Dear Family,
The last two weeks of our mission were crazy busy because of the Corona Virus, we trained our replacements and it was transfer week the last week. Things were even busier for Mom because many of her monthly projects come due on transfer week.
Friday March 6 week picked up two missionaries from the airport that were reassigned to our mission from Korea. On Monday we got notification that one of these missionaries and 7 others were “at risk” if they were to get the Corona Virus. These missionaries had asthma, were diabetics or had some other problem. We took these missionaries airport and they went home. Missionaries are not allowed to leave their apartments unless to get food.
Since we have been released more changes with missionaries going home early, being sent home from foreign missions. These short term changes will cause much havoc with the work.
Our replacements are Jed and Lorie Johnson from Star Valley Wyoming. They are delightful, humble and consecrated. They do not have the same education and work experience that Mom and I have but they will learn and be very effective. Because the finance secretary is much harder than my job, Sister Johnson will need more help from Mom than Elder Johnson will from me.
Friday Night the 20th we got home at 8:45 or so after taking David out to dinner at McDonalds. We were too tired to pack so we did some come follow me. Saturday we packed most of our stuff but left about half of it behind. President and Sister Caplin came by to say goodbye. Our Stake President Eric Bettinger released us over the phone and we left about 1:30 PM. We drove to Jacksonville Florida and got to our hotel and in bed at about midnight.
Sunday March 22 we arrived at Derek’s house at 9:30 AM. We had enough gas to get to Derek’s without having to fill up on Sunday.
We had Sacrament with Derek’s family in the living room. Brynn did a lesson on Gathering Israel that lasted about an hour. We had a Zoom teleconference with the family for about 40 minutes. Then Kate and Anna led a discussion for about 40 minutes on what we can do to gather Israel. Mom said we were back to a 3 hour Church block.
We have done a little something with Derek and family most days. We did a little “Come Follow Me” everyday too.
Sunday afternoon we took a slow drive around the wet land (drainage ponds that are an animal preserve). We saw 4 alligators and a great blue heron, ibis, egret and bunch of anhinga’s.
Monday Pickle Ball
Come Follow Me -Derek – Book of Jarom
Tuesday Beach – We stayed for only 45 minutes or so. The beaches were closed, but there were several others at the beach. We easily kept our safe social distance.
Come Follow Me -Tyler – Enos’ prayer
Wednesday basketball and Mom, Derek and I went to the wetlands. Kids played with slime and had fun water fight.
Come Follow Me - Kate
Thursday we watched the launch from Cape Canaveral
Come Follow Me -Anna – Omni
Friday
Come Follow Me -Brynn – Words of Mormon
Saturday Derek smoked some ribs – delicious
Come Follow Me -Derek – Overview of the people in the Book of Mormon and explanation of the large plates, small plates and other plates.
It has been a fun week to spend time with Derek’s family for a week at a time. This is a rare opportunity to do get to know the family so well and to build bonds of love. Hopefully they don’t tire of us intruding on them.
Here are some thoughts on our missionary service.
Joy is when you feel the Spirit. Anything and everything we do that invites the Spirt of the Lord into our lives brings joy.
One sure formula feeling the Spirit and for fun is to do good things with good people. This could be helping somebody move, having a Gospel discussion, weeding sugar beets on the Church farm, working at the Bishop’s storehouse, ministering or serving a mission, helping someone move or many other things.
On our mission we served with senior missionaries that consecrated their lives to serving the Lord. They are very good people. We also served with young missionaries that committed themselves to the very challenging and demanding work of missionary service. They too dedicate their lives to serving the Lord. We are in awe of their goodness, faithfulness, capability and dedication. They are very good people.
On a mission our goal is to invite all to come unto Christ and embrace His Gospel. This is a good thing to do. In fact there is no better thing we can do.
A mission is doing a great thing with great people. As a result a mission is great fun.
