Washington, D.C. South Mission

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 consecrat...

Dear Family, Wow, one week of March already gone and we are about worn out. We spent this last week cleaning, packing and moving to another apartment in order to get this apartment ready for our replacements. They will arrive tomorrow. Let me not get ahead of myself and go back to get the rest of the week detailed. Monday was the beginning of the week that we finally had to think about getting ready to go home. We can’t ignore it any longer. Our replacements will be here March 9, so the apartment has to be ready for them. At the office I started to get my 2016 documents shredded and my 2019 documents boxed up. I wanted to wait until after the audit to move the 2019 documents because leaving them in the file would make it so much easier to get to them for the auditor. Now that the audit is over, I can get the files ready for the new person. Garn went to help David move to his new apartment. The new apartment he moved into is still in the ward that he has been attending which i...

Dear Family, Happy Birthday to Maggie!! Where did February go? It seems like just yesterday we were looking at all of the activities for February and wondering how we would get them all done. We may not have gotten everything done, but we did get a lot of them done. Monday was the day the auditor was scheduled to come. We got to the office a little early so that I would have a chance to get a few things done before he got there because I knew it would be an all-day project. I got going and was really impressed that I was able to get so many things done by 10—probably because I didn’t look at my email. Then I got a call from the auditor saying that he had had the cold with the bad cough that has been going around. He had gone to the doctor and gotten medicine and felt that he was no longer contagious, but was just really tired and lacking in energy. He asked if he could come on Wednesday instead. I told him that President Caplin would not be able to be there at the beginning as...

Dear Family, Mission News This week we dealt with the effects of the corona virus. A few weeks ago the Church quarantined all of the missionaries in the Hong Kong Mission for two weeks. They sent them home to their families for two weeks. Then they reassigned them to other missions. Tuesday we received 2 Hong Kong missionaries. One was Cantonese speaking and he is working with the English elders. The other is Mandarin speaking and he is working with our Mandarin speaking elders. Friday night we picked up 2 elders from the Mongolia Mission. These elders needed a place to stay overnight before going to their permanent assignments in the US. It was fun to hear how different the Mongolia Mission is. They can do NO proselyting. They don’t were suits and ties. They teach English 15 to 20 hours per week. If someone on the street asks if they are missionaries they say, “No, we are English teachers.” They get some of their teaching pool from the English classes, but most of their conta...

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...

Dear Family, Mission News On Wednesday I went to the Gainesville district meeting and discussed of Conversion Stories. I also delivered the mail. I like being with the young Missionaries. I am conducting a little survey with the 9 high councilors in the 9 stakes that are responsible for missionary work in the stakes. I am just asking them: What’s working in your stake? What are you excited about? What can the Mission do to support you? It has been fun for me to look at missionary work from the stake organization side. Some of the stakes are doing innovative things to move the work forward. There is a lot that can be done by members to move the work forward. The expression in our mission is that Gathering Israel is member centered and missionary supported. The missionaries just assist the members. Le Grand Richards said, “Any calling above a bishop is all talk”. There is a lot of talk on the stake level but all of the work is done on the ward or family/member level. We went t...

Dear Family, Another week has gone by—a busy week, but uneventful. We did better at getting to the office a bit earlier—closer to 8 than 8:30. The one thing that seems to have made the difference is making our lunches the night before. This way we have a little more time for our Come Follow Me study. The office was a little quiet today because of the holiday. It kind of gives me a day to get things done without having more things coming in to do. That probably gives me a false sense of getting things done because double emails and requests come the next day, but at least for today it was good. A little after 5 we were getting ready to lock up and go home when President and Sister Caplin came in to get the missionary mail for interviews the next day and for President Caplin to sign papers. It was fun to visit with them and talk about some of the wonderful things we have seen with the missionaries. No one else was at the office, so it was a little more relaxed visit. I shared wit...

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. ...

Dear Family, Mission News Sunday Dinner with our Stake President Taylor McConkie, grandson of Bruce R. McConkie. Mom and I met him when he was 4 years old. We were considering moving to Colorado Springs and his father was the bishop. His father invited us over to his house to talk about the good places to live in Colorado Springs. Sunday’s visit was delightful and the food was very good too. Their older daughter is coming home from Australia – Chinese speaking mission on Feb 4. I would like her to help me with the “Inviting” training I have put together. Tuesday our Senior Council discussed and role played Come and Help inviting. It went well. Wednesday a fellow from the missionary department (Jeff Beck) came from Salt Lake to discuss a concept they are considering – a Digital Pass-along card. It is felt that paper pass-along cards are not effective with some people, because people, especially people of the younger generation are not used to business cards. Here’s how it works....