragement for the missionaries. All of the missionaries (including the senior missionaries) had been told to be prepared with information about a family they are teaching. They were to include some of background and some of the concerns of the people being taught. We were also told to read and study chapters 5, 10, and 11 in Preach My Gospel and 2 Nephi 31. Garn and I had to do some quick reading of Preach My Gospel, but did not have time to study it like we would need to do if we were going to be doing role playing teaching. We, however, didn’t do a 3x5 card with someone we were teaching because we weren’t teaching anyone. The morning was very good. President Caplin talked about things to do to lower stress and counseled them that planning lowers stress. He also told them to study the life and Atonement of Jesus Christ. We need to love him with all our heart and reflect on it. Knowing the Savior’s Atonement has the power to cleanse us and give us another chance lowers stress too.
Sister Caplin talked about the Book of Mormon-the net that will gather Israel. She told a story of when they went to pick up their son from his mission. They visited these poor people and saw that they had no running water, little food, no indoor plumbing etc. They had so very little of the worldly goods. In Sacrament Meeting, one woman got up and held her Book of Mormon up tight against her chest and testified that she had everything because she had the Book of Mormon. Sister Caplin said that that woman and her happiness changed her perspective about what is important for our happiness.
Sister Johnson talked about Heavenly Father and Jesus were in the business of growing us. We do not grow in our comfort zones, nor seldom are we comfortable in our growth zones. They want us to become more than we can imagine and it usually takes putting us into situations where we are not always comfortable.
Elder Johnson talked about Who are we? And What is our eternal purposes? Pretty big questions. He talked about D&C 138 and then said that we need to be obedient. What is the 1st and Great Commandment? When we get to judgement day we may be asked if we were obedient. Did you remember and understand at least the 1st and great commandment. Did we at least understand one of them. Like Peter, He may ask “Do you love me?” We need to pray to Him and to study of Him and utilize the gift of repentance. That is powerful because it brings God’s power into our lives (as we repent). As we do this we can do the next one.
If we love God we will keep his commandments—one of which is to love our neighbors. We love our neighbors by ministering to the ONE. We receive blessings when we keep the commandments. We get the Holy Ghost.
Elder Johnson began talking about what happened with the teaching of the people on the Day of Pentecost. He asked for a volunteer to tell the story of what happened. No hands went up, so he walked up the isle and stopped by Garn and asked him to tell that story. He had had a wonderful teacher of the New Testament when he was in college and remembered what he had been taught back then. So he told of the people being taught in their own language and everyone being taught the gospel in their own language. He filled in the details about how long after the crucifixion, how many were baptized and receiving the Holy Ghost. He did himself proud (and after the morning meeting the other seniors said, “you represented us well, now maybe we won’t have to do any more).
Elder Johnson said that number 3 is to participate by taking one name to the temple.
Number 4 is to use the correct name of the Church.
Number 5 is to Study the Book of Mormon everyday and 6 is to repent every day.
We had a nice lunch and were back to the meeting. This meeting went from 1:30 to 4:40 or so. We had more counsel on keeping the commandments so that we can have the Holy Ghost and when we have the Holy Ghost we can teach. We should teach from the scriptures, especially the Book of Mormon. We need to teach of Jesus and our hearts will be pricked and we will ask wat shall we do. The answer is to repent and be baptized. Then we partake of the sacrament every week.
It was now time for role play. The first set of missionaries were from the Spanish program with one of them being a brand new sister (3 weeks out in the field) from Gilroy. They asked Garn and me to come and be the friends being taught. I could do that—just so I didn’t have to do the teaching. They did a wonderful job. What I was so surprised about is that as they taught I felt the spirit so strongly that I had tears come to my eyes. I was surprised to have felt the spirit when we were only role playing. Garn was my member friend and the missionaries asked him to bear his testimony as part of the role play lesson. He did a wonderful job! We finished in the 8-minute time limit and then Elder Johnson did a review of the lesson. The APs had kept track of the number of questions asked and if they were kind of questions that Preach My Gospel tells them to use. The sisters did well and it was a good experience. There was another set of missionaries that did another scenario and they did well too. After that there were three young missionaries going home at the next transfer so they had them bear their testimonies and they asked us to do so as well. We felt like we had participated more than our share.