Now a mission is not fun all of the time. They call missionary service “missionary work” for a good reason. Serving a mission is work. Often the workday is long and exhausting. The tasks are not always exciting. Sometimes the tasks are boring and repetitive. Or sometimes the tasks are very challenging and they force us way out of our comfort zone. The great people we work with are not always perfect and their style and personality are not always the same as ours. (We are not so perfect either.) Some of the time our work felt like work and not so much fun.
Was our mission fulfilling and rewarding?
What are we going to do now? We don’t know yet. In the short term we are going enjoy our family. Since we cannot get into our home for 7 weeks, we are going to spend time with our family, if you all can put up with us that long.
Longer term plans will depend somewhat on our health. What sounds good now is to do things locally on a part time basis. We shall see. Right now we are enjoying family.
Here are our very, very, very tentative plans for going home:
March 22 – April 7 Stay with Derek and Family
April 8 – April 12 Stay in Virginia, finish packing
April 13 – April 16 Travel to Utah
April 17 – May 5 Stay at Bud and Barbara’s house in Lehi
May 6- May 14 Stay at Kent and Lindsey’s
May 15 Drive to Aunt Jane’s or Uncle Phil’s
May 16 Move into Home
Love you all,
Dad
The last two weeks of our mission were crazy busy because of the Corona Virus, we trained our replacements and it was transfer week the last week. Things were even busier for Mom because many of her monthly projects come due on transfer week.
Friday March 6 week picked up two missionaries from the airport that were reassigned to our mission from Korea. On Monday we got notification that one of these missionaries and 7 others were “at risk” if they were to get the Corona Virus. These missionaries had asthma, were diabetics or had some other problem. We took these missionaries airport and they went home. Missionaries are not allowed to leave their apartments unless to get food.
Since we have been released more changes with missionaries going home early, being sent home from foreign missions. These short term changes will cause much havoc with the work.
Our replacements are Jed and Lorie Johnson from Star Valley Wyoming. They are delightful, humble and consecrated. They do not have the same education and work experience that Mom and I have but they will learn and be very effective. Because the finance secretary is much harder than my job, Sister Johnson will need more help from Mom than Elder Johnson will from me.
Friday Night the 20th we got home at 8:45 or so after taking David out to dinner at McDonalds. We were too tired to pack so we did some come follow me. Saturday we packed most of our stuff but left about half of it behind. President and Sister Caplin came by to say goodbye. Our Stake President Eric Bettinger released us over the phone and we left about 1:30 PM. We drove to Jacksonville Florida and got to our hotel and in bed at about midnight.
Sunday March 22 we arrived at Derek’s house at 9:30 AM. We had enough gas to get to Derek’s without having to fill up on Sunday.
We had Sacrament with Derek’s family in the living room. Brynn did a lesson on Gathering Israel that lasted about an hour. We had a Zoom teleconference with the family for about 40 minutes. Then Kate and Anna led a discussion for about 40 minutes on what we can do to gather Israel. Mom said we were back to a 3 hour Church block.
We have done a little something with Derek and family most days. We did a little “Come Follow Me” everyday too.
Sunday afternoon we took a slow drive around the wet land (drainage ponds that are an animal preserve). We saw 4 alligators and a great blue heron, ibis, egret and bunch of anhinga’s.
Monday Pickle Ball
Come Follow Me -Derek – Book of Jarom
Tuesday Beach – We stayed for only 45 minutes or so. The beaches were closed, but there were several others at the beach. We easily kept our safe social distance.
Come Follow Me -Tyler – Enos’ prayer
Wednesday basketball and Mom, Derek and I went to the wetlands. Kids played with slime and had fun water fight.
Come Follow Me - Kate
Thursday we watched the launch from Cape Canaveral
Come Follow Me -Anna – Omni
Friday
Come Follow Me -Brynn – Words of Mormon
Saturday Derek smoked some ribs – delicious
Come Follow Me -Derek – Overview of the people in the Book of Mormon and explanation of the large plates, small plates and other plates.
It has been a fun week to spend time with Derek’s family for a week at a time. This is a rare opportunity to do get to know the family so well and to build bonds of love. Hopefully they don’t tire of us intruding on them.