We took a couple of missionaries back to the office so that they could get a ride home with one of the office missionaries and then we went to the mission home to help get the dinner set up there. All of the stake presidents and their wives were invited to have dinner at the mission home with President and Sister Caplin and Elder and Sister Johnson. We got to set up and clean up so Sister Caplin wouldn’t have to worry about cleaning up. They were on a mandatory telephone call when the stake presidents were to arrive, so Garn went to the top of the street to help them park and helped them down to the mission home. The two counselors in the mission presidency were to greet and visit with the visitors until the phone call was over.
It was a wonderful evening and I think that everyone had a good time and bonds were formed that would help the stake presidents to work even better with the mission.
Thursday was our day to work in the office so that the housing and reference secretaries could attend the meeting. I worked on getting checks printed from the okayed rent and utilities bills. At 3 o’clock we had to leave to go pick up the croissant sandwiches, ice cream, vegetable plates, and cakes for the senior dinner that was to happen at the stake center after the meeting. We arrived at the stake center about 4 and got the tables set up and the food ready and had a nice dinner. We got to enjoy being with the other senior couples and visit and ask questions with Elder and Sister Johnson. One thing that he told us that I was unaware of was that when the temple was shut down for repairs, the 1st presidency and quorum of the 12 and the 70’s had no place to meet. That has been remedied by having the 8th floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial remodeled and dedicated as a temporary meeting place. It has been dedicated for its new purpose.
Friday was a catch up day at the office and a day to try to get ready for the audit on Monday morning. Hopefully all will go well and a little faster than last year’s. It was the auditor’s first year doing a mission audit so it took a little longer. Garn hadn’t slept well, so slept in while I went on to the office. He called about 9:45 and said he was ready to come in. He felt better with the extra rest. On the way home we stopped by Nancy’s home to say hi and see how she is doing. She had decided that she didn’t want the missionaries to come any more, nor did she want to read the Book of Mormon any more with us. She did consent to having us drop by periodically, so we did that on Friday evening. I encouraged her to keep up her reading of the Book of Mormon and continue to pray. I told her that by reading the Book of Mormon she would get inspiration and find answers to the questions of her life. I also promised that Heavenly Father loved her and would answer her sincere prayers. We will have to get over to see her more often and hopefully that will encourage her to pray and read more.
Saturday was a nice morning. We didn’t get up until 7 and that felt good. I paid bills in the morning and then we got ready for a baptism in Warrenton (way west and south—almost to the mission borders). It was a good baptism of a mother and her son. The best part of the baptism other than the actual baptism was the stake president’s remarks. He is so eloquent. He mentioned that Heavenly Father loves all of his children and he was very happy with her decision. He also said that He is a good gift giver. He gives us the gift of the Holy Ghost, and the gift of His Son and His Atonement, and the gift of Eternal Life. The Spirit testified to my soul that that was true. Heavenly Father loves us and to show that He gives us good gifts—the best gifts that could ever be given.
From the baptism we went to one of the missionary apartments to help deliver a couch to them. It is a little house in the historic district of the city. When we went in to see the place it reminded me of homes about the time of Joseph Smith. There were fireplaces in every room for heat or cooking (kitchen). The ceilings were sloped and if you were very tall you had to watch your head—I didn’t have to worry about that.
We came home and worked on taxes for a while and then went to the evening meeting of our Stake Conference where Elder Johnson was presiding. One thing that was interesting for us was that they released the counselors in the stake presidency and then moved the 2nd counselor to 1st and then called a new 2nd counselor. The new 2nd counselor is a man from our ward so we even knew him (Brother Thurgood). It was a very good meeting.
Today was stake conference and we had the privilege of picking up a “friend” of the sister missionaries that serve in our ward. It was fun to get to visit with him on the way there and then on the way home.
We don’t have any meetings tonight, so maybe we will get some good reading on the restoration done and do some more in our Book of Mormon reading and then get to bed early.
Know of our love and prayers for you every day, every day, every day.
Love,
Mom
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 and went to some missionary apartments and then went tracting with the missionaries. They went from about 5:30 to 9:30. Pretty brave to go tracting for that long. How would you like to have been the missionaries who had an apartment inspection and go tracting with your leaders?
Wednesday was the Garn and I decided to go to the mission tour meeting. It was being done both Wednesday and Thursday because they didn’t want the whole mission at one meeting. We had fewer obligations on Wednesday than on Thursday and thought we would be able to stay the whole time if we went on Wednesday. We had to get there at 8 am so we could get the mail laid out for the missionaries to pick up at the end of the meeting, then be ready for pictures by 8:45. The closet doors to the closet where the tables were stored had been locked on Tuesday and the office sisters doing the grab and go luncheon couldn’t get the long tables for their luncheon. They had to use the round tables. I was going to call Sister Chesbrough on Tuesday evening, but forgot. So when we were driving to the stake center, I called her to see if her son (the stake president) was still home and she could get some keys from him. She got in touch with at work and he graciously came over and got everything unlocked. Lucky for us he works a mile from the church. He also opened up all of the stake offices in case Elder Johnson might need an office for some reason. Very thoughtful and helpful.
After pictures we went into the chapel which took a long time because Elder and Sister Johnson along with President and Sister Caplin shook every missionary’s hand as they entered the chapel. Elder Johnson was so full of love and encouragement for the missionaries. All of the missionaries (including the senior missionaries) had been told to be prepared with information about a family they are teaching. They were to include some of background and some of the concerns of the people being taught. We were also told to read and study chapters 5, 10, and 11 in Preach My Gospel and 2 Nephi 31. Garn and I had to do some quick reading of Preach My Gospel, but did not have time to study it like we would need to do if we were going to be doing role playing teaching. We, however, didn’t do a 3x5 card with someone we were teaching because we weren’t teaching anyone. The morning was very good. President Caplin talked about things to do to lower stress and counseled them that planning lowers stress. He also told them to study the life and Atonement of Jesus Christ. We need to love him with all our heart and reflect on it. Knowing the Savior’s Atonement has the power to cleanse us and give us another chance lowers stress too.
Sister Caplin talked about the Book of Mormon-the net that will gather Israel. She told a story of when they went to pick up their son from his mission. They visited these poor people and saw that they had no running water, little food, no indoor plumbing etc. They had so very little of the worldly goods. In Sacrament Meeting, one woman got up and held her Book of Mormon up tight against her chest and testified that she had everything because she had the Book of Mormon. Sister Caplin said that that woman and her happiness changed her perspective about what is important for our happiness.
Sister Johnson talked about Heavenly Father and Jesus were in the business of growing us. We do not grow in our comfort zones, nor seldom are we comfortable in our growth zones. They want us to become more than we can imagine and it usually takes putting us into situations where we are not always comfortable.
Elder Johnson talked about Who are we? And What is our eternal purposes? Pretty big questions. He talked about D&C 138 and then said that we need to be obedient. What is the 1st and Great Commandment? When we get to judgement day we may be asked if we were obedient. Did you remember and understand at least the 1st and great commandment. Did we at least understand one of them. Like Peter, He may ask “Do you love me?” We need to pray to Him and to study of Him and utilize the gift of repentance. That is powerful because it brings God’s power into our lives (as we repent). As we do this we can do the next one.
If we love God we will keep his commandments—one of which is to love our neighbors. We love our neighbors by ministering to the ONE. We receive blessings when we keep the commandments. We get the Holy Ghost.
Elder Johnson began talking about what happened with the teaching of the people on the Day of Pentecost. He asked for a volunteer to tell the story of what happened. No hands went up, so he walked up the isle and stopped by Garn and asked him to tell that story. He had had a wonderful teacher of the New Testament when he was in college and remembered what he had been taught back then. So he told of the people being taught in their own language and everyone being taught the gospel in their own language. He filled in the details about how long after the crucifixion, how many were baptized and receiving the Holy Ghost. He did himself proud (and after the morning meeting the other seniors said, “you represented us well, now maybe we won’t have to do any more).
Elder Johnson said that number 3 is to participate by taking one name to the temple.
Number 4 is to use the correct name of the Church.
Number 5 is to Study the Book of Mormon everyday and 6 is to repent every day.
We had a nice lunch and were back to the meeting. This meeting went from 1:30 to 4:40 or so. We had more counsel on keeping the commandments so that we can have the Holy Ghost and when we have the Holy Ghost we can teach. We should teach from the scriptures, especially the Book of Mormon. We need to teach of Jesus and our hearts will be pricked and we will ask wat shall we do. The answer is to repent and be baptized. Then we partake of the sacrament every week.