Here are some thoughts on our missionary service.
Joy is when you feel the Spirit. Anything and everything we do that invites the Spirt of the Lord into our lives brings joy.
One sure formula feeling the Spirit and for fun is to do good things with good people. This could be helping somebody move, having a Gospel discussion, weeding sugar beets on the Church farm, working at the Bishop’s storehouse, ministering or serving a mission, helping someone move or many other things.
On our mission we served with senior missionaries that consecrated their lives to serving the Lord. They are very good people. We also served with young missionaries that committed themselves to the very challenging and demanding work of missionary service. They too dedicate their lives to serving the Lord. We are in awe of their goodness, faithfulness, capability and dedication. They are very good people.
On a mission our goal is to invite all to come unto Christ and embrace His Gospel. This is a good thing to do. In fact there is no better thing we can do.
A mission is doing a great thing with great people. As a result a mission is great fun.
Now a mission is not fun all of the time. They call missionary service “missionary work” for a good reason. Serving a mission is work. Often the workday is long and exhausting. The tasks are not always exciting. Sometimes the tasks are boring and repetitive. Or sometimes the tasks are very challenging and they force us way out of our comfort zone. The great people we work with are not always perfect and their style and personality are not always the same as ours. (We are not so perfect either.) Some of the time our work felt like work and not so much fun.
Was our mission fulfilling and rewarding?
- As senior office missionaries our job is like being backstage on a play. We work with the props, moving the scenery and doing the lights. We encourage the young missionaries who are on stage in the spotlight. To some extent without senior missionaries doing the backstage work, the young missionaries could not put on the “show”. In many missions there are no senior missionaries and some of the young missionaries have to do the backstage work and do less of the on stage work. When we think that we are making it possible for some young missionaries to focus on proselyting and teaching instead of the backstage work, we feel we have done a good thing.
- There were a few times we helped missionaries teach. Teaching is the most fun task of being a missionary.
- We observed the changes in missionaries as the consecrated their souls to the work. As missionaries disciplined themselves to study, pray, practice, endure seemly endless rejection, seek to perfect their lives they become even better disciples of Christ. We were there long enough to see missionaries transform from kids six years out of primary to dedicated, focused, capable ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
- We saw incredible changes in converts as they covenant to follow the Savior and live His commandments. Seeing people change and grow in the gospel is a most rewarding miracle to observe.
- We had times to talk with our missionaries and get to hear of their challenges and successes. We could empathize with them and rejoice with them. Occasionally we encourage them and even give them ideas of things they could do. We loved being around the young missionaries.
- It’s been said a mission is what you make of it. This is true for senior office missionaries. If you just do the “backstage” work, you do a good thing. However, with a little initiative and creativity you can make more contributions and have more fun. One little thing we did was to bring home mail from the office to our apartment that was for the two sets of missionaries that lived in our apartment complex. We told them when they had mail and they would come over after their proselyting was done about 9:00 or later. We would enjoy 15 minutes or so of conversation about their day and how the work was going. We rejoiced in their successes and gave them encouragement. Doing little things like this brought us closer to the missionaries and closer to the work. And for us it was really fun.
What are we going to do now? We don’t know yet. In the short term we are going enjoy our family. Since we cannot get into our home for 7 weeks, we are going to spend time with our family, if you all can put up with us that long.
Longer term plans will depend somewhat on our health. What sounds good now is to do things locally on a part time basis. We shall see. Right now we are enjoying family.
Here are our very, very, very tentative plans for going home:
March 22 – April 7 Stay with Derek and Family
April 8 – April 12 Stay in Virginia, finish packing
April 13 – April 16 Travel to Utah
April 17 – May 5 Stay at Bud and Barbara’s house in Lehi
May 6- May 14 Stay at Kent and Lindsey’s
May 15 Drive to Aunt Jane’s or Uncle Phil’s
May 16 Move into Home
Love you all,
Dad
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