It was now time for role play. The first set of missionaries were from the Spanish program with one of them being a brand new sister (3 weeks out in the field) from Gilroy. They asked Garn and me to come and be the friends being taught. I could do that—just so I didn’t have to do the teaching. They did a wonderful job. What I was so surprised about is that as they taught I felt the spirit so strongly that I had tears come to my eyes. I was surprised to have felt the spirit when we were only role playing. Garn was my member friend and the missionaries asked him to bear his testimony as part of the role play lesson. He did a wonderful job! We finished in the 8-minute time limit and then Elder Johnson did a review of the lesson. The APs had kept track of the number of questions asked and if they were kind of questions that Preach My Gospel tells them to use. The sisters did well and it was a good experience. There was another set of missionaries that did another scenario and they did well too. After that there were three young missionaries going home at the next transfer so they had them bear their testimonies and they asked us to do so as well. We felt like we had participated more than our share.
We took a couple of missionaries back to the office so that they could get a ride home with one of the office missionaries and then we went to the mission home to help get the dinner set up there. All of the stake presidents and their wives were invited to have dinner at the mission home with President and Sister Caplin and Elder and Sister Johnson. We got to set up and clean up so Sister Caplin wouldn’t have to worry about cleaning up. They were on a mandatory telephone call when the stake presidents were to arrive, so Garn went to the top of the street to help them park and helped them down to the mission home. The two counselors in the mission presidency were to greet and visit with the visitors until the phone call was over.
It was a wonderful evening and I think that everyone had a good time and bonds were formed that would help the stake presidents to work even better with the mission.
Thursday was our day to work in the office so that the housing and reference secretaries could attend the meeting. I worked on getting checks printed from the okayed rent and utilities bills. At 3 o’clock we had to leave to go pick up the croissant sandwiches, ice cream, vegetable plates, and cakes for the senior dinner that was to happen at the stake center after the meeting. We arrived at the stake center about 4 and got the tables set up and the food ready and had a nice dinner. We got to enjoy being with the other senior couples and visit and ask questions with Elder and Sister Johnson. One thing that he told us that I was unaware of was that when the temple was shut down for repairs, the 1st presidency and quorum of the 12 and the 70’s had no place to meet. That has been remedied by having the 8th floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial remodeled and dedicated as a temporary meeting place. It has been dedicated for its new purpose.
Friday was a catch up day at the office and a day to try to get ready for the audit on Monday morning. Hopefully all will go well and a little faster than last year’s. It was the auditor’s first year doing a mission audit so it took a little longer. Garn hadn’t slept well, so slept in while I went on to the office. He called about 9:45 and said he was ready to come in. He felt better with the extra rest. On the way home we stopped by Nancy’s home to say hi and see how she is doing. She had decided that she didn’t want the missionaries to come any more, nor did she want to read the Book of Mormon any more with us. She did consent to having us drop by periodically, so we did that on Friday evening. I encouraged her to keep up her reading of the Book of Mormon and continue to pray. I told her that by reading the Book of Mormon she would get inspiration and find answers to the questions of her life. I also promised that Heavenly Father loved her and would answer her sincere prayers. We will have to get over to see her more often and hopefully that will encourage her to pray and read more.
Saturday was a nice morning. We didn’t get up until 7 and that felt good. I paid bills in the morning and then we got ready for a baptism in Warrenton (way west and south—almost to the mission borders). It was a good baptism of a mother and her son. The best part of the baptism other than the actual baptism was the stake president’s remarks. He is so eloquent. He mentioned that Heavenly Father loves all of his children and he was very happy with her decision. He also said that He is a good gift giver. He gives us the gift of the Holy Ghost, and the gift of His Son and His Atonement, and the gift of Eternal Life. The Spirit testified to my soul that that was true. Heavenly Father loves us and to show that He gives us good gifts—the best gifts that could ever be given.
From the baptism we went to one of the missionary apartments to help deliver a couch to them. It is a little house in the historic district of the city. When we went in to see the place it reminded me of homes about the time of Joseph Smith. There were fireplaces in every room for heat or cooking (kitchen). The ceilings were sloped and if you were very tall you had to watch your head—I didn’t have to worry about that.
We came home and worked on taxes for a while and then went to the evening meeting of our Stake Conference where Elder Johnson was presiding. One thing that was interesting for us was that they released the counselors in the stake presidency and then moved the 2nd counselor to 1st and then called a new 2nd counselor. The new 2nd counselor is a man from our ward so we even knew him (Brother Thurgood). It was a very good meeting.
Today was stake conference and we had the privilege of picking up a “friend” of the sister missionaries that serve in our ward. It was fun to get to visit with him on the way there and then on the way home.
We don’t have any meetings tonight, so maybe we will get some good reading on the restoration done and do some more in our Book of Mormon reading and then get to bed early.
Know of our love and prayers for you every day, every day, every day.
Love,
Mom
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